Where's the American Valentine Holmes?

After betting big on himself, Valentine Holmes has won a shot at the NFL’s big time, signing a contract with the New York Jets.

It’s great news for the former Cronulla, Queensland and Australian representative, an exciting development for Aussie NFL fans, and another example of how the athleticism required for rugby league can translate across other sporting codes.

Holmes isn’t straight into the squad, as some of the reporting would have you think, it’s actually a lot more complicated than that.

The 23-year-old signed with the Jets as part of the NFL’s International Player Pathway Program, which was created to give overseas athletes the chance to develop their American football skills and compete for a shot at a roster spot.

As one of these overseas players, Holmes will be on the New York roster during training camp and he’ll be allowed to play in the four preseason matches.

If he misses a spot on the final 53-man roster, he stays with the Jets thanks to an international player practice squad exemption, meaning he’ll work with the franchise’s practice squad but he’s ineligible to be activated during the 2019 season.

I’m looking forward to the preseason games in August to see how he handles himself.

I keep wondering, though… As Valentine Holmes hits the NRL departure lounge, why isn’t the arrivals hall teeming with young American athletes getting a shot at playing rugby league?

Why aren’t NRL clubs doing more to mine this massive talent pool?

(Photo by Chris Hyde/Getty Images)

I’ve gone on and on and on here on The Roar about how well-suited rugby league is to the American market. The potential for growth is massive, but the game’s ingrained self-interest and fear of trying anything new seems to have won out yet again.

But even if the will and long-term commitment to growth doesn’t exist, why aren’t any NRL clubs scouting the talent and bringing promising American athletes here?

According to the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), there were 16,236 college footballers eligible for the 2018 NFL draft.

Only 256 players get drafted and even then, those players are no guarantee to progress much further in professional football.

NFL teams turn over an average of 20 spots on their 53-strong rosters every offseason.

The average NFL career is 3.3 years and aside from the Canadian Football League, there’s nowhere to go once you’re out. No state leagues, no suburban leagues – that’s it. You’re done.

For someone drafted at age 20, that’s still a lot of time to make something of your prime athletic years.

This is an enormous cohort who have grown up with a football, who already have the ball-handling and defensive skills which can be easily tweaked.

Given the complicated playbooks they learn throughout high school and college, which contain dozens if not hundreds of formations and plays combinations, they’d be able to acclimatise to even the most intricate NRL set up.

The most development would be the fitness work so they could run out extended periods and be able to tackle, get back ten, tackle again, and so on. Still, this would be a relatively easy transition.

The maximum effort most clubs seem to put into exploring international talent is to look at players from the Pacific Islands during international games or Super League players. It’s lazy and short-sighted, something that is unfortunately not uncommon around rugby league.

Only four USA-born players have played in Australia and two of those have played in the NRL era.

Warriors second rower Joseph Vuna was born in California, but he moved to New Zealand when he was a kid so he doesn’t count. Vuna is currently on a 12-month Mormon mission after playing four games last year.

Clint Newton, former Newcastle and Melbourne back-rower turned general manager of stakeholder relations at the Rugby League Players Association, was born in South Carolina. But that’s more of a quirk than anything. His dad is Aussie golfing legend Jack Newton.

(Naparazzi / Flickr)

There have been a few attempts at getting former college footballers into rugby league with some Queensland and New South Wales Cup teams giving American players a chance.

Texas-born Akarika Dawn was a former linebacker at the University of Colorado Boulder who played a few games for the Burleigh Bears in the Queensland Cup in 2007.

Former Washington Redskins running back Silas Redd trained with the Ipswich Jets in 2018 before he got a job offer in the NFL he couldn’t refuse. Jets staff, including co-coaches Ben and Shane Walker, had no doubt Redd could have made it to the NRL.

Other sports are making moves to identify and bring over talent from the States.

About a year ago, the NBL set up a fund to bring over young basketballers who want to skip college so they can have a year playing professionally in Australia before they go back for the draft.

The AFL has scouting programs set up in a few countries, including America. They hosted a combine for prospective players in the USA since 2012 until putting it on hold in 2018. Numerous former NCAA basketballers and footballers have come out to Australia to give Aussie rules a crack. The vast majority of them don’t pan out, but Collingwood’s full-forward Mason Cox is showing that when things go right, it’s a massive benefit to a team.

Mason Cox (Photo by Adam Trafford/AFL Media/Getty Images)

As far as I can find, the only rugby league pathway between Australia and the USA is for players to self-nominate if they’re interested in playing club league. It’s a pretty rudimentary setup, not dissimilar to a program for Aussie cricketers looking for an English club to play with during winter.

Where’s the NRL’s International Player Pathway Program? Where are the talent identification programs for anywhere outside of the UK and the Pacific Islands?

Why wouldn’t an NRL team back themselves to identify and nurture the talent?

With the league looking at expansion and a lot of new players needed, what does a team have to lose by taking a shot on developing an American prospect?

It’s a massive waste of potential.