Top Welsh rugby talent is now twirling for the Super Bowl champions

It was his father who awakened Louis Rees-Zammit’s longing for the USA and the dazzling world of the NFL. The top rugby talent is living the dream that Papa Joe was never able to fulfill as a player for the Welsh football team Cardiff Tigers and is about to start his first season as a professional football player – and not with just any team, but with the Super Bowl winner Kansas City Chiefs .

Soon “Rees-Lightning”, as the “lightening fast” 23-year-old is called, could be catching passes from none other than star quarterback Patrick Mahomes – instead of 60,000 more in front of 16,000 fans in the Kingsholm Stadium of the English first division rugby team Gloucester Arrowhead of Kansas City.

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Football is the sport that his father loved as a child, Rees-Zammit wrote in his farewell text to the fans of his former club in Gloucester. The change of sport is “not about rugby, but about my ambitions to realize my dream and play in the National Football League.”

As great as the love for football may be, the financial perspective may also have played a role in the decision. According to reports, the salary stipulated in his three-year contract is the equivalent of almost 830,000 euros per season, which is more than 560,000 euros higher than his previous one.

A nation in shock

For these prospects, both sporting and financial, Rees-Zammit decided at the end of March to sign with the Chiefs after 31 international matches for Wales, including inspiring performances at the last World Cup in France – “quite a shock” for his national coach Warren Gatland and a whole rugby league -Nation.

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Rees-Zammit had previously recommended himself to the NFL through the International Player Pathway Program (IPPP). In Kansas City, Rees-Zammit could potentially hold the running back position, but will probably initially get his chance as a returner on the special teams, carrying back opponents’ kicks and punts.

Although the sports seem very similar at first glance, the transition from rugby to the NFL is tough. The complexity of positions and game plans is difficult for even some of the best college players to grasp. And hardly any team has a system as sophisticated as the Chiefs.

Rees-Zammit is the 37th player to have made it from the IPPP talent development program to an NFL contract; only five of the previous 36 have subsequently received a place in the matchday squad. Despite all the advantages, stepping across the pond is definitely a risk.