Actual time playing a football match?

[SoccerFoot]

Ive read somewhere that football players spend like >0.1 percent of thier football career actually playing football, and the rest is practice, replay viewing, stratagey and so and so. Is this true? I find it hard to believe that to be a top player you have to acutally spend less time on football.

Furthemore i read that one of the things that made Jerry Rice the player he is, is that he actually played even less football, and trained more.

Could someone shed some light or refer me to clear resources?

[Austeezy]

Well, you're playing football when you practice

Look at it this way. Once a week you play a football game for around 3 hours(?). The rest of the time you're training, practicing, rehabbing, in the film room studying, etc.
So that's 60 hours a season of football games, not including the postseason. It's an odd question because you could also factor in the time between plays and the time you're not on the field during each game.

[Think]

The actual game time is 60 minutes, 4 -15 minute quarters. A play lasts for about 6 seconds on average. The average game has about 120 plays so 12 minutes of actual playing time. A player plays on offense or defense so is in the game for about 1/2 the time or 6 minutes of playing time a game. It's one of the reasons that the NFL is so television friendly. Lots of opportunities for replays and commercials. I remember in the 1960s, games started at 1PM Central time and were done by 2:30 or 2:45. Now they start at noon and often aren't over by 3:00 and the halftime break was cut from 15 minutes to 10 minutes.

This Wall Street Journal article claims it averages out to 11 minutes a game so 5 minutes 30 seconds per player if they play every offensive or defensive play.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000...055561406.html

[fanofphilly]

^^ good post

[yankeefan54]

Lol at the thread title.

[steelcityroller]

"Who is winning the match?" - Derek Zoolander

But this is the case with most sports. Think about mixed martial arts where most fighters in the UFC train for 3-4 months in preparation for fights that are either 15-25 minutes if it goes the distance and as short as a couple minutes.

[j11430]

Actually playing the game is a very small part of playing the game.

Hopefully that makes sense.

[rocket]

16/365 or more wont be 0.1 %

[SoccerFoot]

From "talent is overrated" by geoff colvin:

Of all the work Rice did to make himself a great player, practically none
of it was playing football games. His independent off-season workouts
consisted of conditioning, and his team workouts were classroom study,
reviewing of game films, conditioning, and lots of work with other players
on specific plays.

The conclusion we reach is that one of the greatest-ever
football players devoted less than ). percent of his football-related work
to playing games.

Just to clear things up - i dont know jack about football. Im into sports lately beacuse it gives me another insight into deliberate practice. Im intrested at the ".percent" part. What does it mean? It means that he played football for less than 1% percent of the time?

[steelcityroller]

From "talent is overrated" by geoff colvin:





Just to clear things up - i dont know jack about football. Im into sports lately beacuse it gives me another insight into deliberate practice. Im intrested at the ".percent" part. What does it mean? It means that he played football for less than 1% percent of the time?

In sports at a professional level you have to train full-time in order to achieve that highest level of success on the field. That means that he trained all year on every little detail of the game in order to be the best during the NFL season which is only 16 games plus the playoffs.

It really is no different than students spending their entire childhood and then having their college education riding on tests such as the SAT or ACT. You put in all that work to be able to have it pay off on that day.

I think really in the way you are interested athletes such as high level pro boxers would be a better case study. They will train anywhere from 4-6 months on average for a single fight. If you don't put in the time on conditioning, footwork and studying your opponent's tendencies then a high level result will be improbable on fight night.

But in the sense of what you are seeking with deliberate practice Jerry Rice would be the prime example in football. He was hardly the most athletic person at his position. But he had a work ethic and attention to detail unmatched in the league. He spent hours working on the smallest details of every possible route. He spent hours working with his quarterbacks to the point of where he wouldn't even look at the quarterback in his route and could just know when to turn and catch the ball because they had developed that level of timing in the passing game.

And yes I'm sure that the amount of actual time he spent on the field was less than 1% of the total time he spent in training and preparation.

In boxing back in the day when they had 15-rounds it was often said of the top trainers that in order to be ready for a 45-minute championship fight that you needed to train for 45,000 minutes.

[Rangers&MetsFTW]

16/365 or more wont be 0.1 %

You don't get it...

[Shlumpledink]

The actual game time is 60 minutes, 4 -15 minute quarters. A play lasts for about 6 seconds on average. The average game has about 120 plays so 12 minutes of actual playing time. A player plays on offense or defense so is in the game for about 1/2 the time or 6 minutes of playing time a game. It's one of the reasons that the NFL is so television friendly. Lots of opportunities for replays and commercials. I remember in the 1960s, games started at 1PM Central time and were done by 2:30 or 2:45. Now they start at noon and often aren't over by 3:00 and the halftime break was cut from 15 minutes to 10 minutes.

This Wall Street Journal article claims it averages out to 11 minutes a game so 5 minutes 30 seconds per player if they play every offensive or defensive play.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000...055561406.html

About fifteen or so of those plays are special teams plays. Maybe more, maybe less depending on the game. Special teams may not have starters from the defense or offense on it.

[rocket]

You don't get it...

Yeah I do. I see what he's trying to say. But it's almost impossible to only play football 0.1% unless you play for a minute and never again. This is the same with all sports idk what hes trying to get at.

[steelcityroller]

Yeah I do. I see what he's trying to say. But it's almost impossible to only play football 0.1% unless you play for a minute and never again. This is the same with all sports idk what hes trying to get at.

It is absolutely possible. It seems that you are only looking at the times in the games themselves. He is talking about total time of his playing career including time spent in training and study. Lets take for example Jerry Rice.

The regulation NFL game is 60 minutes.

Jerry Rice doesn't play defense or special teams so he plays much less than 60 minutes. We will be generous and say that his offense was on the field 35 minutes a game. He played in 303 games in his career so that comes out to 10,605 minutes. We can even go further and say just to be safe that he played in 150 preseason and playoff games to be safe. That gives us a total of 15,845 minutes.

How much do you think that Jerry Rice practiced on a normal basis? I know that people said he was a gym rat that spent 10-12 hours a day working on his craft.

So lets just figure up the offseasons.... We will just take 3 months every offseason and give him 8 hours a day 5 days a week. Over the course of his 20 year career that comes out to 806,400 minutes. That alone comes out to around 2%.... And that isn't counting the time he spent during the week getting ready for the games, any extra time spent during the offseason (which is longer than 3 months).

I would say he absolutely could have less than .1% of his time spent in football actually on the playing field.

[kubernetes]

I spend 3 hours cooking a meal that my guests scarf down in 5 minutes of actual chewing. It's the way of any craft, sport, or endeavor.