And, having pursued his NFL dream for 18 months, the Welsh superstar concluded last week that now was the moment to switch back to rugby. The 24-year-old is the most recent ‘crossover athlete’ to fail to make the step from another sport, the majority of them from rugby. Australia’s Jordan Mailata was able to do it, winning the Super Bowl this year, but why does it seem so difficult for others to break into the NFL?
Any NFL players who have graduated from the North American education system have been brought up with American football and have had plenty of years to learn the ins and outs and the finer points of the game.
Osi Umenyiora and Efe Obada are two who have been born outside the country and shown that you can learn the game late and achieve success, but you have to be able to read a playbook. Christian Scotland-Williamson played rugby union on either side of a two-year practice squad with the Pittsburgh Steelers and is now a barrister.
Speaking on a video call to BBC Sport, the 32-year-old proudly held up two books of law – each over an inch thick – and commented: “Learning both of those was easier than learning an NFL playbook, which is ridiculous.”.
“Going through all that [legal training], I was still not working as hard as I needed to when I went to the NFL. It puts your idea of what’s hard into perspective. Interviewing with the BBC, having started his NFL career in 2018, Christian Wade spread his hands apart by a couple of inches and said, “the playbook’s like this.”.
“It is very frightening, but there’s a system behind it,” he added. “You must learn the jargon and the way to analyse it so that you can remember the information, then within a couple of hours apply that in practice. Then repeat that in the afternoon and the following day.”
Before Rees-Zammit brought an end to his NFL journey, he would have learned his third playbook in 18 months, having spent the 2024 off-season with the Kansas City Chiefs and the 2024 season with the Jacksonville Jaguars, who in January hired a new head coach.
Even if you can play a playbook, two-time Super Bowl champion Umenyiora refers to something referred to as the ‘planet theory’, outside as a significant hindrance for NFL prospects such as Rees-Zammit.
Popularised by former New York Giants general manager George Young, who passed away recently, and their legendary head coach Bill Parcells, the theory maintains that there are only a handful of humans on earth who have the optimum size and athleticism to be effective as offensive and defensive linemen, thus making them more valuable.
Conversely, at running back and wide receiver, which together with quarterback and tight end are American football’s ‘skill positions’. They are the roles Rees-Zammit experimented with and, following last week’s announcement, he spoke about how many different types of players were vying for a place on the active roster.
“I believe Rees-Zammit is an excellent player, but when it comes to speed and athleticism, there’s perhaps 500 of those types of players in Florida alone, so it’s generally much tougher on guys like that,” said Umenyiora.
“You have to be unmatched. You have to be a better athlete than most in order to learn the game and then come through. Rees-Zammit is one of the quickest players in world rugby. He recorded 4.43 seconds for the 40-yard dash, offside, but that left him only joint-27th of the players qualified last year for the NFL Draft.
Even if he is the fastest, however, new players to the NFL require time to catch up with the “football IQ” their rivals have had, says pundit Phoebe Schecter. The most important thing is the ability to take what they’ve learned in class and do it at elite speed on the field because the players can overthink it, there can be paralysis by analysis,” she continued.
“And from a rugby point of view, your reaction is to look for space, but in American football, you shouldn’t necessarily do that, you should follow your blocker.”
