Taking umbrage

I disagree with lots of my Reformed brethren on lots of stuff but one recent post sent me over the edge. I like Carl Trueman and I own one of his books, but when he starts talking about the Super Bowl and real football, I have to draw the line. Here is part of what he said:

As usual, the Superbowl generates more questions for me than answers. How did a game of one hour develop over time into a game of between three and four hours? Who ever decided that a bunch of predominantly overweight men who stand around doing little other than posing in spandex should come to be regarded as `elite athletes' [sic]? (And, in my opinion, nobody over 200 pounds should even be allowed in a spandex shop, let alone be encouraged to wear the merchandise. Simple aesthetic common sense, one would have thought. Surely it is time the government stepped in to stop the madness?!?). And why do people resent paying the President a few hundred grand to run the world and yet regularly shell out vast sums of cash so that a bunch of adolescents playing a glorified game of playground catch can trouser more money in a month than most of us can shake a stick at in a lifetime?

I am afraid that Carl is embarrassingly ill informed. Predominantly overweight? On offense on a given play there are 11 players on the field. Of those, five of the men are giants on the offensive line and tip the scales at 300+ pounds. They are certainly very heavy men. Overweight? Not in a game where brute strength on the line counts. Besides there are only five of them. In a given formation there probably is at least one tight end, typically a taller and pretty strong guy who needs to be able to run and is hardly overweight. There is the QB and not many of them are overweight (JaMarcus Russell notwithstanding).
There is at least one running back. Does Adrian Peterson look overweight in this picture to the left? On many teams there is a fullback who looks like Peyton Hillis on the right. He doesn’t look overweight and frankly looks like he could snap any soccer player on earth over his knee like a twig. Then there are a couple of wide receivers who are often the fastest players on the team. Five of eleven guys are “overweight” perhaps. Maybe in England “predominantly” means 45%. The defense is a mirror image and often the lineman are lighter and in much better shape than offensive linemen. Perhaps Carl would like to tell Brian Urlacher or Ray Lewis that he is overweight?

Just shocking ignorance.