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Bears lose weight, gain a Super Bowl
By THOMAS HARGROVE
Published Wednesday, January 31, 2007
Maybe, just maybe, the NFL is lightening up a little.
The average weight of NFL players dropped more than a pound last year, reversing a 20-year trend in which pro football's behemoths steadily gained bulk at the rate of more than a pound per man per year.
By 2005, the league's average reached a scale-crunching 248 pounds.
But this year the two lightest teams in the NFL - the Indianapolis Colts and the Chicago Bears - will face each other in Sunday's Super Bowl.
"This is true. Many teams are moving toward more agile, athletic linemen," said Jerry Vainisi, the former Bears general manager who helped put together Chicago's Super Bowl champion team in 1985. "Fashions come and go. But we are seeing teams that are rolling out more, moving the pocket. And that trend will continue, I think, at least for a few years."
The Colts, according to their official roster of active players, are the league's lightest team with an average of 237 pounds per man. The Indianapolis franchise, which plays on artificial turf at home, historically prefers a fast and relatively light line.
The Monsters of the Midway had no such tradition. Yet the Bears are now football's second-lightest team, averaging 240 pounds in a league that now averages slightly more than 246 pounds, according to a Scripps Howard News Service study of the official rosters of 1,739 active players. Players designated as on injured reserve or assigned to practice squads were not included in the study.
The Bears dropped an average of seven pounds per man just last year, part of a philosophy announced in 2004 by coach Lovie Smith on the eve of his first game with Chicago.
"From day one, we started mapping out our plan of what we were going to be as a team and how we were going to do it. We wanted initially to be a quicker, lighter team," Smith told reporters in a telephone conference call then. "So we asked them to lose weight. They've done that."
He continued the slim-down process. Smith dropped the Bear's five heaviest players last year, including guard Qasim Mitchell at 355 pounds and tackle Steve Edwards at 330 pounds. All were replaced with lighter, faster men.
Today the Bears are the only team in the NFL not to have anyone who weighs at least 320. Their biggest men are defensive tackle Alfonso Boone and guard Terrence Metcalf, both 318.
The Bears are not the only NFL team to go on a diet. Six other teams - the Buffalo Bills, Denver Broncos, Detroit Tigers, Jacksonville Jaguars, Houston Texans and the Oakland Raiders - reduced by an average of five pounds or more per man from 2005 to 2006.
Houston's average declined by more than 10 pounds per man, the largest reduction for any team.
In all, 19 of the NFL's 32 teams are lighter than they were a year ago, according to the Scripps Howard study, although some of these reductions were extremely small. The total number of really big players who weigh 325 pounds or more has dropped from 95 in 2005 to 85 on the current rosters.
Three teams got significantly heavier - the Arizona Cardinals (now the NFL's fattest franchise at 256 pounds per man), the Dallas Cowboys and the New York Jets.
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By THOMAS HARGROVE
Published Wednesday, January 31, 2007
Maybe, just maybe, the NFL is lightening up a little.
The average weight of NFL players dropped more than a pound last year, reversing a 20-year trend in which pro football's behemoths steadily gained bulk at the rate of more than a pound per man per year.
By 2005, the league's average reached a scale-crunching 248 pounds.
But this year the two lightest teams in the NFL - the Indianapolis Colts and the Chicago Bears - will face each other in Sunday's Super Bowl.
"This is true. Many teams are moving toward more agile, athletic linemen," said Jerry Vainisi, the former Bears general manager who helped put together Chicago's Super Bowl champion team in 1985. "Fashions come and go. But we are seeing teams that are rolling out more, moving the pocket. And that trend will continue, I think, at least for a few years."
The Colts, according to their official roster of active players, are the league's lightest team with an average of 237 pounds per man. The Indianapolis franchise, which plays on artificial turf at home, historically prefers a fast and relatively light line.
The Monsters of the Midway had no such tradition. Yet the Bears are now football's second-lightest team, averaging 240 pounds in a league that now averages slightly more than 246 pounds, according to a Scripps Howard News Service study of the official rosters of 1,739 active players. Players designated as on injured reserve or assigned to practice squads were not included in the study.
The Bears dropped an average of seven pounds per man just last year, part of a philosophy announced in 2004 by coach Lovie Smith on the eve of his first game with Chicago.
"From day one, we started mapping out our plan of what we were going to be as a team and how we were going to do it. We wanted initially to be a quicker, lighter team," Smith told reporters in a telephone conference call then. "So we asked them to lose weight. They've done that."
He continued the slim-down process. Smith dropped the Bear's five heaviest players last year, including guard Qasim Mitchell at 355 pounds and tackle Steve Edwards at 330 pounds. All were replaced with lighter, faster men.
Today the Bears are the only team in the NFL not to have anyone who weighs at least 320. Their biggest men are defensive tackle Alfonso Boone and guard Terrence Metcalf, both 318.
The Bears are not the only NFL team to go on a diet. Six other teams - the Buffalo Bills, Denver Broncos, Detroit Tigers, Jacksonville Jaguars, Houston Texans and the Oakland Raiders - reduced by an average of five pounds or more per man from 2005 to 2006.
Houston's average declined by more than 10 pounds per man, the largest reduction for any team.
In all, 19 of the NFL's 32 teams are lighter than they were a year ago, according to the Scripps Howard study, although some of these reductions were extremely small. The total number of really big players who weigh 325 pounds or more has dropped from 95 in 2005 to 85 on the current rosters.
Three teams got significantly heavier - the Arizona Cardinals (now the NFL's fattest franchise at 256 pounds per man), the Dallas Cowboys and the New York Jets.
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