Receiver D.K. Metcalf admits that his body-fat percentage isn’t an eye-popping 1.6 percent.
He says it’s 1.9 percent.
That was the claim Metcalf made in a Tuesday visit to #PFTPM. The number flies in the face of a contention that anything lower than three percent simply isn’t healthy.
Joe DeFranco, who has trained players for the Scouting Combine, insisted in the aftermath of Metcalf’s much-hyped 1.6-percent number that, biologically, it doesn’t add up.
“You need at least three percent body fat for your organs to function,” DeFranco said on his podcast in March. “If somebody’s body fat percentage legitimately dips under two percent, that’s not an impressive physique. That’s a medical emergency. Get that person to the hospital ASAP before they die. It’s not something we’re looking at and going, ‘Wow, how impressive.’ That person needs their life to be saved.”
The Amercan Council on Exercise has said that men should not go lower than two-to-five-percent body fat
Regardless of Metcalf’s actual percentage of body fat, there’s no denying that he’s in excellent physical condition. His injury history at Mississippi has become an issue for NFL teams; Metcalf acknowledged that the questions he received most often from NFL franchises related to the basic reality that he missed time during his time in college football because of an assortment of physical issues.
In 2016, a foot injury derailed his season after only two games. In 2018, a mid-season neck injury ended his final campaign with only seven games. In 2017, Metcalf appeared in all 12 of his team’s games.
“They’re just freak injuries and could happen to anybody playing the sport,” Metcalf insisted. “I’m not injury prone or anything like that. I’m just going to take care of my body at the next level.”
If his body-fat percentage truly is a mere 1.9 percent, the best way to take care of his body may be to add some fat to go along with an impressive collection of readily visible muscles. Indeed, the rule of thumb for scouts seems to be that, if a guy can’t consistently stay healthy when facing college competition, he’ll have similar (if not worse) problems when dealing with the demands of life in the NFL.
