Tampa (dpa) – First only a fraction of all football players make it into the NFL, then their careers are over after 3.3 years on average.
Nevertheless, due to the increasing popularity of the NFL, many young people in Germany dream of a job in the most important professional league in the USA. The silver bullet is still through college and the draft player selection. “Nowadays there are so many ways and possibilities that there is a way if you really stick with it and look for your niche,” said Jakob Johnson, who plays for the New England Patriots, from Stuttgart.
COLLEGE APPLICATION: The typical route into the draft is through a college team. As a German, you should at best have already played in a high school. Of course, it is also possible to simply apply to college to join the football team. You should definitely produce a highlight video of yourself to give the coaches a quick look at the skills. The chances are slim due to the strong American competition, especially since Germany is a football developing country. How difficult even this path is is illustrated by the following figures: Only 6.8 percent of high school players make it into a college team and only 1.5 percent make it into the NFL.
COLLEGE SCHOLARSHIP: Without any high school or highlight video, Sebastian Vollmer made it to college and then to the NFL. The later Super Bowl winner was discovered in 2003 during a test match of the German national youth team in the USA and received a football scholarship from the University of Houston. In the spring of 2009, Vollmer was selected in the second draft round by the New England Patriots and won the Super Bowl in 2014 and 2016. The career path of the Rhinelander must be seen as an absolute exception.
BJÖRN WERNER FOUNDATION: In 2013, Björn Werner from Berlin was the first German to be selected in the first round of the draft. The defensive end played with the Indianapolis Colts until 2015, after which they were briefly under contract in Jacksonville. Werner got into the NFL through the classic high school-college route. To enable European talents to make the leap to a school or university, Werner and his former high school coach Chris Adamson set up the Gridiron Imports Foundation. The foundation helps talent financially and organizes an annual tour to the college camps where the players can present themselves. You can apply for a trial training session for the foundation itself.
INTERNATIONAL PATHWAY PROGRAM: The NFL is getting more international. That is why the league launched a new exclusive program for foreign talent in 2017. Through the International Pathway Program, for example, Johnson made the leap into the NFL, which scored his first touchdown for the Patriots this season. Every year four teams from a selected division receive an additional place in the Practice Squad. Foreign talents can prove themselves in the offseason and even take part in the preparatory games. If you don’t make the leap into the regular squad, you have a place in the Practice Squad for one year. In addition to Johnson, Eric Nzeocha, Moritz Böhringer, Christopher Ezeala and David Bada, who had already been drafted, made it into the NFL via the IPP. Experience in football is not mandatory in IPP, it is more about physical qualifications. Rugby players have also made it into the program.
FREE AGENT: The most unlikely route into the NFL is bypassing the draft system. As a so-called free agent, a player from Europe could make it into the most important league in the world. But since the level in the European leagues is usually far below that of the NFL, the team’s scouts hardly pay any attention to them. So you have to be outstanding and have stayed completely under the radar beforehand to get into the NFL that way.
Patrick Esume, TV expert at ran Football, summed it up as follows. “Be between 1.95 and 2.00 meters tall, run really fast, be smart, be very good at school, do a good Abitur so you have the opportunity to go to college,” said the 46-year-old dpa. The probability is negligibly small. «But: it is not impossible. If I were a young, ambitious player, I would give it a try. In the worst case, you made it to college and got a free education there. ”
© dpa-infocom, dpa: 210203-99-292881 / 2
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