Perspective: The breathtaking violence of an ordinary NFL hit
It's time for a refresher course in basic Newtonian physics. When you properly understand the kinematics NFL players experience, you can’t ever again think they’re overpaid.You want to feel what NFL players do on an average play? Run full speed into a wall mirror.
Gay keeps the numbers basic for the sake of clarity. Let’s say a running back or receiver weighs around 220 pounds, and so does a defender. It’s a sound middling number. The Bengals’ Higgins weighs in at about 220 pounds, while a running back such as Saquon Barkley of the New York Giants is about 230. Among defenders, Hamlin is 200 pounds, while a linebacker such as Lavonte David of Tampa Bay checks in at about 230. All of them run somewhere in the range of 20 to 21 mph.
Do the math. Multiply the mass by the acceleration, and divide by the time interval over which the change in speed occurs. The backward deceleration comes out to minus 240 feet per second squared.That’s 1,650 pounds — or about three-fourths of a ton. “You get forces equal to the weight of a baby whale,” Gay says.
Gay has toyed with other calculations. When two players collide helmet to helmet — only sometimes against the rules — he estimates it’s akin to having a 16-pound bowling ball dropped on the head from a height of 12 feet.Even the noncontact forces on the field are breathtaking when Gay puts them in kinetic-mathematical context. Gay once calculated the force with which a great NFL runner-receiver makes a lateral cut.
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