NFLPA releases "Free Agency Report Cards"

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(03-01-2023, 08:09 PM)TheLeonardLeap Wrote: Answered it yourself.

A lot of these guys are early-mid-20s who have never had to be an adult before. Went from being children to being college students and the main/only focus for most of their entire life has been athletics.

Also a big part of it is what you just said with pack a sandwich. These are professional athletes with huge dietary needs. Joe Thomas ate every 2 hours. Marshall Yanda ate 6,000 calories a day. Jordan Gross ate 6 pieces of bacon, 6 scrambled eggs, two 50g protein shakes, 4 hardboiled eggs, and 2 chicken breasts... before 2pm.... every day. Russell Wilson eats 9 meals totaling 5,000 calories a day. JJ Watt would have 8 chicken breasts (3 of them wrapped in bacon) just for dinner.

That's more than you can just toss into a brown bag, and certainly not something you want to eat cold and sitting around for ages. Guys need to eat huge amounts of calories to keep up their size and muscles (it's why you see a lot of NFL big guys just absolutely shrink down when they retire, they go back to a normal diet). They need the calories somehow, and by providing them with the meals you're ensuring those guys are meeting their caloric needs while still being able to work out and study in the facility and removing it from them having to worry/think about it so they can focus more on football. All while making sure those calories are coming from healthier means like chicken, eggs, and pasta instead of big macs, fries, and soda.


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EDIT:
The 49ers were given an A- for Food Service/Nutrition (tied for 5th place). Here's an article from just a couple years ago, it includes a theoretical meal plan for what one of their OL might need to eat in a day. It's way beyond packing a lunch and also probably a whole lot of effort to do for yourself, doubly so if you're a single 21-25-year-old...
https://www.49ers.com/news/niners-nutrition-49ers-offensive-defensive-lineman-meal-plan-diet

Now imagine a guy getting personalized meal plans to meet his caloric and nutritional needs to that degree, while also being provided a personalized vitamin and supplement plan versus a guy who just eats whatever he goes out and orders for pickup/takeout and only taking vitamins and supplements if he chooses to personally go out and research and buy them. One of them has a clear advantage over the other in a contest of physicality.


As an interesting side note, not NFL-related, but athlete diet-related. Apparently Michael Phelps would eat 12,000 calories a day when he was ramping up heading into competitions. That's insane. Preparing that much food is basically a full time job for someone. Lol

These guys prepare meals at home everyday they can prepare their selves food to take with them. We are also not talking about prepared meals just access to the cafeteria for snacks like a banana on days off. They are provided meals during work days.