I have played both sports, and just because their is no pads in rugby doesn't mean the hits are harder. I have constantly seen where rugby players and fans think the hit was oh so hard or something and I look at it and think. meh. I was a TE in football and come across the middle once with ribs exposed and linebacker with a bead on you. As soon as you catch the football you get hit. No time to react just boom.

Don't get me wrong rugby takes alot more stamina and endurance.

Rugby players don't use their whole body as a missile the way football players do. Id much rather take one rugby hit rather than a football hit and its not even close. However rugby players get hit a lot more often and have to do a lot more than just tackle obv.

A few thoughts on the differences from Martin Johnson (captain of England's world cup winning team)

http://www.buzzle.com/editorials/2-5-2005-65387.asp

Not too much on hitting in there but I think it's well established that NFL = harder hits rugby = greater number of hits.

I've played both as well, and while I agree that on average collisions are "harder" in football, the potential damage is equal.
Rugby players learn not to tackle head on at full speed, unless the ball carrier is at a stand still, has just received a hospital pass, doesn't see the defender, or otherwise not expecting a power tackle. The reason is to save our shoulders from injury and to avoid concussions, obv. b/c we're wearing no padding to min. padding. Football players' main concern is keeping their chins up, outside of that, they don't need to worry much because the shoulder pads, helmet, etc. absorb plenty of shock. Certainly the sound of plastic on plastic adds to the effect, even for the players involved.
I'm not sure I can say that football hits hurt any worse than rugby, because I'm more protected in football. I've come away with many more bruises in rugby, because of so much flesh on flesh contact. I've been lucky enough, after 16 years of play, not to have had any serious injuries.
I've seen enough frightening collisions (jaws shattered, exposed bones, spinal injuries) to know to usually tackle with my head behind and keep my chin up.
There is a strategic advantage to tackling with the head behind and/ or allowing the offender to "run you over," as long as you wrap the legs and take him to the ground. 1 meter gained in rugby is not nearly as important as the ball ending up 1 meter closer to one of my teammates, who can then either pick up the ball or more easily ruck over and win it. The exception of course is a try-line stand. There you must tackle head on, get low, pop up with your shoulder, lift the legs and drive forward with your legs.
Some of the biggest collisions in football come from receivers going over the middle, looking back for the football, and taking punishment from the opposite direction. Quarterbacks getting blindsided. When you can't prepare for contact (brace yourself) the collision is going to be more severe. Luckily, for rugby players, because of the offsides rule, the action is usually in front of you and you have eyes on potential tacklers. The biggest hits in rugby and football happen when the offender is not expecting it. This just happens more often in football.
Also, head to head collisions in rugby, although rare, are much uglier than football. I recommend a scrumcap, even though I've never worn one, for any player from prop to inside-centre and wouldn' t fault anyone in the back 3 wearing one. Anytime you're in a ruck or maul there's a chance that some idiot, usually an inexperienced player, will come in blindly and spear you in the head with the crown of his head.
Now, scrums are a completely different issue, but nothing in football compares to it. I've read that at the international level there is 2 tons of pressure on players in the front row.

I think it really depends on the level. Sure if you are going to compare your experiences playing HS football and amateur rugby there probably isn't a huge difference, but I don't think you can compare anything to the violence that is NFL football, or even D1 football.

You'll find that athletes at the international level of rugby can be just as powerful and explosive as those in the NFL. Plenty of guys in rugby run 4.3 40s and bench 300 lbs.+.
If I had the choice between being run over by Jonah Lomu or Jim Brown, I'd pick Brown and let the padding absorb some of that shock. Would you like to run a slant over the middle without padding and have Chabal lurking at linebacker?
Rugby isn't amateur anymore by the way. This is the age of professionalism. Do you consider Kobe Bryant an amateur athlete just because he plays on the US Olympic team? No, he's a pro.
I'll give that pro rugby players will train, on average, more for endurance than NFL players, but let's not kid ourselves into viewing them as Kenyan cross country runners.
There are more injuries in the NFL vs. international rugby, mainly because the sport is different. Blindside hits, cut blocking, people falling or being pushed into your knees, receivers over the middle, etc. Guys have to go full force into one another because yardage matters. In rugby the action is in front of you, so you can react easier to avoid potential injuries.

good points and totally agree. And the loud hits in football, the one's that make the crowd go ohhh and ahhh are mostly not even hard, just loud.

sports science show on FSN tackled this topic

And?

+1

I think football hits are significantly harder, players feel more prone to really lay it out there while wearing a helmet and shoulder pads rather than just bare bone. However i would argue that there are much more ferocious and reckless hits in college football than in pro, pros often times will avoid big hits both giving and receiving to look out for $$

football hits were much harder
but, rugby players usually have more impacts per match/game

One of the football hits in this show was a receiver moving at speed over the middle, actually a pad moving, and an NFL DB coming from the opposite direction and smashing it.
The rugby demonstration simulated somebody taking a hospital pass at a stand still with a player coming up and laying down a hit. This player was not a pro, but a local LA club player.
2 objects moving toward one another at speed is going to be a bigger collision than only one in motion.
One of the NFL players in this show was Joey Porter. He hits hard. They should have brought in a legitimate pro rugby player from NZ, SA, France, England, AUS, etc., not some D-bag from a local club. Any top 6,7 or 8 from those nations would have hit much harder than the local douche.

Football hits are obv harder. Reason is the padding the players wear and because of the nature of the game. Turnovers are of greater importance in football than in rugby, and also the only way to force a turnover in a football tackle is through a big hit, where as in rugby a turnover can also be forced by using a tackling technique which turns the player in an awkard angle making it harder for that player to recycle the ball.

Would this still be true for just O/Dlineman?

Lineman don't usually get the massive open field hits though, most of their injuries occur when they get rolled up on.

I don't know if it really matters. Both are great games that evolved from soccer. Football rules have changed more from it's roots, but they are both great games that deserve great respect.

Early football was much more brutal than rugby.

I think rugby is more brutal today than it was in the past because the players are bigger and stronger and the rules have not changed as much.

Football today is no where near as brutal as it was in the 1890's.

^ That post just put me on tilt. Interesting thread barring it.

I wasn't really focusing in on just injuries though. I would take an educated guess that the hits lineman take/give are higher than that of rugby player in terms of impact, and they encounter these on every play.

If you were to say who took a bigger pounding during a game would it be an offensive lineman, or a skill player? The skill player will encounter a hit with the most impact, but I don't think that comes close to making up for the hits a lineman takes during the course of a game.

Played both and agree here. "Hits" in rugby are not as glorified as football.
Also, rugby is self-policing in many ways, and if you are looking for a glory hit to take some guy out and embarass him in rugby, just remember that payback is a bitch with 30 players on the field and one ref....

Do you just wiki the topic of every thread and then feel the need to combine internet knowledge with silly insights from left-field?

Have only played Rugby but I would have to assume that Football hits are harder - the game just seems designed to produce them. You still get some crackingly hard tackles in Rugby obviously, and Chabal seems to be responsible for most of them, see here and here. I especially like the bit in the first video where the poor all black tries to get to his feet like a new born faun.

I've taken hits like that (although obviously not as extreme) while playing rugby and they're not nice at all but I reckon American Football hits are likely to be much harder

Rugby League is where all the hard tackling takes place, none of that union crap.
Every play, both sides face each other 10 yards apart and run at each other. Too much of the time in union is spent rucking and mauling (or kicking) and not enough tackling.

I'm pretty sure I see someone writhing on the ground in agony about 5x more often during the average soccer match - than rugby or football. Explain.

Because the average soccer player keeps his testicles in his man purse?