Nah, proper football uses a circular ball.

This appears to be some sort of descendent of rugby, played by softies (why else would they need body armour, helmets and a rest every couple of minutes? The nearest proper rugby players get to armour is the sticky tape they hold their ears on with, and a "rest" is what they have out of season).

I meant, NFL....that's USA football, right >:-D

You know, I have thought a lot about that "armor" thing and I realized that almost no one playing rugby is nicknamed REFRIGERATOR, or anything of the kind.  A bunch of skinny guys plowing into each other, of course, they're in good physical condition, but none of them that I have seen could crush a St. Bernard by sitting on it >;-D

It mostly has to do with size. And of course "unreported injuries" whereas nearly 20% of all serious injuries are HEAD injuries.  It is the old saying that we invented the jock strap before the helmet because we realized our brains were important TOO.
In the teen years, most injuries are fractures and compound fractures.  Still, superficial injuries represent 20% of rugby injuries, followed by head injuries and sprains (16%). Of the head injuries,44% are concussions. They just claim they don't need protection. 

 We have guys nicknamed refrigerator and they have fellows nick-named: 

Basil
Posh
Budgie
Stroker
Nobody
Nugget
Teflon
Marshmallow Dumplin
as big as The Beast was, Refrigerator still dwarfed him in actual weight.

And my favorite team name has to be the Poms. :-) 

But you know, no one gets "severely injured" in rugby  (according to those countries hosting it), right ? 

Whatever it takes to make you feel better ;-)

Just like my peeve about basketball, if you can win a game on one point, and everyone is being paid millions, then everyone better be able to make each and every foul shot. You can't blame the rest of team when the kicker misses the goal.