Last fall, Craig Booth put together an excellent series of charts on the heights and weights of current NFL players, by position. Now Sportchart—who created that NHL map from a few weeks ago—has taken the analysis a step further, comparing the height and weight distributions of major positions across the NFL, NBA, MLB, and NHL.
The individual plots are above, with the black dots representing the height and weight of the average U.S. 20-year old male. (As with the hockey map, Sportchart hasn't provided any data sourcing; not my favorite thing about the site.) Below, the averages for each position are plotted against each other:
There's a lot of fun stuff to look at here, but the biggest takeaway—to me at least—is the reinforcement that the body specialization of the NFL really can't be matched by any other sports. The NBA certainly stratifies by height, but the biggest point guards could be shooting guards, the biggest shooting guards could be small forwards, and so on and so forth. These differences aren't nearly as dramatic as fielding a 190-pound defensive back alongside a 300-pound defensive lineman.
Another takeaway: Most athletes are much bigger than you.