Not a fair comparison Kinetic, because football is a young man's game where physical fitness and speed are king, and it's all downhill as soon as you're past the ripe old age of 25 or so.
The best pilots in the world tend to be grumpy old b@stards with 30 or 40 years of varied flying under their belts.
All right I accept that there may be situations where the incredibly gifted 200 hour wonderkid with the 737 rating may indeed be a better pilot than the mediocre instructor with 1500 hours of C152 time, but that same wonderkid with a couple of years worth of experience will of course be a better pilot.
The point is, that if you employ a 200 hour guy you can't really be quite sure if you're getting a good one or a lemon unless you run them through an arsenal of tests ... whereas if you employ someone who's already got a decent amount of experience, then you can automatically assume they are capable of doing the job.