Suspended NFL Players Training MMA With Randy Couture

"The reason why I'm doing MMA is it's probably the closest thing you can find to football as far as conditioning, cardiovascular and the physical aspect," Pace said after the Jets' 38-27 win over the Eagles Thursday night in their final preseason game. "I'm not going to be fighting and I'm not going to be getting hit. I'm just going to be training my behind off."

Pace will have company. He will be training with Saints defensive linemen Will Smith and Charles Grant, both of whom are serving league suspensions for similar violations. MMA is a growing sport, if you can call it that, and professional athletes are starting to use the MMA training regimen for conditioning purposes.

Mixed martial arts training does require the ability to provide short bursts of high intensity activity repeatedly over a length of time. I can certainly see where an NFL player would benefit from taking part in such a training program. It has to be seen as a good thing for MMA as a whole that players in the biggest sports league in America think that there is such a large overlap in the physical tools used.

My one sticking point with the article as an MMA fan is, of course, the "if you can call it that" dig at MMA. The idea that Rich Cimini can write an article talking about NFL athletes viewing MMA training as an equally high level athletic endeavor to their own sport while also taking a shot at MMA as somehow less than a "sport" is beyond me. But that is a fight with no true end in sight; MMA will probably always face acceptance problems from mainstream media types who refuse to be educated on any "new" sport.

The important thing is that other high level athletes are giving our sport the respect it deserves. And that's a start for now.