Why Gaelic footballers have the NFLā€™s attention: ā€˜These lads can kick ballsā€™

by Pelican Press
61 views 21 minutes read



Why Gaelic footballers have the NFLā€™s attention: ā€˜These lads can kick ballsā€™

TAMPA, Fla. ā€” A tall lad with tousled brown hair and ruddy cheeks flipped through the pages of his light green leather notebook, looking at ā€œwee remindersā€ to get his head right.

Killer mindset

YOU ABSOLUTELY DESERVE THIS

Teams are watching me. Brilliant!

The kicking workout was the grand finale of the NFLā€™s International Player Pathway pro day this Wednesday afternoon at the University of South Florida. The event featured the first kickers and punters in the IPP program, which since 2017 has sought to provide players outside of North America with opportunities to play in the league.

Three of the kickers were plucked straight from Gaelic football, Irelandā€™s most popular sport. Charlie Smyth, 22, of Down, Mark Jackson, 25, of Wicklow, and Rory Beggan, 31, of Monaghan, each left their posts as goalkeepers for their county teams this winter to give NFL kickinā€™ a fair go.

The lads started kicking NFL footballs this past fall, so Smythā€™s wee written reminders were necessary. He stretched outside in the Florida sun before his workout, then took out his phone and watched a cutup of himself making 50-plus yard field goals at this same indoor field.

ā€œI know I can do it here,ā€ he said.

Smyth has been illegally streaming NFL games since he was 16. When he was 18, he sent an email to [emailĀ protected] pitching himself as an NFL kicker. He never heard back.

This past August, during his off-time from his county team, he finally went to an American football kicking session in Dublin, ā€œjust for the craic,ā€ he said. (For the uninitiated, ā€œcraic,ā€ pronounced ā€œcrack,ā€ means fun in Irish.)

The craic turned serious and led Smyth to the scouting combine, where he caught the eye of several NFL special teams coaches, then to Tampa for this second NFL audience.

go-deeper

GO DEEPER

NFL Draft 2024 ā€˜The Beastā€™ Guide: Dane Bruglerā€™s scouting reports and player rankings

The Gaelic kickers were inconsistent past 50 yards in their first appearance in front of NFL teams ā€” ā€œI was kicking myself a bit after the combine,ā€ Beggan said, no pun intended ā€” so this time they wanted to prove they had the distance. When Beggan lined up from 50 yards, he banged it through. Then again from 55 and again from 60. Jackson was perfect through 45 yards and narrowly missed from 50-plus. Smyth drilled his 50-yard attempt, missed from 55, then was good from 60.

After Smyth knocked in his last long attempt, a senior NFL executive whoā€™d been on the field said he expected at least one of the Irish guys to sign with an NFL team, a feat that once seemed outlandish.

ā€œI have to be very honest, I didnā€™t expect it,ā€ said Ravens assistant special teams coach Randy Brown.

ā€œThey were further ahead than everybody expected,ā€ said Saints special teams coordinator Darren Rizzi. ā€œThereā€™s the expression, an ā€˜NFL leg.ā€™ All of them have an NFL leg.ā€

These ā€œIrish Gaelicā€ guys, as special teams coaches call them, seemed to come out of nowhere. So how the feck did they go from kicking 45s and frees to kicking field goals for NFL personnel?


The lad behind the lads is Tadhg Leader. Fair-skinned and ginger-haired and -bearded, Leader is a former professional rugby player from Galway on the west coast of Ireland. He wound up stateside with Major League Rugby in 2018, and when the pandemic hit he started kicking NFL footballs just for the craic.

Soon he started training with John Carney, the former NFL All-Pro who is fifth on the all-time scoring list. Carney encouraged Leader, then 28, to make a career out of kicking, so Leader called the IPP.

The program didnā€™t carry kickers and punters, so he sent his tape to NFL teams. He was told he needed more game experience, so he played in the Spring League, then European League Football before finally signing with the Canadian Football Leagueā€™s Hamilton Tiger-Cats in 2022. In his only preseason appearance, he kicked a walk-off 35-yard game-winner.

ā€œLife was great,ā€ Leader said. ā€œI thought I was going to be there for the season.ā€

But then Hamiltonā€™s general manager called him in and told him he was too raw. Leader was 30 years old, and despite getting more tape, he kept hearing the same feedback.

ā€œWell, like, where else do I get experience?ā€ Leader said.

He tried to kick in the XFL but had issues getting a visa, so he decided to move on. ā€œItā€™s looking like itā€™s too late for me,ā€ he said, explaining his mindset. ā€œLet me go home to Ireland to start a pathway that everyone else can walk.ā€

Last February, Leader started a business to discover Irish kicking talent and help them land college scholarships. He wanted to create a program where cost wouldnā€™t be a barrier, so he spent his own money at the start, including at least a thousand dollars on footballs. His family thought heā€™d gone mad.

ā€œIt was extremely raw,ā€ Leader said. But in a few months, heā€™d helped two Irish kickers earn college scholarships and arranged a sponsorship with Delta Airlines.

While Leader was training his first class of soon-to-be collegiate kickers, NFL special teams coordinators convened with the league office to discuss an idea theyā€™d been talking about for years: taking the specialists out of the scouting combine and creating a separate event so they could invite more players and do more kicking.

Brown, the Ravens coach, said that when they presented their vision to NFL EVP of Football operations Troy Vincent, Vincent told them heā€™d like to see an international component. Last April, James Cook, who runs the IPP and knew of Leaderā€™s quick work with Irish kickers, scheduled a meeting with him at the NFLā€™s London office.

Leader happened to be in town on business for his day job at J.P. Morgan and snuck away to meet with Cook, who told him they were considering adding kickers and punters to the IPP. Nothing was finalized, but did he think the guys were out there? And if so, could he get them ready in time?

ā€œThe biggest barrier that exists is not the capability, but itā€™s the access,ā€ Leader told Cook. ā€œAnd if you guys can give access, I can get the kicking talent.ā€


Monaghanā€™s Rory Beggan kicks a free during a match against Cavan on Sunday, April 7. (Ramsey Cardy / Sportsfile via Getty Images)

There are only two sports in the world where athletes kick a ball off the grass and send it high through uprights. And the width of the posts in Gaelic football is only about three feet wider than NFL and college football goal posts.

ā€œKicking the ball is part of our DNA growing up here in Ireland,ā€ Leader said. ā€œAmericans throw baseballs, basketballs, footballs. We donā€™t do that. We pass those balls with our feet, so now weā€™ve just been given a new ball to use our feet with ā€¦

ā€œItā€™s the most perfect of synergies, just no oneā€™s ever connected the dots.ā€

His girlfriend and parents urged him to iron out more details with the NFL, but Leader couldnā€™t wait. Driving around the country, he started training a group of 12 Gaelic football players whenever they could make time.

Leader didnā€™t want to get on the bad side of any coaches, so he got the word out through mutual friends and encouraged players to reach out for information. He wound up with a group of the countryā€™s most talented Gaelic goalkeepers, the most prolific off-the-ground kickers of any position in the sport.

Beggan is the equivalent of an All-Star. Jackson is the youngest goalkeeper in Gaelic Athletic Association history to score 100 career points. Beggan tried to mix in the odd kicking session during the fall while his focus was with his club team.

Gaelic players arenā€™t paid ā€” Beggan runs his own sportswear business ā€” so it was tough to balance it all. He made it work for his ā€œfavorite skill in Gaelic football,ā€ which also requires players to run, carry, pass and bounce the ball.

ā€œI love kickinā€™ out of hands,ā€ Beggan said. ā€œI love kickinā€™ off the ground.ā€

Smyth, a graduate student in physical education, arrived frazzled and late to his first session in August because heā€™d confused the location. ā€œMy head was gone and my laces werenā€™t even tied,ā€ he said. He didnā€™t know how to set up the holder and had to kick four field goals in a row to catch up to everyone else.

He made them all.

By October, Leader whittled his group of 12 down to his four best ā€” the Gaelic trio plus Leaderā€™s younger brother, Darragh, a rugby player turned punter, and they were evaluated by NFL UK personnel in London.

Leader says there are only two indoor fields in Ireland, so that often meant training through rough weather. On one cold and rainy day in Dublin, Jackson, who also punts, said he could barely get an attempt off in the gale-force winds.

ā€œEvery time you dropped the ball, the ball moved around six yards,ā€ he said.

Theyā€™d get stares from onlookers, ā€œespecially when weā€™re in a public park and a ma and a dog was walking around the field,ā€ says Leader. ā€œWe looked like these weird fellas that were kicking weird-shaped balls. No one really knew what was going on.ā€

In December, the four Irish players found out theyā€™d earned spots in the IPP along with Harry Mallinder, a British rugby player turned punter.

Smyth finally told his Gaelic manager that heā€™d been kicking American footballs in his spare time, and that heā€™d be stepping away for now ā€” maybe forever, depending on how the NFL received him. Jackson said his Wicklow teammates and boss were shocked, but supportive. Heā€™d been playing in goal for the club since he was 18. ā€œNo one expected me to be leaving at 25,ā€ he said.

The lads took up kicking full-time with Leader, whose volunteer work became a paid role with the NFL in January. Leader took them to Boston to get acclimatized to America before joining the other players in the IPP program in Florida in early February.

In Boston, they saw a field marked up with hashes and numbers for the first time, as well as yellow uprights (in Gaelic football, the posts are white with a black spot in the center of the crossbar). Theyā€™ve been playing ā€œMaddenā€ and reviewing game film to master the intricacies of situational football and spent time learning about the business side of NFL clubs and the value of each roster spot.

ā€œWeā€™re quick learners, in fairness to us,ā€ Beggan said.

Beggan said the hardest adjustment has been wearing all the gear. ā€œFunny, we were doing all this stuff in Ireland with no helmet or pads on us. So we thought this is quite easy, then,ā€ he said. They took to wearing their helmets for five or ten minutes at a time to get used to the weight while sitting around in their villas at IMG Academy about an hourā€™s drive south of Tampa.

In February, Brown visited IMG to get them ready for the combine. While some of the guys were punting, he told Smyth to, ā€œGo down there and shag.ā€ Smyth looked at him like he was crazy. The rest cracked up laughing.

ā€œTadgh looked at me and he says, ā€˜You know, shag means something different,ā€™ā€ Brown said. ā€œAnd I said, Oh, yeah I watched ā€˜Austin Powers.ā€™ā€


When the lads took the field at Lucas Oil Stadium to participate in the first-ever specialist showcase, there was at least one long snapper who scoffed at their presence.

ā€œHe thought we played Gaelic football in kilts,ā€ Jackson said. ā€œI stepped up for my first kick and banged it through the posts, and I think he started to take note then that yeah, these lads can kick balls.ā€

Brown, who coaches the NFLā€™s best kicker in Justin Tucker, started to believe when he saw the way the balls traveled end-over-end ā€” and when he closed his eyes and heard a deep thud, like a fist pounding a chest, the distinct sound of an NFL kick.

ā€œIt brought a smile to your face,ā€ Brown said. ā€œGod, they did it.ā€

ā€œI was blown away by how good they are in a short amount of time,ā€ said Cowboys special teams coordinator John Fassel.

When they interviewed in Indianapolis, the Irish trio had to explain Gaelic football to the coaches, who had no idea that although it is an amateur sport, athletes train like professionals and play in front of crowds of 80,000 people in the All-Ireland tournament.

ā€œWhen you tell the teams that youā€™ve played at an elite level for eight years, it kind of perks their ears up a bit,ā€ Jackson said.

ā€œThese guys are like household names in their counties in Ireland, and they dropped everything to pursue this dream,ā€ Rizzi said.

Begganā€™s Monaghan team went 1-6 in his absence and was relegated out of the first division after ten years in the big league. He is back playing for the club while he awaits an NFL opportunity. Jackson is training with Wicklow, which also went 1-6, but doesnā€™t want to risk injury.

Last year, Monaghan made it to the semi-final of the All-Ireland tournament, in which every county team plays for the Sam Maguire Cup. This yearā€™s tournament started on April 6 and runs through July. Beggan isnā€™t sure how long heā€™ll be with the team if the NFL comes calling.

ā€œThey donā€™t know how itā€™s gonna go,ā€ Beggan said. ā€œAnd I suppose over the last few weeks, weā€™re in the unknown.ā€


Charlie Smyth signs an American football for a young Irish fan. (Courtesy of Brendan Monaghan)

When the Gaelic kickers first walked into the interview rooms at the combine, NFL coaches were struck by their size (average height: 6-3, average weight: 215 pounds). Beggan is built like a rhinoceros. Jacksonā€™s quads compare favorably with Saquon Barkleyā€™s. Smyth is a lanky 6-4.

The new NFL kickoff will increase returns, and a kicker who can run and make a tackle downfield could prove useful. ā€œWe played a tough sport where you have to give hits and take hits as well,ā€ Jackson said. ā€œWeā€™re not just some wee fragile kickers.ā€

ā€œSome special teams coaches were calling them ā€˜brick shā€“housesā€™, I think thatā€™s the phrase,ā€ Leader said.

They were rooting for the new kickoff to pass because it will emphasize directional kicking, away from the returners in a landing zone ā€” exactly where theyā€™d be placing the ball on kick-outs in Gaelic football. ā€œWe feel we have a bigger strength to maybe what the Americans have,ā€ Beggan said.

At the combine, they kicked with long snappers theyā€™d never practiced with before. At their pro day, they chose to kick with a long snapper and holder, a risk very few college specialists take, because they wanted to address the biggest question in their NFL transition: can they consistently handle the live field goal operation?

A perfect NFL snap, hold and kick should happen in 1.3 seconds to beat the rush, and the lads arenā€™t quite up to speed yet. Scouts at USF muttered that the kickers were a bit slow. But Brown is mindful that they are at the infant stage of the position. Learning intricacies, like how to adjust a plant leg for wind, will come later.

In September, the NFL announced that starting in 2024, every NFL practice squad would expand to include a 17th spot reserved for an international player. (In the past, international players had been allocated to just one division per year). That could prove to be an opportunity for specialists.

Most NFL teams donā€™t carry a second kicker or punter on the roster, and most starters only practice two days a week. Special teams practice goes on without them with the help of the JUGS machine.

ā€œEverybody probably should use that spot for a kicker,ā€ Fassel said. ā€œLetā€™s have a guy on the roster the whole time so weā€™re training him so we donā€™t have to go get somebody once somebody gets hurt.ā€

And in the NFLā€™s salary-capped world, a potential source of young, homegrown ā€” read ā€œcheapā€ ā€” developmental talent could prove incredibly valuable. ā€œCould they kick this year in the NFL?ā€ Brown said. ā€œMaybe, but the deck is stacked against them. Could they develop in the next 12 to 24 months? Absolutely.ā€

ā€œThis isnā€™t some marketing tool,ā€ Jackson said. This isnā€™t any gimmick. Weā€™re elite-level kickers. Weā€™re not perfect, but if we were on a roster for a year we wonā€™t be too far off.ā€


As the scouts cleared out of the USF facility following a long day, Leader sat on the turf and reviewed his notes, sighing in relief and exhaustion.

His work wasnā€™t done yet. Heā€™d head back to Ireland the next day to host another kicking workshop to discover the next wave of young talent. ā€œYou think Iā€™m joking, but thereā€™s hundreds of Irish kids just like these guys,ā€ Leader said.

Smyth scrolled through a flurry of excited texts from his parents, whoā€™d been watching his workout on Instagram Live from their home in Mayobridge. When he earned his IPP spot in December, his friends still didnā€™t believe this was legit. ā€œSure youā€™re not going to the NFL,ā€ he says they told him.

ā€œJust you watch, boys,ā€ Smyth told his friends then.

A week after the Florida workout, Smyth was in a yoga class with the rest of the IPP players. They arenā€™t supposed to bring their phones in, but he was expecting an important update. During the last meditation, he opened his eyes a crack to see a notification flash a message with a New Orleans Saints logo.

ā€œWe were doing our last namaste, but I knew this was happening,ā€ Smyth said. ā€œI was just trying to stay calm and I was like, shā€“, the Saints are bringing me in!ā€

Smyth worked out for New Orleans that Friday morning. Afterward, coaches told him he could go shower before his flight back to Tampa. Then, Harry Piper, a Saints scouting assistant, told Smyth he should head upstairs.

They were getting his paperwork ready.

Smyth is back in Ireland until OTAs start next week, and heā€™s talked to what feels like every journalist in the country. He overheard his sisterā€™s colleagues talking about him on a work call and was even a guest on ā€œThe Late Late Show,ā€ the countryā€™s most popular television show.

This past weekend, Smythā€™s club GAA team in Mayobridge threw him a party. When he walked in, everybody cheered and applauded. He says he hasnā€™t cried yet, because he always knew what he was capable of.

ā€œItā€™s where I saw myself getting to,ā€ he said. ā€œItā€™s where I expected to be.ā€

In New Orleans, he believes he has a chance to compete for the starting job. ā€œI didnā€™t make all these sacrifices just to be happy to sit on a practice squad,ā€ Smyth said.

After a Q&A with the 100 or so kids at his club reception, he headed to Gormanā€™s, the local pub, with a few pals. Heā€™s normally not a Guinness guy, but he ordered a few pints. He knows it wonā€™t taste as good in New Orleans.

(Illustration: Eamonn Dalton / The Athletic; photos courtesy of NFL UK)







Source link

New Orleans Saints, NFL
#Gaelic #footballers #NFLs #attention #lads #kick #balls

Add Comment

You may also like