American football is the most complex and strategic of all popular sports.

"I am stating that football is more complex because the roles themselves are more dynamic" I have already explained that the roles in football are not dynamic at all. They are in fact simplistic. "I was claiming the sport was the most complex, not the individual player" I am not psychoanalyzing the player. I am analyzing their role, duty, and goal while calculating the complexity. "the variety in roles takes precedence" This is like saying that quantity is always better than quality. A micro wave and jet engine can not be compared to sports. Conducting an orchestra of 11 people playing hot cross buns is easier than 5 people playing Beethoven. Your analogy's can be used against you if you aren't specific. "A rugby player could have a more complex role without belonging to the more complex sport" You can't have a complex sport without complex roles. I'm not saying football isn't complex but just that it isn't as complex as other sports. "parts don't have to be complex in order to construct a complex mechanism" It is not about the parts but the role the parts play. 1 basketball player=1 part. He has many different roles through the game he has to perform. A running back only has two possible roles. He can either block or run. "over 400 unique plays have to be memorized" I also argued that individually these plays are not that unique and not very difficult to execute. "other sports where there is much heavier emphasis on improvisation" This in no way makes the sport less complex. "There is far less emphasis on memorization" How many coaches in basketball do you think just tell their players to "go with the flow"? There are so many possible outcomes on a micro and macro level in sports that it is impossible for me to count them. The outcomes are calculated by the coaches and reactions must be memorized and executed instantly when said outcome occurs. This level of memorization happens at more of a micro level than football and is less understood which make it more complex. Also because of the lack of stoppage in play more information must be memorized than in football. About your argument of being placed into the NFL or MLS I completely disagree. You would be equally useless in both sports. For example on defense you might be a gap on both teams almost like a missing player but that gap could be filled even though there would be a small consequence on both teams. But unfortunately for both of us this argument is unverifiable and should be disregarded. About your example using pick up games, I find it difficult to really use pick up games in an argument because there are no refs and less rules no matter what sport you are playing. But as for the argument itself, since you used a personal example as an argument I will use a personal example as a counter argument. I have played a lot of pick up games of football and there have been times where people who don't really know how to play join in and it only really takes 60 seconds to explain what they need to do for a specific role. In fact when playing with inexperienced people I notice people make a lot more mistakes in basketball then they do in football. In a football game if someone is over 6 feet tall, fast, can jump high, and knows how to catch a ball they are immediately great wide receivers. In basketball after a quick explanation the person tends to foul a lot on defense and commit a lot of violations on offense. They also fail to have the ability to understand and execute seemingly simple concepts such as boxing out or switching on picks. This is not considering lack of ability like handling the ball but lack of understanding. http://sports.espn.go.com... If you look at ANA, (analytic aptitude) Football is ranked 5th. While this does not prove anything it shows that the ability to think and use strategy is more important in other sports than football.