Mark Schlereth says Usain Bolt has no shot in NFL – VIDEO
August 22, 2008 by Tony Baldwin
Filed under Sports Rumors
ESPN NFL analyst Mark Schlereth was asked how Olympic gold medalist Usain Bolt would fare in professional football. Schlereth replied, “He would be a terrible football player.” Sure, Bolt is fast, but Schlereth made the point that Bolt’s speed is on a track and without a helmet and pads. He also said that someone would “thunder punch” Bolt and he wouldn’t be able to get off the line.
Check out the video below for all of Schlereth’s thoughts on Bolt in the NFL.
Mark Schlereth, with all due respect, responds like the typical overly-proud and slightly paranoid NFL alum wearing his football fraternity badge like a blindfold, not a shield. If Usain Bolt can catch a football, take a hit and understand the rudiments of the game in time and with the best coaching available, then his prospects are astounding. Big ifs? Perhaps, but to prosaically state that Bolt will be a “terrible” is as ignorant as saying he will be a great. No one yet knows. What we all know is Usain Bolt’s once-in-a-lifetime athleticism and bewildering combination of mental toughness — hey Schlereth, YOU try focusing and delivering amidst hair-trigger sensitivity as your entire country and the world watch — size and speed never before seen in human history, let alone the relatively provincial NFL. Of world class sprinters who make a transition to the NFL — see Bob Hayes, Renaldo Nehemiah, Willie Gault — Bolt would not be the first. Yet one thing is clear. He would easily be the fastest and most athletically-gifted.
I doubt there’s one team that wouldn’t pay his expenses to come up for a tryout. I’d sure give him a look if I was a GM. Is being an NFL wide receiver so difficult this guy can’t do it? Ever heard of Bob Hayes?
Useless, idiotic presumption.
Why would he be interested in football?
His sports is track and field and he is at the pinnacle.
He has nothing to prove in football and can make much more as a world icon in his sports.
Football has nothing to offer except to satisfy American’s geo-centric views of the world.
I say the following as a gridiron fan: There is no reason for Bolt to be interested in gridiron. He’s a Jamaican; he might daydream about playing football in the EPL or La Liga, but even those daydreams are rendered still-born by the fact that he already succeeds on the world stage. I can’t picture him saying to himself, “I will allow people to pummel the delicate instrument I have devised, risking everything I have, to play a sport that is in global terms a niche enterprise.”
Usain Bolt says he wants to play football (not american football):
http://www.spikesmag.com/news/usainboltdreamsofrealmadridchance172.aspx
Americans are unbelievable! To debate whether or not Usain Bolt might make it as an American Football player is utterly ridiculous. This man is the greatest sprinter of all time, the fastest man on Earth, and he comes from Jamaica. He is unlikely to have the slightest interest in American Football!
Mark Schlereth needs to open his mind to the world and realise that outside America no one even plays this sport. The greatest American Football player does not interest the rest of the world!
But the fastest man on Earth?! The greatest sprinter of all time?! Now that’s impressive to anyone. Even unknown Amazonian tribes would be impressed by the fastest human that has ever lived.