Charles Barkley is a man who considers himself a connoisseur of sports talk. As great as the NBA legend was at basketball, there’s something about football that he admires just a little bit more. Chuck revealed what that is during a recent interview on the Dan Patrick Show.
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Patrick asked the Hall of Famer whether he thought he knew more about football than he did basketball. After a moment of hesitation, Barkley broke down where his gridiron admiration comes from…experience.
That’s right. The 11-time All-Star was once a football player. Well, for 24 hours. He quit immediately afterward, an act he was not shy of sharing in his response.
“I admire football more than I do basketball,” stated Chuck. “It takes a tremendous amount of courage to play football. I played for one day, and I realized I was a ****. I was like, ‘Damn, they really are hitting out here.'”
When Patrick inquired as to why, the famed athlete turned analyst gave a very shocking answer. “You can cheat in basketball. You don’t have to play defense, you can be a one-way offensive player. You know you can cheat. You cannot cheat in football,” he stated.
Barkley later added that boxing was another sport that, like football, was impossible to cheat your way through. “It takes tremendous courage. If you’re not all in, you’re gonna have to quit.”
The word cheat seems pretty strong, but it makes sense what Chuck is laying down. You could take time off during basketball games. Lazy defense, not rushing back on offense, failure to pick up a man on a pick & roll. A lost possession does add up in the NBA, but the pace of the game usually balances itself out.
In football that’s not possible. If you hesitate or “cheat” for one play, that’s the one that could break your back, or even get you rocked from a defender. That’s not to say the NBA isn’t a physical game. But football is built on violence, and you have to be on guard at all times.
This isn’t the first time Barkley has detailed his short-lived football career
Charles Barkley is a lot of things, but a liar is not one of them. The Hall of Fame Power Forward previously touched on his short-lived football career during an interview with two NFL greats. Chuck appeared on the New Heights podcast alongside Travis and Jason Kelce. It was there that he told the legendary tight end and the iconic center that he just wasn’t cut out for a life on the gridiron.
“Football is my favorite sport. I played one day, then I realized that y’all were freaking nuts,” he stated, which got a huge laugh from the Kelce boys.
Honestly, it’s probably for the best. At 62 years old, Chuck still has plenty of things to do to stay active, and more importantly, is still physically capable of doing them. That’s not to say that all NFL players don’t get that luxury, but history is not too kind to them.
It was here that Barkley detailed when he gave up. “I remember the last thing the coach said to me, ‘I’ll see you tomorrow.’ I said, ‘What?!’ I said, ‘No no no. I’m not doing this tomorrow.'”
Barkley instead pursued basketball. And I think it’s safe to say that he had a pretty good career.
