I'm not saying that Sam J. Jones was Flash Gordon - there's no such thing. No actor can be the person, that's a bunch of crap. People pay to see an actor be himself, whether he plays Hamlet or whatever.
So much of a professional athlete's success depends upon not necessarily the play itself but how he deals with... always saying how you deal with good, is just as important as how you deal with bad.
There's no doubt about it; playing football and how tough it is on the body afterwards.