I'd argue football is less year round than baseball, basketball, volleyball, and soccer.
You are literally lifting in the offseason for strength training and injury prevention. How many football games did kids play after the state championships were played?
How many basketball shootouts have their been already for schools to enter since the state championships? How about summer baseball leagues?
Of course , football 'games" are not played year-round. When many of the guys out here say aged 40- 60 + , were in HS the multi-sport[s} athlete was more prevalent. 2 sports minimum and some of us played a different sport each season growing up and some through HS. Overall burnout occurred with some of us as sports overlapped and you were training and or playing a few different sports at the same time . [Lifting and running for football, American Legion baseball and Hockey summer camp{s} Tournament for me } . Now , with all the individual skills and training options available , kids are under some pressure to specialize and get as proficient as soon as possible in their sport which requires a certain number of hours of training to attain.
Basketball players at larger HS's rarely paly football now. If football is your main sport, basketball is given up . Sometimes baseball as well. Lacrosse is getting big in CO the last decade or so and some kids dedicate themselves to that giving up football for instance. I happen to think that football training would and has benefitted the Lacrosse player and other sports players. College coaches love multi- sports athletes. The problem is some kids and their parents want to do what they think will get them 'Really" good at ONE sport, and that a ton of time and effort needs to go into that . Not every kid is really special enough athletically to NOT have to devote this large amount of time to the task.
Basketball player , Lacrosse players , and some baseball players think they have to devote a couple more months to that sport in fall , so that takes football out . Falling behind the ONE sports athlete in that sport is the fear. Hoop players in HS are more skilled than ever before. Better handle , better shooting skills . How ? By dedicating themselves to this singular sport and shooting hundreds of shots each day and working on their games year-round . Is this good ? It can be, I guess. Burn out { physical and mental } and peaking a bit early can be a pitfall .
So, the man has a point. " Playing " football games isn't anywhere near year-round . But if you break down what some kids do year-round IT IS a year-round endeavor. Working with coaches [QB's obviously have been doing this for years , } to improve skills, speed agility , strength etc. Camps, Team lifting programs. Work with receivers and position groups in the off-season on your own. Conditioning on your own. 7 on 7 . Team camp days . Season is 3 full months and may be a bit longer. In no other sport is the ratio greater in the training , practicing and preparing to actual 'games" being played . Boxing obviously is the highest. Football being so physical , is not a sport that is or should be played year-round . When you think about the actual time spent preparing your body, improving your skills, team building stuff and individual work that many kids do to try to be at their best for a handful of moments in time over a couple months in games ONCE a week ? It's pretty humbling actually. Our coaches talked about this before our first game of the year in HS.
And this was BEFORE the more year-round mind set. But they would talk of the off -season lifting and conditioning { Not all together most of the summer but in groups} and a lot of running and conditioning { Sprints , receivers and QB's got together , some agility stuff ,and this hellacious hill we ran up and down } . Camp week { three a days} 3 scrimmages , the heat of August and the month of pre-season. All of this coming down to executing and being able to go full out for 44 minutes { 11-minute quarters back then for us} . Doing that and executing makes all the work worth it . It was . To be fair, in larger Highs schools it is tougher to play a few different sports and start in all of them than it was back in the day because of the number of ONE sport athletes you might competing against. I think playing multiple sports at the younger ages and may be cutting down a bit once in HS helps you to develop into a better all-around athlete , which will help make you better in your 'favorite "or "Main " sport.