Men of Steel, er, Adipose

Here's a pretty interesting bit on the size of football players nowadays... some of this stuff is just amazing:

A typical Steelers guard in 1943 stood about 6'0" and weighed 219 pounds -- chunky, but not morbidly obese. A revolution in conditioning and nutritional supplements began to tip the scales in favor of plumper players in the 1990s. By 2003, a typical guard had grown 4 inches and packed on nearly 100 pounds.

Hell, I could have been your average lineman in 1943!

However, I do call "Bullshit" on this:

While the NFL prides itself on fit and trim athletes, all but three of the 53 Pittsburgh players are clinically overweight, according to widely accepted federal health guidelines.

That maybe so, but it is really a misleading statistic... do you think that there are players in the receivers corp who are truly overweight? How about corners and safeties? No, those guys have a high amount of muscle on smaller frames which makes their BMI somewhat meaningless. This sort of thing needs to be confined to a certain type of individual, or else you run into problems.

BTW, Kevin Guskiewicz, who is quoted in the article, is one of my bosses...