He was a rugby star, he could soon become one of the NFL too: Louis Rees-Zammit could have had the world of the oval ball at his feet, he was one of the strongest players around and would have had the Wales shirt guaranteed for at least 10 years, but he surprised the world by giving up everything 3 weeks before the Six Nations to try the adventure in the NFL, the most important American Football league. A choice that seemed crazy to many, not only because rugby and American football only have the oval ball in common, but also because Rees-Zammit had never practiced this sport before and above all very few people managed to get satisfaction from “jump” towards the American world. Many were brutally rejected, but not Louis Rees-Zammit, who signed a contract after just 2 months of the International Player Pathway (IPP, the training and selection program reserved for non-Americans which serves precisely to “enter” the world of NFL and attract the attention of some important team).
TO KANSAS!
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And what a contract! Louis Rees-Zammit has signed a 3-year contract with the best in the world: the Kansas City Chiefs, winners of the last two Super Bowls! If he goes to the reserves group he will earn 216 thousand dollars a year, if he is included in the first team roster he will earn 750 thousand dollars a season. To clarify: in Gloucester, in the rugby Premiership, he earned 225 thousand pounds, in addition to the “reimbursement for being called up to the Wales national team.
one in a thousand makes it
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It’s not over yet, but in the meantime Rees-Zammit will join the Chiefs in the first summer preparation meeting under the guidance of coach Andy Reid, who will then have to choose the 53 players with which the team will play the 2024-25 NFL championship. The former Wales winger and Six Nations star will therefore have to overcome a further step, trying to convince the coach and staff to include him permanently in next season’s roster, but the numbers underline the extent of what has been done in recent months: from In 2017, only 37 athletes passed the IPP and were selected by an NFL team, and of these only 6 managed to build a career.
THE FAILURES
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As for rugby players, history says that it is even more complicated: the only one to succeed in the feat was Jordan Mailata, who however was “only” an excellent youth prospect and had never played professional rugby, before instead building himself a great career in the NFL. It cannot therefore be considered a real leap from one sport to another. Not even the devastating England winger Christian Wade had managed to do so, sent back to sender after just one friendly match (where he also scored a touchdown) and who returned to rugby in Racing 92 in Paris. Alex Gray tried his luck in 2016 after being left out of the Great Britain squad for the Rugby 7s Olympics, but stopped in the reserve team without ever making his NFL debut. The same fate also befell Australian Hayden Smith, who in 2012 was taken by the New York Jets but only played a fraction of a match before floundering in the reserve lineups. Precisely for this reason, if Louis Rees-Zammit were to succeed in the feat he would truly be the only high-level rugby player to complete the “jump” into the NFL: the road is still long, but having adapted in such a short time he is already impressive and he has the characteristics to try, since from rugby he has brought with him a devastating speed (in the 40 yard test he impressed everyone by scoring a sensational 4.44″) and a great ability to control the ball even with one hand. The dream, he has said it several times, is to win the Super Bowl, perhaps to put it alongside the Six Nations medal, won in 2021.
