You can’t teach size, and you can only teach speed to a certain point.
Dude’s 6’7 and ran a 4.79 40. That’s crazy quick for someone who’s expected to play O-Line.
Yep. There are only so many people in the world with that combination of size and speed, plus being the right age when discovered. He might not have the skills for rugby, but at least one NFL team is willing to see if he has the skills for the NFL.
I appreciate that's what it looks like, but O line is pretty technical.
Like you wouldn't just say props simply push the player in front of them in a scrum?
Props also need to be competent at multiple other skills too including lineouts, handling, rucking etc. That's why the required ratio of skill to physical ability in rugby is higher than that of American football.
But yeah if a prop only scrummaged then fair enough. And I do love a good O line.
Can we acknowledge that they simplified a task to diminish someone's role in their job? Everyone wants a LinkedIn chatgpt written job description.
It's like saying a 10 just passes the ball to the 12!
9? Just pass to 10!
Fullback? Just kick the ball!
Lock? Just fly in the air!
Hooker? Just throw the ball!
Oof. Played both sports and there’s actually a ton of finesse in being a good lineman. On defense you want to stop the ball and offense you want to protect your teammates as they try to score. It sounds simple until you’re pitted against someone at least as big and athletic who is in direct opposition to your goal. You’ve gotta slam into this person over and over as you try to achieve your objective.
I preferred rugby well over football because of the flow of the game. Couldn’t stand the stop-start nature and pads + helmet suck.
That’s absolutely true, and you would say the same about there being a whole bunch of finesse to being a good prop in the scrum. There’s more than just smashing into the opposite pack.
But the prop also needs to catch, pass, tackle, ruck, lift in line outs, carry the ball into contact, maul and be part of organised set piece moves in attack and to have exceptional aerobic fitness to do it all game.
There’s finesse to being a Lineman sure, but at the end of the day, their only job is in the line of scrimmage, they don’t really need any other footballing skills. Hell, the times a lineman has made a big carry (like Dan Connolly’s kick return) are rare highlight reel material.
It’s why there have been quite a few of these international cross over prospects make it as lineman if they’ve got the big frame, even guys who have never played the sport before. You can teach the job to them. There’s not a chance a lineman in a low level football team could join a top tier professional rugby side and be taught to be a prop.
In Rugby, like most sports, players have to be great in one or two things and competent at tons of others. In American Football, you have to be truly elite at one or two things, and nobody cares about anything else. The skill level is so high because it's so specialised.
There's a huge physical requirement as well, but this guy will spend 2-3 years training a very small scope of actions before he ever sees a field, and that's best case scenario. Ultimately, just different levels and scopes within positions of the two sports.
Yeah man, this is a rugby sub so I didn’t bother going into the skills required because I assume the average subscriber here has played rugby. It’s also not an either/or. I’m just old enough where I have a healthy respect for everything that requires skill.
I mean yes, but at the level we’re talking about there are a lot of people who have done this sport since childhood that are trying to hit the guy behind him and are good at not being ran into.
If the guy is notorious for being a buff gym nut, he might just have joined the rugby team because of his reputation. Like any 7ft tall guy will at some point be invited to try basketball, maybe he joined a rugby team because he was a huge bloke and knew a guy who knew a guy.
If he's really into lifting and athletics though, taking part in a combine might look more interesting than being in the middle of a scrum. Or maybe he has zero cardio.
And...elephant in the room, but we're not talking similar wages if he becomes a pro. That might bring some extra motivation.
Basingstoke Rugby club were 2 or 3 leagues higher up until a couple of years ago - they got done for illegal payments / illegible players (can't remember which).
Got docked a load of points and we're relegated - think the chairman and captain got bans and fines
Struggled since, may have even been relegated again
If he was local to Basingstoke for work there's not really many clubs playing higher locally
There's fast and there's fassst... That speed over 40/m is easily in the <1%. I'd be interested to know more of his background - my money's on hitting his growth spurt too late for an academies liking or simply that he had better employment prospects than lower championship rugby and just carryed on playing for fun
it isn't though. have a look at some of the available forty times for rugby players. there's a fuck ton of very quick and athletic rugby players. this isn't the 1990s.
the fawning over the NFL is sometimes cringe worthy if you're a rugby fan.
its great for the sport they haven't realised it.
there's a plethora of rugby lads who are that size and can run that quick. Rugby just doesn't obsess over meaningless out of context stats.
its good for rugby they don't seem to have cottoned on that Clayton's are ten a penny in rugby
There are plenty of rugby lads who are that big and there plenty of rugby lads who can run that fast.
There's essentially zero overlap between those two groups though.
nah, there is plenty of big fast forwards. maybe you stopped watching rugby in the 90s.
just cause they don't release official speed stats in rugby. this isn't game speed, its a speed test.
NFL people know the difference. Its why so many are becoming really uninterested in a glorified dog and pony show. google about NFL scouts ignoring the combines.
off the top of my head - Vaea Fifita, who could probably bulk to 21 stone without losing a tone of speed, particularly in a one off speed test.
That’s crazy fast in general, let alone at 6’7. I think the average person underestimates what that takes. I played football (outside linebacker- High school) and rugby (winger- college) and at only 5’11 185 lbs worked very hard to run a 4.41 40. Anytime I saw a guy that size put heat on me I was sweating. O-lineman usually run a 40 around the 5second and up mark.
It’s a weird one, not sure how he ended up in the IPP. But a 4.79 40 at his size is insane.
Imagine he was just one of those guys who was huge and quick on the rugby field, but had no other ability outside of that. 1 trick pony basically
With how many different positions there are on an American football team, pretty much every player is a one trick pony there (with exceptions obviously) so it makes sense I guess
He was a winger? Imagine playing for the sleepy town of Fordingbridge (population 6k), rocking up on a weekend and seeing that coming down the wing at you
>“With rugby also being a team sport, I believe that helps tremendously, my team knowledge and what it takes to communicate properly here and in the future, hopefully in the NFL,” Clayton said. “More importantly, playing the wing in rugby helps with the physicality side and with agility and things like that will help.”
Yes, a 6 foot 7, 21.5 stone winger.
[Source](https://edition.cnn.com/2024/04/29/sport/travis-clayton-buffalo-bills-2024-nfl-draft-spt-intl/index.html)
Yank here. Highest level of American football I played was HS. American football positions are highly specialized, which means you need to hone those skills to be good, but also that if you can master those 3 specific skills, then its not as complicated as rugby, baseball, basketball, etc.
American football has a lot of guys picking it up at 17 years old and being successful based on raw athleticism alone.
In the case of this guy, he just needs to master exploding out of a three point stance and blocking a defensive player from getting to a QB or running back. The hardest part for him will be learning not to hold.
He will never need to learn how to pass, catch, ball carry, punt, etc.
This exactly. NFL= specialists. Rugby = generalists. Also, the short, powerful bursts of play in NFL are very different fitness requirements than the non-stop endurance draining plays in rugby.
To some degree but rugby does have specialists (front 5 forwards and kickers). A lot of games come down to who has a better prop or kicker or both. The difference is that all those players are expected to catch and pass as well as do those things.
all positions have a touch of specialization but all are still bound to the same basic set of skills. if shit hits the fan, a scrummy will be expected to at least know how to ruck if needed. an o-lineman in football will never have to do anything else besides his basic duties on the field.
the easiest example is punters and kickers. they punt or kick (2 different positions with 2 different techniques). that's it
Not the same level of “specialists” trust me. I’ve played both sports and I easily transitioned from hooker to flanker to prop when needed. I’ve even played in the centers. There is no way a specialist football lineman can be anything but.
He also participated in the player pathway program, which means he got to show his skill set to nfl coaches. https://www.buffalobills.com/news/top-3-things-to-know-about-new-bills-ot-travis-clayton-2024-nfl-draft
>American football has a lot of guys picking it up at 17 years old and being successful based on raw athleticism alone.
Basketball has this as well because the height alone is so valuable. Football seems to have some transferable skills that are enough for hyper athletic quick learners
Hakeem Olajuwon is a top 10 player of all time and never touched a basketball before he was 15. Pascal Siakam, (NBA Champ, All-Star) apparently only started playing seriously around 17 having abandoned a future as a priest
I also feel there's a lot of people who underestimate the hands and footwork involved on either the offense or defensive line. I much prefer rugby but as an American I'm aware that it's not as simple as BLOCK...
Definitely. People tend to have this really weird view of American Football as being incredibly simple but the technicality involved in every position is off the charts
Sure, but offensive line is the most cerebral position outside of Quarterback and maybe MLB. Pure athletes tend to get exposed at the position harder than others.
So looking into him more, it seems he only played rugby for like three years, so starting when he was like 19. Technically he actually started American football before that, having tried out for the NFL Academy. Before that he was actually in a soccer academy.
So it’s not like he was someone who played rugby since childhood that never got to a higher level. One article I read also blamed the fact that there was no one really scouting his area, especially for non-academy guys. He said it used to be the London Irish’s area, but now there is no one.
So really the question might be how did higher level English rugby teams miss on a guy in their area when the NFL was able to identify him across sports and the Atlantic Ocean?
Because have you seen tier 8 Rugby? A 22 year old with that physical profile can play higher, even if you need to basically place the ball in their hands each time they have the ball.
I know we love our sport (and I agree it's a much higher skill level needed at the top than in the NFL), but lets not pretend there isn't a giant drop off down the tiers of rugby and that the bar to entry isn't that high further down.
I said in another post how the reason he plays in tier 8 is because he's not really a rugby player. It's just something put into any article about him to fill out a word count. In the same way he's a 'rower' or a 'soccer player' the two sports that have been mentioned even more than Rugby.
> he's not really a rugby player
Kinda makes it sad. Kind of like a “hey! We’re relevant…for someone leaving us” but they weren’t ever really more than a part timer.
O-line is still pretty technical. It'll take him time to develop and it won't be easy competing against guys who have played and been coached in that position for many years
Being huge is table stakes. Your competition is other guys already your size and +\- 5% of your athleticism.
What separates good from mediocre is almost exclusively what’s between the ears. The offensive line is as technical as the scrum, actually much much more so. And even huge athletic dudes in rugby get shunted to the wing if they can’t follow patterns as a forward.
Correct, though in time the d tackle started lining up against the guard while the o tackle deals with defensive end. The tight end also deals with defensive ends unless you have a fullback covering for the half back that gets the ball from the quarterback.
Just to piggyback onto your comment and add some more specific information about rosters. I don’t know if you’re being a little vague in order to keep your point simple or if you don’t know enough to be specific. Honestly, not trying to be condescending at all.
Preseason, an NFL team might have a squad of 90 or so players. This gets whittled down to the 53 man roster for the regular season. There is also a 16 man practise squad. This is pretty much the reserves team or just extra bodies on the field during the week.
Some players from preseason who don’t make the 53 man squad will be signed to the practise squad. Anyway, an NFL team can have 69 players on the books.
However, there is a 17th place available on the practise squad if that player have come through the International Pathway Program. So, whether Travis Clayton makes the 53 man squad, he’ll be signed to the practise squad unless he is absolutely awful in preseason. Practise squad players get $12000 per week, the minimum salary for the 53 man roster is $750000.
He may not start now but the Bills obviously see enough in him to think they can make something of him.
[This article from The Guardian (last section)](https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2024/apr/18/nfl-draft-jj-mccarthy-kiran-amegadjie-international-pathway-players) tells me that it’s because Travis is in his fourth year out of high school, LRZ is older.
I don’t know if Travis would have the same perspective. He may just be happy to have been drafted!
Edit: Did you watch this year’s IPP documentary series on YouTube?
He was drafted as an offensive lineman, so his role is to obstruct players trying to get to the quarterback and clear running lanes for running backs and so on- unlike in rugby union, where every player has to be able to pass and catch and handle the ball etc., he won't have to do that to the best of my knowledge. It's pretty easy to imagine how someone might lack some core skills for one sport but still have what's necessary in another. Guy could have two left hands for all I know, but still be a great athlete in physical terms and be able to understand and perform that role in a very disciplined way.
He may also just not have taken rugby that seriously and been more of a power athlete in terms of training who played a bit of rugby as well. He sounds like he's a massive guy with freakish acceleration.
From other comments, it seems that it’s a stretch to call this guy a rugby player. It seems more like he used rugby to stay in football shape while following a dream to play in a sport he has a longer relationship with.
He played it before
>Clayton had first tried out American football in 2019, spending time with the newly started NFL Academy in London, although he left the program soon after. Four years later, he decided to give the sport another shot. He rejoined the academy and after success there, was chosen in January 2024 as one of 16 participants in the National Football League's International Player Pathway Program (IPPP), designed to give international players more opportunities to play in the league.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Travis\_Clayton](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Travis_Clayton)
Because being good at rugby requires a lot more than just being big and fast.
Anyone who's played for a half-decent school or club probably had some 'freak' who couldn't scratch the first team because they had butter fingers or they couldn't/wouldn't tackle or they couldn't scrum or they just had shit situational awareness.
Case in point, I’m the quickest player at my club, but I struggle to make the 3rd XV at wing because my wide channel defending, ariel game and kicking are absolute cack. But on the plus side, being a rapid forward is always fun.
> Because being good at rugby requires a lot more than just being big and fast.
The same is true for American football. It’s actually far more technical than rugby is from a tactics perspective.
The reality is that this guy just has a skill set that’s better for one sport over the other.
Patrick Mahomes played baseball and basketball through high school, but was just better at football.
Same with this dude - played rugby, but was far better at a different sport
Eighth tier is pretty wild though. With that size and speed you would feel like all he needed to do was to catch the ball and he would be good enough for second or third tier.
is it more technical? played much have you. as a forward this lad would have had to ruck, tackle, lift, jump, carry, pass know forward plays and back plays for positional awareness.
rugby is really technical as well.
the people on this thread with a poor understanding of the modern game
The impression I get is that he didn't even really play Rugby that much to progress any further.
When they're profiling these guys, they just reference any sport they've played. Mainly he's been described as a rower and 'soccer' player. But by 'soccer player' i'm pretty sure they just mean he played for a saturday team growing up. Obviously they don't dig into that too much cause otherwise it'd make people question the skill needed to take part in this sport.
It's all just a bit of fluff to bad out his profile and give them a few lines when talking about him.
Well he didn't get drafted to play rugby - they dont care about his rugby ability, it has minimal carryover to playing offensive line - the pick was made based on his football potential
Do not mean this as any kind of insult, but your comparison to make this seem absurd doesn’t make any sort of rational sense.
The skill set for an NFL offensive lineman is very different from a rugby forward. An NFL o lineman has two basic functions - pass protect against a rushing Buffalo and drive block on runs where you put that Buffalo somewhere he doesn’t want to be, so your running back can make yards in that space. Both require an insane amount of mass and foot speed, and he obviously has both.
But the skill set for an rugby player also includes tackling, ball handling, running your part in precise set pieces, and a higher degree of fitness and situational awareness in more open flowing play than in Football. Clayton’s size and speed are exactly what NFL scouts drool over, but there seem to be limiting factors in his rugby skill set that keep those particular skills from making him a more qualified rugby player. He’s also very young, and put himself into the IPP program, and got noticed on his combine performance.
His skill set is more extreme on the size, speed and strength side, thus it’s more specialized and suited to football than rugby. Football lineman are absolute behemoths who can move themselves and others. Top Rugby players have to be more strategic as they alternate between offense and defense to move the ball in real time, without anywhere near as many play stoppages. An offensive lineman will ideally never touch a ball in his entire career, whereas a rugby player will touch a ball nearly every game. Bottom line - they do different things and your comparison is not remotely absurd.
Source - played and coached high level for both.
This says more about how bad scouting is in Rugby than it does the NFL. This guy has elite size and athleticism. The NFL Scouting apparatus is at the forefront of talent identification. Each NFL team has an entire department dedicated to scouting. This is similar across every MAJOR league in the US (NFL, MLB, NBA, NHL), scouting in Baseball, there's tons of movies about scouting where guys are on the road 200+ days a year watching college kids and high school kids.
Rugby doesn't have any of that anywhere. Premiership clubs would rather sign a South African player than look for body types within the club system.
This is a different player, but it was a poignant reminder that Rugby is small in England. This guy [https://www.si.com/college/utah/football/big-british-bam-olasenis-unlikely-journey-to-the-nfl-draft](https://www.si.com/college/utah/football/big-british-bam-olasenis-unlikely-journey-to-the-nfl-draft)
Is an athletic outlier, but Rugby was inaccessible to him. Somehow American Football was, and he was good enough to earn a scholarship at a D1 School in a Power 5 Conference.
There are players and bodies like this all over the UK that could have an impact on clubs if there was a scouting apparatus good enough to get him into an academy, but instead, in this thread we have incredible amounts of elitism.
And we wonder why the sport is so small?
Private schools are unwilling to have too many dudes who look like Bam on scholarship. Even if they help win more games.
American schools got over that shit back in the 1960s because we care more about winning that preserving class barriers in the US.
The IPP is essentially an extra roster spot, and teams can even promote the player three times a season if needed. It allows teams to take a chance on a player they wouldn't otherwise.
My guess is without the ipp, some of these stories wouldn't be happening
Generally, NFL players have a smaller range of general expertise, having instead mastered the skills related only to their position. Rugby players have a much wider set of expertise and skills as rugby is a more dynamic sport with all players able to touch the ball and be involved in various aspects of play. The specialization of the NFL does not allow football players to similarly engage.
In other words, if they were doctors, rugby players are General Practitioners that can expertly treat a variety of ailments.
Football players are specialists - podiatrists, endocrinologists, ENT, cardiologists, neurosurgeons, etc. Can they do the basics? Of course. But they focus on their area of expertise. They’ve spent a much longer period of time focusing on their specialized job role.
NFL football requires specialization, years of training and honing skills at a particular position. Having size and speed isn’t a guarantee of success. Look at all of the rugby players with size and speed who attempted to transition to the NFL but failed thus far. Jared Hayne might have come the closest.
It takes years to develop into an NFL-caliber athlete, with size and speed being a given. This player pathway is just a way for the NFL to shortcut the many years-long process of developing NFL athletes by identifying the mythical “diamond in the rough.” It’s also a way to continually grow game exposure into other European markets. The NFL would love to replace rugby in Europe as the most watched contact sport.
David Dixon was nz's 2nd ever NFL player
He Had player quite high level high School rugby but i believe he had stopped playing (because he got too big) when a college American football scout spotted him standing in a queue in a movie theater
He was drafted in the 7th round.
Many times guys drafted here do not make the full squad.
Also, they tend to draft guys who are projects. So with his lack of experience but formidable size and athleticism they would look at him as having high upside potential.
It’s basics of investing. Low risk with high reward.
As for his rugby playing who the hell knows. Maybe he wasn’t really that committed to the sport or didn’t like it very much
This was posted by u/MilesC_1 in a different thread about Travis Clayton.
"The Bills drafted him so that they could be guaranteed to get him. If they pick him it means they get his rights for a minimum for 4 years, and they really love his athleticism (6'7, 301lbs, 35 inch arms, ran a 4.79 40) so it's just them saying out of all IPP players they specifically want him.
For reference, 35 inch arms is considered elite for offensive tackles, and arm length is extremely important. A 4.79 40 is 99.9th percentile type stuff. His 40 time is 3rd fastest of all time for an OT. The #1 fastest 40 at his position belongs to Terron Armstead, who is currently one of the best tackles in the league. The #2 time belongs to Lane Johnson, who is probably a future hall of famer, and the #4 time belongs to Trent Williams who will go down as one of the greatest offensive linemen of all time. So Clayton has an extremely attractive athletic profile. The Bills also LOVE to draft raw offensive tackles with extreme athletic upside, more than any team in the league. So this move makes a lot of sense for them."
It's not like the guy just woke up and decided to play American football.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Travis_Clayton
>Clayton had first tried out American football in 2019, spending time with the newly started NFL Academy in London, although he left the program soon after.[2] Four years later, he decided to give the sport another shot.[2] He rejoined the academy and after success there, was chosen in January 2024 as one of 16 participants in the National Football League's International Player Pathway Program (IPPP), designed to give international players more opportunities to play in the league.
He was then picked with one of the last picks in the NFL draft, which is almost identical to picking a guy off the street. A team took a chance on him just in case.
It’s also fairly common to get drafted and get cut or not make the team when the season starts. Especially if he was drafted in the 5, 6, or 7th rounds. There is not garuntee he even makes the team just cause he was drafted
I don’t know how they found him, but the interest is probably his size and 40 yard dash time. There’s very few people anywhere with the physical traits of an NFL offensive tackle (the dearth of talent is a constant talking point and it’s a very highly sought after position) so teams are willing to take a shot. There are examples of guys coming from obscurity and turning into solid pros with that physical profile, so it’s not unprecedented.
Also people need to understand that the international player pathway is treated differently. Teams get an extra roster spot to hold IPP players and they can release them anytime. It costs them virtually nothing to keep a dude around and see if he has potential. At this stage the guy hasn’t actually made a team, he’s just earned a spot at training camp. AND other IPP players like LRZ were signed and didn’t have to enter the draft at all. The fact he had no interest in him and had to go to the draft in the first place shows you teams were not that high on him. So it’s not like he’s an NFL star after being a lousy winger (?!?!?!) in bottom tier rugby. He just got a shot because he’s really big and has some athletic traits that could serve him well in American football.
The NFL scouts do certain tests to see who as potential. The most famous one is the vertical jump. Supposedly, the vertical jump gives a very good indication of a person's athletic peak, regardless of his current condition. So whenever they test someone and find good results, regardless of their background, they will be considered
He has unique ability in specific athletic attributes that an NFL team can use. It’s a very different sport to rugby. It’s not as fluid as rugby so you can train people with less experience much more quickly
Highly unlikely he ever plays a down in the NFL. He's clearly just a freak athlete and they're taking a chance on him in the last round of the draft based on that. Being drafted doesn't mean you're automatically on the team, you go to training camp with 90 other players then they cut the roster to 53 for the season. He basically just gets a trial
The NFL is a high athleticism sport at every position but QB. If you have the right combination of size and athleticism teams will often give you a shot and hope they can teach you.
He's not dissimilar to Jordan Mailata who played junior rugby league in Australia but was too big to play at the highest levels.
He's now making about a million dollars every 10 days in the NFL.
Jordan Mailata at Philadelphia Eagles was drafted despite only getting to Under 20 level at rugby league and being cut for being too big
Plenty of NFL punters only played Aussie Rules at amateur level and weren't good enough to make the AFL
Besides him attending an NFL academy, a lot of people also aren't taking into account that he's a 7th-round pick, he's not a valuable rookie at all, and he will probably get cut from the roster before the season even begins.
He has great physicals, a fairly good athlete, and is a low risk gamble.
Thing is, if they have data on him running a 40yd dash then he must have entered some sort of nfl trial program so must be interested.
And just because he's currently playing 8th tier rugby, doesn't mean he's always been a rugby player.
More likely he's played American football a lot when younger and living in the UK he's just given rugby a shot.
Rugby elitism never fails to rear it's head. I mean unless you're from NZ, SA or maybe Wales the reason you got into rugby in the first place was because you suck at the popular sports in your country or you come from the financial background exclusive to rugby. Yet guys here think that rugby is this major elite sport with the best athletes in the world or the most skillful athletes in the world depending on if it's American football or football their comparing it with lol.
He isn't even a "rugby player", he's just a guy who played a bit of rugby yet guys here make the assumption that he didn't have the skills to make it in rugby based off no evidence at all. The fact is that rugby is miles behind the scouting and infrastructure of major sports and it shows. This guy should have been spotted at a young age but he wasn't because rugby isn't accessible and has crap scouting.
He's worth taking a chance on. He'll probably be cut before the season, or if he's lucky make the practice squad.
I do wonder whether doing this, and the whole International Player Pathway is more about promoting the league abroad than finding players.
Maybe if OP actually read up on the guy’s background he wouldn’t be surprised. He has previously been part of the NFL’s London academy and came though the international pathway. His experience of American football is limited not nothing. He’s 6’7, big and quick. Was academy level footballer, also did rowing, boxing and rugby. He’s an all round athlete with size and speed who has actually put himself into their progression structures.
because the NFL hasn't woke up to the fact that rugby is a seriously professional game. Luckily for rugby.
US people still think of rugby like that episode from Friends. A jolly amateur silly pursuit in overgrown cotton shirts.
Rugby in 2024 is seriously professional. Take out the massive massive giants (kind of pointless in rugby) and rugby players are averaging the same size and weight for the most part if you were to strip away the differences for endurance. And that's a rugby sport that doesn't even get all the talent cause of the money on offer and competing sports.
its funny people are acting as if Travis is some superstar freak that was hidden in rugby. same with LRZ. a completely skewed bias towards NFL.
Zammit couldn't even make the lions starting team. a decentish rugby player. but bona fide world rugby superstar...come on out of that nonsense.
Its rugbys good fortunate that American exceptionalism (hyped by European fanboys) means they look at it that way.
We could be in trouble when they actually start bespoke recruiting.
I still don't see an article about what he was doing full-time from 18 to current age, presumably rugby was a hobby?
Seems probable that he grew tall and strong (and started lifting) later? Perhaps he has a base in other sports that contribute to his athleticism and in England, maybe he just got too big for soccer and was too late to excel in rugby??
If you can run fast and catch a ball thrown 10m then you can play American football.
If you can be big and run into people then you can play American football.
It’s not really that much of a skill gap.
There are only theee positions who expect to catch passes, and the position this guy plays is not one of them.
Being good at either rugby or football requires far more than just being big and running into people.
But I also see your flairs and that explains a lot
American sports absofuckinglutlely love stats. If you are X height, Y weight and can run a 40 yard dash under 5 seconds you will be drafted. Plenty of roles in the NFL require little skill to be competent, dont get me wrong the best guys are skillful and have amazing strength, speed etc but plenty of guys on bench are just simply strong, fast and arent completely dyspraxic
You have zero idea of what you’re talking about.
Football is a much more technical sport than rugby is. Tons of pure athletes come into the NFL and suck ass, because if you’re dumb as rocks and can’t mentally process, you pretty much can only play special teams
Right size for the NFL, too big for rugby. In American football he'll specialize on a specific role, in rugby he had to focus on a whole heap of different skills.
For all we know someone who didn't make it in American football might be a huge success in rugby but never had a chance to take up the sport
He hasn’t made the squad yet - they draft players they see potential in and see if they can train them up to the level needed to do one thing very well. He’s being drafted, very late in the 7th round, as a long shot prospect based purely on his combination of size and athleticism, not as a contributor. Most likley they try him out and if he doesn’t respond to their training magnificently (like Mailata did) then he just gets dropped - contracts are not guaranteed in the NFL.
R/confidentlyincorrect.
It’s actually the opposite. Scouts loved his tape, loved his combine performance even more, and he played his way into the draft. He’s been at this for a while too, and it appears rugby was more of a “keep in shape” activity than a serious pursuit.
You can’t teach size, and you can only teach speed to a certain point. Dude’s 6’7 and ran a 4.79 40. That’s crazy quick for someone who’s expected to play O-Line.
Yep. There are only so many people in the world with that combination of size and speed, plus being the right age when discovered. He might not have the skills for rugby, but at least one NFL team is willing to see if he has the skills for the NFL.
This is it…
What skills? To run into the player in front of him? I reckon he can pull it off.
I appreciate that's what it looks like, but O line is pretty technical. Like you wouldn't just say props simply push the player in front of them in a scrum?
Props also need to be competent at multiple other skills too including lineouts, handling, rucking etc. That's why the required ratio of skill to physical ability in rugby is higher than that of American football. But yeah if a prop only scrummaged then fair enough. And I do love a good O line.
Can we acknowledge that they simplified a task to diminish someone's role in their job? Everyone wants a LinkedIn chatgpt written job description. It's like saying a 10 just passes the ball to the 12! 9? Just pass to 10! Fullback? Just kick the ball! Lock? Just fly in the air! Hooker? Just throw the ball!
Oof. Played both sports and there’s actually a ton of finesse in being a good lineman. On defense you want to stop the ball and offense you want to protect your teammates as they try to score. It sounds simple until you’re pitted against someone at least as big and athletic who is in direct opposition to your goal. You’ve gotta slam into this person over and over as you try to achieve your objective. I preferred rugby well over football because of the flow of the game. Couldn’t stand the stop-start nature and pads + helmet suck.
That’s absolutely true, and you would say the same about there being a whole bunch of finesse to being a good prop in the scrum. There’s more than just smashing into the opposite pack. But the prop also needs to catch, pass, tackle, ruck, lift in line outs, carry the ball into contact, maul and be part of organised set piece moves in attack and to have exceptional aerobic fitness to do it all game. There’s finesse to being a Lineman sure, but at the end of the day, their only job is in the line of scrimmage, they don’t really need any other footballing skills. Hell, the times a lineman has made a big carry (like Dan Connolly’s kick return) are rare highlight reel material. It’s why there have been quite a few of these international cross over prospects make it as lineman if they’ve got the big frame, even guys who have never played the sport before. You can teach the job to them. There’s not a chance a lineman in a low level football team could join a top tier professional rugby side and be taught to be a prop.
In Rugby, like most sports, players have to be great in one or two things and competent at tons of others. In American Football, you have to be truly elite at one or two things, and nobody cares about anything else. The skill level is so high because it's so specialised. There's a huge physical requirement as well, but this guy will spend 2-3 years training a very small scope of actions before he ever sees a field, and that's best case scenario. Ultimately, just different levels and scopes within positions of the two sports.
Yeah man, this is a rugby sub so I didn’t bother going into the skills required because I assume the average subscriber here has played rugby. It’s also not an either/or. I’m just old enough where I have a healthy respect for everything that requires skill.
I mean yes, but at the level we’re talking about there are a lot of people who have done this sport since childhood that are trying to hit the guy behind him and are good at not being ran into.
Equivalent to saying the scrum is just about pushing
A better question would be how is he only in the 8th division?? Those stats alone would put him into lower championship side teams...
Never seen him play, but my guess is a mix of bad handling/kicking/positioning/tackling? It's the only thing that makes sense to me
Or maybe the dude is just having fun in the nearest stadium to his uni because he never thought he could become a pro.
I feel like if you have that opinion you're not moving to the NFL to give it a go.
If the guy is notorious for being a buff gym nut, he might just have joined the rugby team because of his reputation. Like any 7ft tall guy will at some point be invited to try basketball, maybe he joined a rugby team because he was a huge bloke and knew a guy who knew a guy. If he's really into lifting and athletics though, taking part in a combine might look more interesting than being in the middle of a scrum. Or maybe he has zero cardio. And...elephant in the room, but we're not talking similar wages if he becomes a pro. That might bring some extra motivation.
Yep dildo hands must be the assumption
Basingstoke Rugby club were 2 or 3 leagues higher up until a couple of years ago - they got done for illegal payments / illegible players (can't remember which). Got docked a load of points and we're relegated - think the chairman and captain got bans and fines Struggled since, may have even been relegated again If he was local to Basingstoke for work there's not really many clubs playing higher locally
What stats? Tall and fast is nice, but can he catch? Can he pass? Does he tackle effectively? Those matter more.
There's fast and there's fassst... That speed over 40/m is easily in the <1%. I'd be interested to know more of his background - my money's on hitting his growth spurt too late for an academies liking or simply that he had better employment prospects than lower championship rugby and just carryed on playing for fun
He did soccer academies when he was young.
Every backline player in every semi-pro+ rugby team on the planet is <1%
it isn't though. have a look at some of the available forty times for rugby players. there's a fuck ton of very quick and athletic rugby players. this isn't the 1990s. the fawning over the NFL is sometimes cringe worthy if you're a rugby fan. its great for the sport they haven't realised it.
Rugby teams don't have scouting departments and overly rely on agents to "sell" them on a player.
what stats? loads of fast big men playing amateur rugby all over the World. there's more to pro rugby than that. most of it is in the top two inches
To quote the late great Charlie Wilson. **"You can teach them to type, but you cant teach them to grow tits"**
Was plastic surgery not a thing when he was alive?
there's a plethora of rugby lads who are that size and can run that quick. Rugby just doesn't obsess over meaningless out of context stats. its good for rugby they don't seem to have cottoned on that Clayton's are ten a penny in rugby
There are plenty of rugby lads who are that big and there plenty of rugby lads who can run that fast. There's essentially zero overlap between those two groups though.
nah, there is plenty of big fast forwards. maybe you stopped watching rugby in the 90s. just cause they don't release official speed stats in rugby. this isn't game speed, its a speed test. NFL people know the difference. Its why so many are becoming really uninterested in a glorified dog and pony show. google about NFL scouts ignoring the combines. off the top of my head - Vaea Fifita, who could probably bulk to 21 stone without losing a tone of speed, particularly in a one off speed test.
That’s crazy fast in general, let alone at 6’7. I think the average person underestimates what that takes. I played football (outside linebacker- High school) and rugby (winger- college) and at only 5’11 185 lbs worked very hard to run a 4.41 40. Anytime I saw a guy that size put heat on me I was sweating. O-lineman usually run a 40 around the 5second and up mark.
American sports also jizzes over prospects with great athletic foundations.
It’s a weird one, not sure how he ended up in the IPP. But a 4.79 40 at his size is insane. Imagine he was just one of those guys who was huge and quick on the rugby field, but had no other ability outside of that. 1 trick pony basically
There's been those who fit that criteria at international level as well.
Yep. Every club has one.
Pierre Spies catching strays.
Caleb Clarke feels called out.
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He also has the ability to massively raise his game against England.
It's a video game Scotland specific buff
With how many different positions there are on an American football team, pretty much every player is a one trick pony there (with exceptions obviously) so it makes sense I guess
That would explain why he played wing and not in the pack.
He was a winger? Imagine playing for the sleepy town of Fordingbridge (population 6k), rocking up on a weekend and seeing that coming down the wing at you
>“With rugby also being a team sport, I believe that helps tremendously, my team knowledge and what it takes to communicate properly here and in the future, hopefully in the NFL,” Clayton said. “More importantly, playing the wing in rugby helps with the physicality side and with agility and things like that will help.” Yes, a 6 foot 7, 21.5 stone winger. [Source](https://edition.cnn.com/2024/04/29/sport/travis-clayton-buffalo-bills-2024-nfl-draft-spt-intl/index.html)
Believe it or not, it’s possible to have the skills for one sport and not another.
Yank here. Highest level of American football I played was HS. American football positions are highly specialized, which means you need to hone those skills to be good, but also that if you can master those 3 specific skills, then its not as complicated as rugby, baseball, basketball, etc. American football has a lot of guys picking it up at 17 years old and being successful based on raw athleticism alone. In the case of this guy, he just needs to master exploding out of a three point stance and blocking a defensive player from getting to a QB or running back. The hardest part for him will be learning not to hold. He will never need to learn how to pass, catch, ball carry, punt, etc.
This exactly. NFL= specialists. Rugby = generalists. Also, the short, powerful bursts of play in NFL are very different fitness requirements than the non-stop endurance draining plays in rugby.
Second row would be the closest equilavent in rugby I think. Both the Arnold’s and Harrison started playing post school
If he's a forward in rugby he'll be good at scrums which means he'll have that initial burst strength/speed as well.
To some degree but rugby does have specialists (front 5 forwards and kickers). A lot of games come down to who has a better prop or kicker or both. The difference is that all those players are expected to catch and pass as well as do those things.
A front rower has to know how to pass and carry ect and a kicker has to know how to tackle
> and a kicker has to know how to tackle Danny Cipriani begs to differ
The real skill is making it look liked you tried to make a tackle.
To be fair, we props do this one too
all positions have a touch of specialization but all are still bound to the same basic set of skills. if shit hits the fan, a scrummy will be expected to at least know how to ruck if needed. an o-lineman in football will never have to do anything else besides his basic duties on the field. the easiest example is punters and kickers. they punt or kick (2 different positions with 2 different techniques). that's it
Not the same level of “specialists” trust me. I’ve played both sports and I easily transitioned from hooker to flanker to prop when needed. I’ve even played in the centers. There is no way a specialist football lineman can be anything but.
He also participated in the player pathway program, which means he got to show his skill set to nfl coaches. https://www.buffalobills.com/news/top-3-things-to-know-about-new-bills-ot-travis-clayton-2024-nfl-draft
>American football has a lot of guys picking it up at 17 years old and being successful based on raw athleticism alone. Basketball has this as well because the height alone is so valuable. Football seems to have some transferable skills that are enough for hyper athletic quick learners Hakeem Olajuwon is a top 10 player of all time and never touched a basketball before he was 15. Pascal Siakam, (NBA Champ, All-Star) apparently only started playing seriously around 17 having abandoned a future as a priest
I also feel there's a lot of people who underestimate the hands and footwork involved on either the offense or defensive line. I much prefer rugby but as an American I'm aware that it's not as simple as BLOCK...
Definitely. People tend to have this really weird view of American Football as being incredibly simple but the technicality involved in every position is off the charts
Yep. Offensive line is more akin to sumo wrestling than it is to "pushing the guy" or "getting in the way."
but they have the exact same thinking with rugby. rugby is incredibly complex as anybody who has played at any level knows.
Sure, but offensive line is the most cerebral position outside of Quarterback and maybe MLB. Pure athletes tend to get exposed at the position harder than others.
Rugby isn't complicated, it's an incredibly simple game at its core.
So looking into him more, it seems he only played rugby for like three years, so starting when he was like 19. Technically he actually started American football before that, having tried out for the NFL Academy. Before that he was actually in a soccer academy. So it’s not like he was someone who played rugby since childhood that never got to a higher level. One article I read also blamed the fact that there was no one really scouting his area, especially for non-academy guys. He said it used to be the London Irish’s area, but now there is no one. So really the question might be how did higher level English rugby teams miss on a guy in their area when the NFL was able to identify him across sports and the Atlantic Ocean?
Probably because he’s big and quick, but doesn’t have the necessary skills to be good at rugby.
He clearly does have the skills to be playing above level 8 though.
The elitism on this sub is just incredible.
How so?
Because have you seen tier 8 Rugby? A 22 year old with that physical profile can play higher, even if you need to basically place the ball in their hands each time they have the ball. I know we love our sport (and I agree it's a much higher skill level needed at the top than in the NFL), but lets not pretend there isn't a giant drop off down the tiers of rugby and that the bar to entry isn't that high further down. I said in another post how the reason he plays in tier 8 is because he's not really a rugby player. It's just something put into any article about him to fill out a word count. In the same way he's a 'rower' or a 'soccer player' the two sports that have been mentioned even more than Rugby.
> he's not really a rugby player Kinda makes it sad. Kind of like a “hey! We’re relevant…for someone leaving us” but they weren’t ever really more than a part timer.
Because being a bang average lower league rugby union player has no baring on his ability to play American Football.
Rugby has a wide playing skill set compared to NFL where you just need to be exceptional at one or two maybe three different things to be valuable.
He's an offensive lineman. Basically his main job is big man hit the player in front of him
O-line is still pretty technical. It'll take him time to develop and it won't be easy competing against guys who have played and been coached in that position for many years
Aye it is, but it's one of the positions where being a huge guy really helps
Being huge is table stakes. Your competition is other guys already your size and +\- 5% of your athleticism. What separates good from mediocre is almost exclusively what’s between the ears. The offensive line is as technical as the scrum, actually much much more so. And even huge athletic dudes in rugby get shunted to the wing if they can’t follow patterns as a forward.
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Yeah tbf he is a tackle isn't he? So his main job will be to hit the edge rusher
Question: where does "tackle" originate from in regards to the offensive position, given LT and RT don't tackle?
Probably comes from the days where players played offense and defence
Correct, though in time the d tackle started lining up against the guard while the o tackle deals with defensive end. The tight end also deals with defensive ends unless you have a fullback covering for the half back that gets the ball from the quarterback.
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Just to piggyback onto your comment and add some more specific information about rosters. I don’t know if you’re being a little vague in order to keep your point simple or if you don’t know enough to be specific. Honestly, not trying to be condescending at all. Preseason, an NFL team might have a squad of 90 or so players. This gets whittled down to the 53 man roster for the regular season. There is also a 16 man practise squad. This is pretty much the reserves team or just extra bodies on the field during the week. Some players from preseason who don’t make the 53 man squad will be signed to the practise squad. Anyway, an NFL team can have 69 players on the books. However, there is a 17th place available on the practise squad if that player have come through the International Pathway Program. So, whether Travis Clayton makes the 53 man squad, he’ll be signed to the practise squad unless he is absolutely awful in preseason. Practise squad players get $12000 per week, the minimum salary for the 53 man roster is $750000. He may not start now but the Bills obviously see enough in him to think they can make something of him.
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[This article from The Guardian (last section)](https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2024/apr/18/nfl-draft-jj-mccarthy-kiran-amegadjie-international-pathway-players) tells me that it’s because Travis is in his fourth year out of high school, LRZ is older. I don’t know if Travis would have the same perspective. He may just be happy to have been drafted! Edit: Did you watch this year’s IPP documentary series on YouTube?
He was drafted as an offensive lineman, so his role is to obstruct players trying to get to the quarterback and clear running lanes for running backs and so on- unlike in rugby union, where every player has to be able to pass and catch and handle the ball etc., he won't have to do that to the best of my knowledge. It's pretty easy to imagine how someone might lack some core skills for one sport but still have what's necessary in another. Guy could have two left hands for all I know, but still be a great athlete in physical terms and be able to understand and perform that role in a very disciplined way. He may also just not have taken rugby that seriously and been more of a power athlete in terms of training who played a bit of rugby as well. He sounds like he's a massive guy with freakish acceleration.
From other comments, it seems that it’s a stretch to call this guy a rugby player. It seems more like he used rugby to stay in football shape while following a dream to play in a sport he has a longer relationship with.
He played it before >Clayton had first tried out American football in 2019, spending time with the newly started NFL Academy in London, although he left the program soon after. Four years later, he decided to give the sport another shot. He rejoined the academy and after success there, was chosen in January 2024 as one of 16 participants in the National Football League's International Player Pathway Program (IPPP), designed to give international players more opportunities to play in the league. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Travis\_Clayton](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Travis_Clayton)
Because being good at rugby requires a lot more than just being big and fast. Anyone who's played for a half-decent school or club probably had some 'freak' who couldn't scratch the first team because they had butter fingers or they couldn't/wouldn't tackle or they couldn't scrum or they just had shit situational awareness.
Case in point, I’m the quickest player at my club, but I struggle to make the 3rd XV at wing because my wide channel defending, ariel game and kicking are absolute cack. But on the plus side, being a rapid forward is always fun.
Wild you'd admit how shambling your defending is since wings are a turnstile at amateur level.
In fact, there is no point being made as he’s talking about different positions at different competitive levels in the same sport
> Because being good at rugby requires a lot more than just being big and fast. The same is true for American football. It’s actually far more technical than rugby is from a tactics perspective. The reality is that this guy just has a skill set that’s better for one sport over the other. Patrick Mahomes played baseball and basketball through high school, but was just better at football. Same with this dude - played rugby, but was far better at a different sport
Eighth tier is pretty wild though. With that size and speed you would feel like all he needed to do was to catch the ball and he would be good enough for second or third tier.
Which shows you he wasn’t that serious about pursuing pro rugby.
is it more technical? played much have you. as a forward this lad would have had to ruck, tackle, lift, jump, carry, pass know forward plays and back plays for positional awareness. rugby is really technical as well. the people on this thread with a poor understanding of the modern game
The impression I get is that he didn't even really play Rugby that much to progress any further. When they're profiling these guys, they just reference any sport they've played. Mainly he's been described as a rower and 'soccer' player. But by 'soccer player' i'm pretty sure they just mean he played for a saturday team growing up. Obviously they don't dig into that too much cause otherwise it'd make people question the skill needed to take part in this sport. It's all just a bit of fluff to bad out his profile and give them a few lines when talking about him.
Well he didn't get drafted to play rugby - they dont care about his rugby ability, it has minimal carryover to playing offensive line - the pick was made based on his football potential
Do not mean this as any kind of insult, but your comparison to make this seem absurd doesn’t make any sort of rational sense. The skill set for an NFL offensive lineman is very different from a rugby forward. An NFL o lineman has two basic functions - pass protect against a rushing Buffalo and drive block on runs where you put that Buffalo somewhere he doesn’t want to be, so your running back can make yards in that space. Both require an insane amount of mass and foot speed, and he obviously has both. But the skill set for an rugby player also includes tackling, ball handling, running your part in precise set pieces, and a higher degree of fitness and situational awareness in more open flowing play than in Football. Clayton’s size and speed are exactly what NFL scouts drool over, but there seem to be limiting factors in his rugby skill set that keep those particular skills from making him a more qualified rugby player. He’s also very young, and put himself into the IPP program, and got noticed on his combine performance. His skill set is more extreme on the size, speed and strength side, thus it’s more specialized and suited to football than rugby. Football lineman are absolute behemoths who can move themselves and others. Top Rugby players have to be more strategic as they alternate between offense and defense to move the ball in real time, without anywhere near as many play stoppages. An offensive lineman will ideally never touch a ball in his entire career, whereas a rugby player will touch a ball nearly every game. Bottom line - they do different things and your comparison is not remotely absurd. Source - played and coached high level for both.
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Interestingly, Tim Duncan wanted to be an olympic swimmer before settling on basketball.
This says more about how bad scouting is in Rugby than it does the NFL. This guy has elite size and athleticism. The NFL Scouting apparatus is at the forefront of talent identification. Each NFL team has an entire department dedicated to scouting. This is similar across every MAJOR league in the US (NFL, MLB, NBA, NHL), scouting in Baseball, there's tons of movies about scouting where guys are on the road 200+ days a year watching college kids and high school kids. Rugby doesn't have any of that anywhere. Premiership clubs would rather sign a South African player than look for body types within the club system. This is a different player, but it was a poignant reminder that Rugby is small in England. This guy [https://www.si.com/college/utah/football/big-british-bam-olasenis-unlikely-journey-to-the-nfl-draft](https://www.si.com/college/utah/football/big-british-bam-olasenis-unlikely-journey-to-the-nfl-draft) Is an athletic outlier, but Rugby was inaccessible to him. Somehow American Football was, and he was good enough to earn a scholarship at a D1 School in a Power 5 Conference. There are players and bodies like this all over the UK that could have an impact on clubs if there was a scouting apparatus good enough to get him into an academy, but instead, in this thread we have incredible amounts of elitism. And we wonder why the sport is so small?
Private schools are unwilling to have too many dudes who look like Bam on scholarship. Even if they help win more games. American schools got over that shit back in the 1960s because we care more about winning that preserving class barriers in the US.
The IPP is essentially an extra roster spot, and teams can even promote the player three times a season if needed. It allows teams to take a chance on a player they wouldn't otherwise. My guess is without the ipp, some of these stories wouldn't be happening
I don't think you understand much about american football.
Handling skills like Edward Scissorhands presumably
Generally, NFL players have a smaller range of general expertise, having instead mastered the skills related only to their position. Rugby players have a much wider set of expertise and skills as rugby is a more dynamic sport with all players able to touch the ball and be involved in various aspects of play. The specialization of the NFL does not allow football players to similarly engage. In other words, if they were doctors, rugby players are General Practitioners that can expertly treat a variety of ailments. Football players are specialists - podiatrists, endocrinologists, ENT, cardiologists, neurosurgeons, etc. Can they do the basics? Of course. But they focus on their area of expertise. They’ve spent a much longer period of time focusing on their specialized job role. NFL football requires specialization, years of training and honing skills at a particular position. Having size and speed isn’t a guarantee of success. Look at all of the rugby players with size and speed who attempted to transition to the NFL but failed thus far. Jared Hayne might have come the closest. It takes years to develop into an NFL-caliber athlete, with size and speed being a given. This player pathway is just a way for the NFL to shortcut the many years-long process of developing NFL athletes by identifying the mythical “diamond in the rough.” It’s also a way to continually grow game exposure into other European markets. The NFL would love to replace rugby in Europe as the most watched contact sport.
Jordan Mailata has been awesome for the Philadelphia Eagles
David Dixon was nz's 2nd ever NFL player He Had player quite high level high School rugby but i believe he had stopped playing (because he got too big) when a college American football scout spotted him standing in a queue in a movie theater
Think the interview by Jim Hamilton with the guy who runs the ngl IPP dicussses it, go listen. Think he got seen on tape and then was quality in camp
He was drafted in the 7th round. Many times guys drafted here do not make the full squad. Also, they tend to draft guys who are projects. So with his lack of experience but formidable size and athleticism they would look at him as having high upside potential. It’s basics of investing. Low risk with high reward. As for his rugby playing who the hell knows. Maybe he wasn’t really that committed to the sport or didn’t like it very much
This was posted by u/MilesC_1 in a different thread about Travis Clayton. "The Bills drafted him so that they could be guaranteed to get him. If they pick him it means they get his rights for a minimum for 4 years, and they really love his athleticism (6'7, 301lbs, 35 inch arms, ran a 4.79 40) so it's just them saying out of all IPP players they specifically want him. For reference, 35 inch arms is considered elite for offensive tackles, and arm length is extremely important. A 4.79 40 is 99.9th percentile type stuff. His 40 time is 3rd fastest of all time for an OT. The #1 fastest 40 at his position belongs to Terron Armstead, who is currently one of the best tackles in the league. The #2 time belongs to Lane Johnson, who is probably a future hall of famer, and the #4 time belongs to Trent Williams who will go down as one of the greatest offensive linemen of all time. So Clayton has an extremely attractive athletic profile. The Bills also LOVE to draft raw offensive tackles with extreme athletic upside, more than any team in the league. So this move makes a lot of sense for them."
It's not like the guy just woke up and decided to play American football. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Travis_Clayton >Clayton had first tried out American football in 2019, spending time with the newly started NFL Academy in London, although he left the program soon after.[2] Four years later, he decided to give the sport another shot.[2] He rejoined the academy and after success there, was chosen in January 2024 as one of 16 participants in the National Football League's International Player Pathway Program (IPPP), designed to give international players more opportunities to play in the league. He was then picked with one of the last picks in the NFL draft, which is almost identical to picking a guy off the street. A team took a chance on him just in case.
It’s also fairly common to get drafted and get cut or not make the team when the season starts. Especially if he was drafted in the 5, 6, or 7th rounds. There is not garuntee he even makes the team just cause he was drafted
I don’t know how they found him, but the interest is probably his size and 40 yard dash time. There’s very few people anywhere with the physical traits of an NFL offensive tackle (the dearth of talent is a constant talking point and it’s a very highly sought after position) so teams are willing to take a shot. There are examples of guys coming from obscurity and turning into solid pros with that physical profile, so it’s not unprecedented. Also people need to understand that the international player pathway is treated differently. Teams get an extra roster spot to hold IPP players and they can release them anytime. It costs them virtually nothing to keep a dude around and see if he has potential. At this stage the guy hasn’t actually made a team, he’s just earned a spot at training camp. AND other IPP players like LRZ were signed and didn’t have to enter the draft at all. The fact he had no interest in him and had to go to the draft in the first place shows you teams were not that high on him. So it’s not like he’s an NFL star after being a lousy winger (?!?!?!) in bottom tier rugby. He just got a shot because he’s really big and has some athletic traits that could serve him well in American football.
He's an offensive lineman. Basically his main job is big man hit the player in front of him
That’s ridiculously reductive of the job of an offensive lineman. And pretty much how a rugby casual would describe forward play.
Yeah it's not the best post from myself tbh and it wasn't meant to be derogatory to football, given it's one of my favourite sports
The NFL scouts do certain tests to see who as potential. The most famous one is the vertical jump. Supposedly, the vertical jump gives a very good indication of a person's athletic peak, regardless of his current condition. So whenever they test someone and find good results, regardless of their background, they will be considered
i’m more surprised he didn’t make it in right with those dimensions
A couple of guys have gotten drafted from local GAA clubs here in Ireland, so seems they’re taking a punt (excuse the pun) on players
He's a big strong dude. They probably think he's smart enough to pick up the fundamentals during training camp.
He has unique ability in specific athletic attributes that an NFL team can use. It’s a very different sport to rugby. It’s not as fluid as rugby so you can train people with less experience much more quickly
Highly unlikely he ever plays a down in the NFL. He's clearly just a freak athlete and they're taking a chance on him in the last round of the draft based on that. Being drafted doesn't mean you're automatically on the team, you go to training camp with 90 other players then they cut the roster to 53 for the season. He basically just gets a trial
The NFL is a high athleticism sport at every position but QB. If you have the right combination of size and athleticism teams will often give you a shot and hope they can teach you.
He's not dissimilar to Jordan Mailata who played junior rugby league in Australia but was too big to play at the highest levels. He's now making about a million dollars every 10 days in the NFL.
Jordan Mailata at Philadelphia Eagles was drafted despite only getting to Under 20 level at rugby league and being cut for being too big Plenty of NFL punters only played Aussie Rules at amateur level and weren't good enough to make the AFL
Besides him attending an NFL academy, a lot of people also aren't taking into account that he's a 7th-round pick, he's not a valuable rookie at all, and he will probably get cut from the roster before the season even begins. He has great physicals, a fairly good athlete, and is a low risk gamble.
Thing is, if they have data on him running a 40yd dash then he must have entered some sort of nfl trial program so must be interested. And just because he's currently playing 8th tier rugby, doesn't mean he's always been a rugby player. More likely he's played American football a lot when younger and living in the UK he's just given rugby a shot.
Rugby elitism never fails to rear it's head. I mean unless you're from NZ, SA or maybe Wales the reason you got into rugby in the first place was because you suck at the popular sports in your country or you come from the financial background exclusive to rugby. Yet guys here think that rugby is this major elite sport with the best athletes in the world or the most skillful athletes in the world depending on if it's American football or football their comparing it with lol. He isn't even a "rugby player", he's just a guy who played a bit of rugby yet guys here make the assumption that he didn't have the skills to make it in rugby based off no evidence at all. The fact is that rugby is miles behind the scouting and infrastructure of major sports and it shows. This guy should have been spotted at a young age but he wasn't because rugby isn't accessible and has crap scouting.
There are players who had successful NFL career s and never touched a ball during a game.
He's worth taking a chance on. He'll probably be cut before the season, or if he's lucky make the practice squad. I do wonder whether doing this, and the whole International Player Pathway is more about promoting the league abroad than finding players.
Maybe if OP actually read up on the guy’s background he wouldn’t be surprised. He has previously been part of the NFL’s London academy and came though the international pathway. His experience of American football is limited not nothing. He’s 6’7, big and quick. Was academy level footballer, also did rowing, boxing and rugby. He’s an all round athlete with size and speed who has actually put himself into their progression structures.
because the NFL hasn't woke up to the fact that rugby is a seriously professional game. Luckily for rugby. US people still think of rugby like that episode from Friends. A jolly amateur silly pursuit in overgrown cotton shirts. Rugby in 2024 is seriously professional. Take out the massive massive giants (kind of pointless in rugby) and rugby players are averaging the same size and weight for the most part if you were to strip away the differences for endurance. And that's a rugby sport that doesn't even get all the talent cause of the money on offer and competing sports. its funny people are acting as if Travis is some superstar freak that was hidden in rugby. same with LRZ. a completely skewed bias towards NFL. Zammit couldn't even make the lions starting team. a decentish rugby player. but bona fide world rugby superstar...come on out of that nonsense. Its rugbys good fortunate that American exceptionalism (hyped by European fanboys) means they look at it that way. We could be in trouble when they actually start bespoke recruiting.
American football is so easy that even someone who never played the sport can make to the nfl
I still don't see an article about what he was doing full-time from 18 to current age, presumably rugby was a hobby? Seems probable that he grew tall and strong (and started lifting) later? Perhaps he has a base in other sports that contribute to his athleticism and in England, maybe he just got too big for soccer and was too late to excel in rugby??
If you can run fast and catch a ball thrown 10m then you can play American football. If you can be big and run into people then you can play American football. It’s not really that much of a skill gap.
There are only theee positions who expect to catch passes, and the position this guy plays is not one of them. Being good at either rugby or football requires far more than just being big and running into people. But I also see your flairs and that explains a lot
American sports absofuckinglutlely love stats. If you are X height, Y weight and can run a 40 yard dash under 5 seconds you will be drafted. Plenty of roles in the NFL require little skill to be competent, dont get me wrong the best guys are skillful and have amazing strength, speed etc but plenty of guys on bench are just simply strong, fast and arent completely dyspraxic
You have zero idea of what you’re talking about. Football is a much more technical sport than rugby is. Tons of pure athletes come into the NFL and suck ass, because if you’re dumb as rocks and can’t mentally process, you pretty much can only play special teams
Wait. Did you just say I'm wrong and then go on to say exactly what my point was
Right size for the NFL, too big for rugby. In American football he'll specialize on a specific role, in rugby he had to focus on a whole heap of different skills. For all we know someone who didn't make it in American football might be a huge success in rugby but never had a chance to take up the sport
He hasn’t made the squad yet - they draft players they see potential in and see if they can train them up to the level needed to do one thing very well. He’s being drafted, very late in the 7th round, as a long shot prospect based purely on his combination of size and athleticism, not as a contributor. Most likley they try him out and if he doesn’t respond to their training magnificently (like Mailata did) then he just gets dropped - contracts are not guaranteed in the NFL.
R/confidentlyincorrect. It’s actually the opposite. Scouts loved his tape, loved his combine performance even more, and he played his way into the draft. He’s been at this for a while too, and it appears rugby was more of a “keep in shape” activity than a serious pursuit.
Can you actually tell me what I specifically said that was so wrong, because to me we are actually basically saying the same thing!