Louis Rees-Zammit, the former Gloucester and Wales wing, was approached about a return to rugby union but said it would be ‘dumb’ to leave the NFL.
The 24-year-old switched sports in spectacular fashion on the eve of last year’s Six Nations to take up a place on the NFL’s International Player Pathway (IPP) and reiterated his commitment to American football on Tuesday morning, after signing for Jacksonville Jaguars.
“I never thought about [abandoning American football],” Rees-Zammit said. “I didn’t just leave rugby just to try it for a year. I think people would be pretty dumb to think that I was just going to leave straight away.
“I’m not ready to give this up and, and I don’t think I ever will be. I’m very grateful for this opportunity from the Jags to allow me to sign another contract and give it another go.”
That single-mindedness did not stop potential suitors from contacting Rees-Zammit over the past month. “People talk, but it was one that I wasn’t focused on,” added the 2021 British and Irish Lions tourist.
“I think I made it pretty clear that I wasn’t going to leave after a year and that it was my dream to be in this league. People tried, because there was that four weeks where I kind of just took a step away from everything to freshen up mentally and physically.
“People did try reaching out, but I definitely wasn’t listening because I want this, you know? This has always been my dream. I want this to be the thing that I do for the rest of my career.”
Rees-Zammit had initially started out as a potential wide receiver on the IPP, yet was signed to the Kansas City Chiefs as a running back. At Jacksonville Jaguars, he will be aiming to secure a place on the 53-man active roster as a wide receiver. Such back-and-forth has meant 13 months of changes to his body.
“I went to the International Player Pathway as a receiver, so I was running a lot more,” Rees-Zammit explained. “I was probably lighter, around 92kg. And then trying to play running back, you obviously have got to put a bit more weight on because of the position you’re playing and the physicality around that line of scrimmage.
“I got to about 101kg, so there was a bit of a difference. Then in September, I was changing him back to receiver and had to change my body a lot more. I had to be more fluid around my hips. I never felt like the weight I put on affected my speed, but I just needed to kind of lose a bit of weight just to feel a bit more fluid with kind of my route-running and how I can get in and out of breaks.
“I’m back down to about 96 or 97kg. That’s kind of perfect for me, I think. It’s been a whole year of transition for my body and trying to change a lot in 13 months.”
Rees-Zammit’s decision to stay with the Jaguars comes at a time when the franchise had a turnover of off-field staff, after firing head coach Doug Pederson and general manager Trent Baalke. Jacksonville have since hired Tampa Bay Buccaneers offensive coordinator Liam Coen to be their new head coach while their search for a new general manager is ongoing. The move to sign Rees-Zammit to the active roster was made by interim general manager Ethan Waugh.
All the while, Rees-Zammit has been able to focus on improving his pace and footwork in a way that rugby never allowed.
“I’m always getting quicker, especially, with the training we do in the NFL – it’s more explosive [with] short, sharp movements and I’ve been able to focus on my speed, getting in and out of breaks,” he said.
“It’s been unbelievable. In rugby, you never really got some kind of focus on one thing because you had to do a lot of cardio, a lot of things, you needed to be able to be robust to take a hit and tackle. Here, I’ve been able to focus a lot more on my speed and how fluid I can be with my hips, stuff like that.”
Return to rugby was never an option
When Louis Rees-Zammit’s contract expired with the Jacksonville Jaguars in January, a number of options were left on the table, except for one: a return to rugby.
Telegraph Sport was informed definitively that would not be happening, despite Warren Gatland, then in charge of Wales, admitting publicly that “we would love to have him back if he was available to us. Whenever he wants to come back, he’d be more than welcome back in the fold”.
You can hardly blame Wales for wanting him back, but for Rees-Zammit to have left the NFL after only a year would have been a shame. Going from picking up the sport from scratch to making the practice squad alone was a remarkable achievement, particularly having trained initially as a running back with the Chiefs before moving to receiver in Jacksonville.
The key detail now is that Rees-Zammit has been signed to the Jaguars’ active roster, rather than to a reserves/futures contract, which fringe players are often signed up to at this period of the off-season.
Does it mean that Rees-Zammit will absolutely be on the Jaguars’ 53-man roster come August? No. He could be moved to the practice squad or released as their roster takes shape through free agency in March and after the NFL draft at the end of April.
But right now, this means Rees-Zammit will be training with the team when their off-season gets under way at the start of April under Liam Coen, the team’s new head coach, and ideally he will have meaningful practice time with Trevor Lawrence, the team’s quarterback.
How it then translates into pre-season action and potentially playing in regular-season games come September remains to be seen, but this is a positive step for a player who made a brave move, leaving one career as a top Test player behind to try to make it in the NFL.
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