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Why Wrestling Makes You a Better Football Player

By Stack MVP, 11/29/19, 2:00PM PST

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While wrestling's carryover to linemen play might be most obvious, the sport's a beneficial cross-training option for skill positions, as well.

John Madden once said he wished all his offensive linemen had a wrestling background. 

For good reason.

While the connection between football and sports like basketball and track has been highly publicized, it's hard to argue the transferable benefits of wrestling aren't equally (if not more so) robust.

NFL stars with prolific wrestling backgrounds include Ray Lewis, Ronnie Lott, Willie Roaf, Jonathan Ogden, Lorenzo Neal, Jeff Saturday and Roddy White.

According to Hudl, roughly 5% of all NFL Hall of Fame inductees wrestled in high school and/or college.