BOF Posted October 30, 2015 Moderator Share Posted October 30, 2015 Three Irish Stars Mentioned As NFL Confirm Rugby World Cup Contract OffersThe NFL are on the lookout for new stars. Jarryd Hayne's meteoric rise to the NFL has got the Americans thinking about the possibility of rugby players transferring their skills to gridiron and Rugby World Cup has been viewed as a decent place to go shopping.The Mirror have been speaking to Osi Umenyiora, the NFL's UK ambassador and he confirmed that two stars of the World Cup will be offered the chance to move to the NFL when the tournament finishes this weekend.There's been a number of scouts in England over the past couple of weeks and it seems two players in particular have sufficiently impressed. Umenyiora refused to name the players in question but he did say that these offers are very much serious.No doubt about it, the guys in question are genuine candidates. Their particular skill sets transfer over. We think they will be very good.Even if he did refuse to reveal the names, Umenyiora did name a 'fantasy team' of rugby players who, having watched them at the World Cup, he feels would be suited to the NFL. We're still dreaming of possibility of Ronan O'Gara lining out for the Miami Dolphins but it seems there's three other Irish players who could be dreaming of making the big money stateside.Umenyiora named 24 players in the correct position and included among them was Sean O’Brien at offensive tackle, Cian Healy at guard and Jamie Heaslip at middle linebacker.While the scout's targets are being kept under wraps, it will come as no surprise to rugby fans that Umenyiora did give special mention to Julian Savea.His hat-trick of tries blew me away. The guy ran over people for his second try and you definitely sit up and notice.For the sake of Irish rugby, we sincerely hope the Irish trio remain at home but seeing Savea as a wide-receiver in the NFL would be very welcome indeed.We're not exactly NFL scouts but if they are looking for a bit of a hand when it comes to the Irish set-up, we've already made an NFL team out of the Irish squad. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kurtsimonw Posted October 31, 2015 Share Posted October 31, 2015 Has their been many former rugby players in the NFL? I don't watch rugby so don't especially know what similarities it has or where players would fit in. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
maqroll Posted October 31, 2015 Share Posted October 31, 2015 Cowboys wanted Jonah Lomu back in the day, but he wasn't interested, don't blame him 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
maqroll Posted October 31, 2015 Share Posted October 31, 2015 Dunno if you guys know this, but one of our best ever kickers was an Englishman-https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Smith_(American_football) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kurtsimonw Posted October 31, 2015 Share Posted October 31, 2015 Was kicking very different back then, or have the Pats not had many top tier kickers? A field goal record of 67% just looks bad at first glance! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
abdomlahor Posted October 31, 2015 Share Posted October 31, 2015 Former Giants and Bucs kicker Lawrence Tynes is Scottish, but that's a pretty well known one. You see a few Brits over there now. Jay Ajayi of the Dolphins was born in London and moved to the US when he was a teenager or something I think. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kurtsimonw Posted October 31, 2015 Share Posted October 31, 2015 (edited) He was a little younger when he moved over I think, but probably the most successful Brit has to be Osi himself. Edited October 31, 2015 by kurtsimonw Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
maqroll Posted October 31, 2015 Share Posted October 31, 2015 Was kicking very different back then, or have the Pats not had many top tier kickers? A field goal record of 67% just looks bad at first glance!The Patriots outside of '66, '71 '78 and '85 were an atrocious football club, but Smith had staying power, still 3rd all time scorer for us.As a general rule though, kicking is more of a science these days.Paging Levi with accurate statistics.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
leviramsey Posted October 31, 2015 VT Supporter Share Posted October 31, 2015 Was kicking very different back then, or have the Pats not had many top tier kickers? A field goal record of 67% just looks bad at first glance!Back then kickers weren't as good.Gino Cappelletti was the Patriots all-time scorer for years (admittedly he also played RB), with a career record of 176 makes for 332 attempted FGs. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
leviramsey Posted October 31, 2015 VT Supporter Share Posted October 31, 2015 Tenth best FG percentages2015: 94%2005: 86%1995: 81%1985: 78%1975: 69%Pre-merger, 50% was more than good enough, though most of the kickers played every down. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kurtsimonw Posted October 31, 2015 Share Posted October 31, 2015 That's pretty interesting. I remember at one point Mike Vanderjagt was the greatest kicker of all-time (in terms of FG%) with something in the high 60s. I imagine in a few years all of the top 10 or so will be from the last few years and all 90%+ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
maqroll Posted November 1, 2015 Share Posted November 1, 2015 Drunk kicker, lol Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brumerican Posted November 2, 2015 Share Posted November 2, 2015 Drunk kicker, lol Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chrissmith921 Posted November 4, 2015 Share Posted November 4, 2015 Efe Obada was with the Dallas Cowboys in pre-season (I think hes been cut now) - was with London Warriors just 12 months ago, remember seeing him line up against us.... eeep. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts