Years ago English rugby players said American football players were wimps for wearing equipment. The NFL held an event in London with Ray Lewis, Peter Boulware, Joey Porter & some O-Linemen.
The english players who attended were stunned at the size of NFL players. Then they saw them running drills!
Literally apples and oranges. Rugby is less football without pads than it is soccer for nonpus#*%.
The average length for an NFL play between stoppages is 6 seconds with about 30 seconds of rest (to set the ball plus play lock). Then there are large lengths of time to recover as there are multiple tv timeouts, substitions, and actual timeouts. Plus they only play roughly half the time as defenders are not on at the same time as the offends.
Meanwhile, the average play time between stoppages in rugby is over a minute and stoppages are usually quick with a few seconds between typical stoppages. Then there are usually few time stoppages for injury and players are usually playing both offense and defense with little substition.
The end result is that the average NFL game has only 11 minutes of actual running time so the average player is only actively playing his position for about 4 minutes with tons of rest in between. Meanwhile the rugby ball is usually at play 44 minutes with very little rest.
So by saying a football player outclasses a rugby player is like saying a sprinter outclasses a marathon runner. Yes in the short term. But 20 seconds into the action the football player is already huffing and puffing because he's quadrupled his average play time.
So the average football player would never make it through a rugby match. That's not even a guess, Dhani Jones (11 year NFL linebacker) had a tv show near the end of his career but while he was still a starter where he tried various sports and he THOUGHT he would have an easy time at rugby playing for a low level minor league team. But he couldn't even stay up with them in practice let alone a live match. The endurance required in rugby does not match up well with the fast twitch muscle required in the NFL.
Frankly, I would think an average professional rugby player would have a better shot of making an NFL team as a backup safety or linebacker than an NFL starting safety or linebacker making a high level rugby squad. And no other NFL positions (lineman, WR, running back, QB, TE) would even have a shot.
