Just how seriously American Football is taking Louis Rees-Zammit can be revealed as the eyes of the sport turn to the NFL Draft starting tomorrow in Detroit.
The three-day extravaganza promises to be a life-changing event for a second rugby union player, with former Basingstoke centre Travis Clayton tipped to be picked as an Offensive Lineman.
For Wales star Rees-Zammit it will be a stress-free watch, secure in the knowledge his immediate future is assured after signing a three-year deal with Super Bowl champions Kansas City Chiefs worth a reported $2.83 million.
The speed of the winger’s dream move led some to question whether it is a marketing gimmick by a sport expert without equal in promoting itself – to which James Cook, Head of the NFL International Player Pathway, offered this response.
Not a marketing gimmick
“As we speak Louis is in Texas catching balls with Patrick Mahomes,” he told Planet Rugby. “No amount of marketing can make that happen.
“The team that just won back-to-back Super Bowls not only signed him, they actively recruited him. The head coach was calling his phone every day, the General Manager was calling his phone every day. You can’t buy that.
“There’s nothing the NFL can do to make that happen. Absolutely nothing. I can’t get Andy Reed to call anyone. Neither can any of the people above me in our business.”
Cook added: “I firmly believe Kansas brought him with the intent of him at some point being a contributing player for them. They didn’t bring him in with the idea that he’s going to be a marketing guy and we’ll just kind of sit him on the practice squad.
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“They’ve got too many good players and they win too many matches for them to think that way.”
There is no question it has all happened quickly for an athlete who has spent his sporting life in the fast lane.
“Everyone said he got to the NFL in 10 weeks but actually it was less than even that,” Cook admitted. “Yes, 10 weeks from the day he landed in the US to signing for KC, but it was really eight weeks, followed by a week flying around the US.
“Louis deserves huge credit because he put a lot on the line. From the very beginning, from the day he first came on the programme, my message to him was pretty blunt.
“I said, ‘Look, April could be you going back home to Wales. Know that now. There’s no way we can guarantee this for you’. His response was, ‘If I don’t try this, I’ll regret it for the rest of my life’.
“That shows not only someone that backs himself and his ability to compete, but someone with incredible emotional maturity and great awareness of where he wants his life to be. That’s a big part of it for him, I think. Proving to himself he can really do this.”
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Brave trailblazers
Clayton, 22, will not be the only Brit to attempt to emulate the former Gloucester and Lions flyer, who himself was inspired by Jordan Mailata going from Australia’s National Rugby League to last year’s Super Bowl with the Philadelphia Eagles.
Mailata, too, came through the IPP and the growing success of the programme’s graduates is earning it a reputation as a serious breeding ground for NFL stars of the future.
“It took a few very brave trailblazers with no real guarantees, no real path as to what that looked like, to prove that the initial steps can be possible,” Cook said, name-checking rugby trio Alex Gray, Christian Scotland-Williamson and Christian Wade.
“You then get Jordan Mailata who felt the same but has more of a path to follow and when that pays off for him in a big way you get Louis seeing it’s already been done and so is easier again for him to make that jump.”
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Fast-forward to now to where Clayton, who played in the eighth tier of English club rugby’s pyramid, and Bayron Matos of the Dominican Republic, are the two big Draft hopes for Cook and his team.
Cook said: “The big piece we came away with from the 2024 programme is teams saying to us they basically view the IPP as a school or university that teams NEED to go and look at.
“The IPP is now seen as a viable source of talent for NFL teams looking to compete. And there is no bigger statement of that than the back-to-back Super Bowl champions being the first this year to dip into the IPP talent pool.
“The beauty of the programme is as much as it’s fun and a great story having a high-profile name like Louis come over from rugby at the highest level, what we have proved is the programme can take athletes and people from complete obscurity.
“There’s talent walking the streets of London, of Paris, of Rome, wherever that no-one knows exists. People like Efe Obada, who literally no-one knew when he came into the programme and is now going into his eighth or ninth year in the NFL, where the average career is two and a half-three years.
“So we can take athletes and people from complete obscurity, they can come through this programme and go on and make a name for themselves in the NFL.”
Creating genuine stars
While pleased with the progress, Cook is in no mood to rest on laurels – revealing the sky-high ambition he has invested in the programme.
“What we say to the players the whole time is ‘we don’t measure success by whether you sign for a club’,” he explained. “The whole point of the IPP is we want to create genuine stars that can play and contribute in the NFL. We’re not trying to create practice squad players.
“As much as it’s great Louis has signed and we’re very excited about it and it’s a necessary first step, our goal this whole time has been for Louis to be a starting player for the Kansas City Chiefs and to go and score touchdowns on Sundays. That hasn’t happened yet.
“But I think his age is in his favour. He also displays a level of athleticism you don’t often find anywhere in the world. On top of that, he works hard and is a great person who has his priorities straight. So I feel very optimistic.”
