After 18 months, Welsh rugby star Louis Rees-Zammit has called time on his budding career in the NFL.
In early 2024, Rees-Zammit rocked the sporting world by announcing that he would make the switch to the bright lights of American football as part of the NFL’s International Player Pathway.
In his statement announcing the decision, Louis Rees-Zammit stressed that he was being given the chance to take up ‘a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to pursue a new challenge’.
However, from the moment he embarked on the seismic, Rees-Zammit was attempting to defy some pretty significant odds.
An intrinsically American sporting pastime developed through years at school and college, foreigners have rarely been able to excel at the highest levels on the gridiron.
Rees-Zammit was unable to buck the trend in a sport where so many other Britons struggled – but read on as Mail Sport takes a look back at some to see how he and his contemporaries fared.
Louis Rees-Zammit has announced he will be returning to rugby after attempting to pursue a career in American football
The 24-year-old had spells with two NFL franchises but did not make it onto the field for a regular season game
Louis Rees-Zammit
A Six Nations winner with more than 30 international caps under his belt, Rees-Zammit was a wanted man. After deciding to leave Gloucester in January of last year the 24-year-old had lucrative offers to continue his rugby career in France.
But the bright lights of the NFL were just too alluring. After announcing his intention to go through the International Player Pathway Program, Rees-Zammit signed a contract with the Kansas City Chiefs to play as a running back.
However, despite his blistering speed putting him among the fastest players ever to lace up a pair of cleats Rees-Zammit would find that his inexperience would put him at a significant disadvantage.
After being cut by the Chiefs in August, Rees-Zammit joined the Jacksonville Jaguars and served as part of the franchise’s practice squad.
Ultimately though a call up to the Jaguars’ active 53-roster continued to elude him, despite IPP rules allowing for it on two separate occasions.
Injury subsequently further diminished Rees-Zammit’s chances of making it onto the field at the highest level and he departed the franchise this week without ever playing in a regular-season game.
Announcing his intention to move back to his original code, Rees-Zammit called his foray into American football a ‘great experience’.
Rees-Zammit shocked the sporting world by announcing his retirement from rugby in January 2024
Aged just 20, Rees-Zammit had starred for Wales as they won the Six Nations in 2021
‘I’ve decided to leave the NFL and return to rugby,’ he wrote on social media.
‘It’s been a great experience, but it’s time to come home. I’ve decided that this is the best time to make this decision to give myself time to get everything in place for next season.
‘There’s only one thing that’s on my mind, that’s coming back to rugby and doing what I do best.
Dwain Chambers
Whilst the lion’s share of those who have taken the decision to restart their sporting careers on the gridiron are, like Rees-Zammit, rugby union players, Chambers was an outlier – a highly successful, yet controversial, sprinter.
Early career success in the mid-to-late 1990s saw Chambers pick up gold medal after gold medal in the juniors, but a promising career was brought to a dramatic halt in 2003 when the then-25-year-old tested positive for banned substances.
Handed a back-dated two-year ban from athletics in 2004, Chambers was also banned from the Olympics for life and stripped of his medals since 2002. It was during this break in his career that he first flirted with the sport, via an abortive try-out for the San Francisco 49ers, but it was only in 2005 that Chambers committed to the sport full-time.
While he never featured on American soil, Chambers took part in a string of NFL Europa training camps after playing for a spell in the British league with Farnham Knights. In 2007, he earned a contract with German NFL Europa side Hamburg Sea Devils.
But his attempt to start anew was star-crossed – after being sidelined midway through the season with a stress fracture, the league itself was shuttered in June of that year, putting a premature end to the player’s budding career.
Dwain Chambers was a promising sprinter before his career was rocked by a positive drugs test and a two-year ban
Chambers later tried his hand at rugby league with a brief stint with Castleford Tigers
Chambers later returned to athletics, and an end to his Olympic ban saw him compete at the London 2012 Olympics, where he reached the semi-finals. But the athlete had a particular warning for those wanting to make the switch from alternative sports to American football in 2013.
‘Unless you have been playing the sport from an early age you are at a disadvantage,’ Chambers noted, before comparing learning the NFL system to ‘learning the game of chess from scratch’.
‘The worst part,’ Chambers added. ‘The worst part for me was knowing that when I caught the ball there was a 300lb player whose job it was to hurt me.’
Christian Wade
Wade’s career began as Rees-Zammit’s did, with considerable achievements in English rugby. Years after his last touch in the Premiership, the player still sits fifth in the division’s leading try-scorers standings, after scoring a titanic 82 tries for Wasps.
But in 2018, the pull of American football was too strong, and the wing travelled to the US to take part in the 2019 cohort of the International Player Pathway.
But despite being allocated to the Buffalo Bills via the pathway, Wade failed to play a minute during the regular season, featuring only during a pre-season tie in August 2019.
Later signed to the practice squad, Wade had to sign a reserve/future contract at the end of the season in 2020 to yet again only manage a spot on the practice squad.
Christian Wade is another rugby player that has made the transition to American football
But like many British athletes in transition, Wade failed to sign to the full-time roster (pictured following a preseason game in 2019)
After three years of treading water, Wade was released by the Bills, calling time on his foray into the sport. But he wasted no time on the sidelines, instead restarting his rugby career at Racing 92, before opting for another career switch in 2025 to join rugby league side Wigan Warriors.
In a 2022 interview with Mail Sport, Wade discussed what he believes to be the fundamental difference between rugby and American football, and shared what one sport could learn from the other.
‘In rugby, it’s always, “You have to wear this. You have to do that”. You almost feel like you’re at school,’ Wade told former Wasps team-mate Danny Cipriani. ‘In NFL, you can wear what you want and be how you want to be, as long as you’re respectful.
‘It’s more natural. The coaches would say, “Let it flow. Be yourself”. It’s great.
‘For me, if you’re allowed to really be yourself, it translates into how you play.’
Lawrence Okoye
Okoye may have started off as a junior rugby player who caught the eye at the academies of London Irish and Wasps, but it wasn’t long before the athletics star discovered the sport that would take him to the 2012 Olympics – discus.
Deferring the opportunity to study law at the University of Oxford, Okoye threw himself into preparations for the home games, only to finish a disappointing 12th in the finals.
The result is believed to have contributed to Okoye’s disenchantment with the sport, and his subsequent defection to the NFL in a bid to make it into the sport as a defensive tacklers.
In the 2013 Draft, the then-22-year-old was signed by the San Francisco 49ers, but after picking up an injury in pre-season, was immediately placed on the team’s injury reserve list.
Lawrence Okoye switched from discus to the gridiron in 2013 to play with San Francisco 49ers
But after returning to athletics, Okoye would once again compete with Team GB at Tokyo 2020
A year later, Okoye would only make the practice squad, thus beginning an ignominious cycle as he bounced from the Bay Area side, to the Arizona Cardinals, to the New York Jets, Dallas Cowboys, Chicago Bears, and the Miami Dolphins.
Okoye spent four years trying to break into the sport without seeing competitive action, later jumping the border to try his hand with the Montreal Alouettes, before ending up in the Alliance of American Football with Birmingham Iron in January 2019 – three months before the league folded.
Like Chambers before him, Okoye’s gridiron dreams were shelved and the athlete made an immediate step back into his initial discipline. The move was fruitful: in 2022, Okoye became the first British athlete to medal in discus at a European championships.
Alex Gray
The former London Irish back-rower was one of the first Britons to get the nod as part of the International Player Pathway, and the first rugby player. Previously, Gray had found himself restless with the sport, and switched to Sevens, but in need of a greater challenge, the player crossed the pond with the desire for a wholly different experience.
The reality check came when Gray was confronted with the immense task of getting up to speed with the intricacies of the game.
‘The biggest thing was the mental side of it,’ Gray said of his transition in 2017. ‘Physically it was very tough, just the amount of workload I had to go through to get up to scratch.
Alex Gray had previously left rugby for Sevens before his move to the International Player Pathway in 2017
The latest phase of his career sees Gray compete as Apollo in the revamped Gladiators series
‘I’d spent all my life being really good at one thing: rugby. Then, as soon as I arrived in Florida, all that was stripped away. It was a very humbling experience, but quite refreshing as well, because it meant I wasn’t being held back by anything I’d done in the past.’
Gray joined the practice squad for the Atlanta Falcons, but like others who had attempted to make the leap from sport to sport, struggled to get into the main roster.
After two years, the former Newcastle Falcons academy starlet was waived from the injury reserve list, and back in England looking to restart his rugby career at Bath. But the spell was a brief one, with Gray making just six appearances between 2020 and 2021.
But Gray remains committed to hunting out new experiences – the ex-athlete now features as ‘Apollo’ on revamped 90s classic Gladiators.
Christian Scotland-Williamson
Like Gray, Scotland-Williamson was a rugby union player looking to blaze a trail as a tight end in the NFL – but that’s where the similarities come to an abrupt halt.
The former Worcester Warriors star was content with pushing for a spot in the England squad and developing his game in his home country when a 2017 video of a brutal tackle on Wasps’ Alex Reider went viral, catching the eye of a number of NFL scouts.
Christian Scotland-Williamson (left) went viral for a tackle made during his stint with Worcester Warriors
The player was frustrated by injuries during his stint with the Pittsburgh Steelers in the NFL
In an interview in 2022 with talkSPORT, Scotland-Williamson said that the reason why he had been swayed was because he saw American football and the US as a ‘meritocracy’ where he would be more valued.
A stint in the International Player Pathway followed, and Scotland-Williamson joined up the Pittsburgh Steelers, but despite building a strong relationship with head coach Mike Tomlin, injury meant that he never made the active roster.
Scotland-Williamson returned to England and attempted to rejoin Harlequins, but failed to make an appearance. Instead, he switched professions yet again, and now works as a barrister.
Harry Kane?
Despite his masterful technical skills on the football pitch, England captain Harry Kane lacks many of the raw physical attributes of his contemporaries on this list.
However, that hasn’t stopped the Bayern Munich star detailing his own ambitions of playing in the NFL in the past.
Well-aware of where his talents lay, the NFL superfan has previously claimed that he wants to be a kicker in the league after hanging up his boots.
‘It’s something I want to definitely explore,’ Kane said in 2023.
‘I know it will be a lot of hard work. I’m not expecting to just walk up and start kicking field goals. It would be a lot of practice, a lot of hard work. But yeah, it’s something I’d love to do.
‘The NFL is something I have been following for about 10 years now, and I love it, so I would love to give it a go.’
NFL superfan Harry Kane has previously announced his intention to attempt a career in gridiron football after hanging up his boots
The Bayern Munich star would attempt to translate his ball-striking ability into being a kicker
While the thought of Kane taking to the field donning a set of shoulder pads and a helmet may seem far-fetched, he could be well served in take inspiration from another former Tottenham striker.
After forging a reputation as a prolific marksman for several London clubs, Clive Allen took the plunge after his football career ended and played as a kicker for the short-lived London Monarchs in NFL Europe.
‘I know Harry well. He’s a natural sportsman – a good golfer – and I wouldn’t be surprised [if he moved to NFL],’ Allen said of Kane in 2016.
‘He would be one who could master the technique – there’s no doubt about that. And I know he would have the mentality to cope with it as well.
‘Even though the ball is snapped and placed for you there are a number of times when it’s not quite perfect for you. So you have to adjust when you’re kicking.’
