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Little known 6'7 English rugby player picked in NFL draft
By Grant Constable
While the eighth tier of domestic rugby in England would not usually be a hotbed for potential NFL talent, Travis Clayton has shown that anything is possible.
The 23-year-old has been selected by the Buffalo Bills in the final round of the NFL Draft.
A former winger who played for Basingstoke in the Counties 2 Hampshire division, Clayton was the 221st overall pick in the seventh round of the draft in Detroit.
With the 221st overall pick, the @BuffaloBills select Travis Clayton, a former Rugby player and IPP Class of '24 graduate! 🇬🇧 @NFLUKIRE
📺: #NFLDraft on NFL Network/ESPN/ABC
📱: Stream on #NFLPlus pic.twitter.com/yOfS7v3XkT
— NFL (@NFL) April 27, 2024
Clayton was part of the International Player Pathway (IPP) programme and along with former Wales and British and Irish Lions winger Louis Rees-Zammit, is putting rugby in the spotlight as a source of talent for the NFL.
Rees-Zammit is now with Super Bowl champions, the Kansas City Chiefs.
"With rugby also being a team sport, I believe that helps tremendously," Clayton said.
"More importantly, playing the wing in rugby helps with the physicality side and with agility."
Despite having never played american football competitively, Clayton has been described as extremely agile and with his natural power at 6ft 7inches, is expected to play as an offensive lineman.
“All the players and coaches would say he’s a gentle giant,” said Basingstoke coach Richard Cheetham, who called his transition “extraordinary” when speaking to BBC South News.
"He doesn't have that ferocity in his personality off the pitch, but on it he has all those attributes."
He reportedly hasn’t played rugby since March 2023 and has been solely focussed on making it in the NFL.
His 40-yard dash was clocked at 4.79 seconds during the NFL Combine, which according to the Bills was the fastest they had recorded from an offensive lineman in the past 10 years.
"I just want to shout out all the UK fans for sticking by me and supporting me," he said in a short video after the draft.
"Look, I made it to the NFL and now it's time to represent and show the rest of the world exactly why UK athletes should play in the NFL."
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Latest Comments
I agree with a lot of this. Especially changing the contract side of AB rugby - even if the current structure is not the main reason Razor and others before him keep selecting players past their prime and only introducing new ones when forced to by injury. Then they act all surprised when a new player lives up to their potential and performs! Deification of good older players is a problem because, like Foster, it implies they have secret knowledge that plebs don't - despite the evidence before our eyes. Razor's first year has been a pretty big average and one hopes he gets some courage back around selection and game plan from lessons learned this year. Not hopeful though based on the selection for Italy. If they win well, (as they should) he will tout it as justification for his persistence this year but the reality is a "second" team from the squad would probably do the job.
Go to commentsIrish injury count is going up by the minute.
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