English Rugby or Kennedy Family Touch Football?

Sorry it took me so long to answer Carl's eccentric rants regarding English rugby vs. American football.  I took the liberty of posting in a couple of pictures (see extended view).  The top is a dramatic moment from a game of English rugby (or are these Kennedy's playing touch football on the mansion lawn?).  Below is an American male (Clinton Portis, of my beloved Washington Redskins) engaged in violent athletics.  Does anyone seriously believe the man in the dark jersey in the top photo would have the slightest chance of bringing down the man in the white jersey in the bottom photo?  I am sympathetic to post-imperial syndrome and all (in fact, we Americans might need to read up on that), but the claims that American football is for sissies really won't do, old chap.