The Arizona Cardinals made a much needed splash when they acquired standout center Rodney Hudson from the Las Vegas Raiders. Overnight, every Arizona Cardinals fan became a center enthusiast and showered praise on a previously mostly ignored position.
That got the wheels turning in my brain. Like an NFL center, what are the most underappreciated jobs in sports?
The kind of jobs we rarely stop and fully appreciate either their difficulty, importance or both.
Without further ado, here is this week's list:
Top 5 Most Underappreciated Jobs in Sports
5. NHL Defenseman
- Imagine your job every day was to go to a batting cage, crank up the MPH to 80-100 and then stand three feet in front of the pitching machine and take balls off various parts of your body. That's essentially a large part of the thankless job that is being an NHL defensemen.
4. Punt Returner
- Fielding a punt is much harder than it looks. Fielding a punt while several players whose entire NFL livelihood relies on dislodging your soul from you body if you fail to signal a fair catch and even sometimes when you do is insane.
3. NFL Center
- Basically, your entire profession is getting into a fistfight where you take the first punch every single time but you're still expected to win most of those fights. Not fun.
2. Cornerback
- I know you're probably thinking its crazy to rank cornerbacks this high given how well they are paid and how NFL famous many of them have become. I don't think we ever fully understand or appreciate how insanely difficult their job is. It's the only full time job in sports that requires you to do your job at the highest level backwards. You're running backwards, looking back and expected to mirror some of the greatest athletes in the world who are running like a normal human being. It's hard.
1. Catcher
- Squatting. Lots and lots of squatting. And risking fractured testicles every pitch. Nuh thanks.