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The simple explanation to Louis Rees-Zammit's strange NFL role after confusion
By Josh Raisey
Louis Rees-Zammit completed his second match in American football on Saturday in a preseason loss to the Detroit Lions, and like the week before, he was tried out in a variety of roles.
In his first match at Kansas City Chiefs' home ground, Arrowhead Stadium, the 23-year-old returned a kickoff 27 yards, was used as a gunner on the punt team and has been singled out online for his pass protection late in the match.
But fans who saw the former Wales wing making strides in rugby union have been left slightly confused that in both preseason matches now he has been used to take kickoffs.
Rees-Zammit established a name for himself for his prowess with ball in hand during his time in rugby. While he was comfortable kicking the ball from hand, he was never deployed as a place kicker. Understandably therefore, some have been left a little confused at this new role with the Chiefs.
There is a simple answer to this though, and it has to do with the expertise a rugby player has compared to an NFL kicker, specifically his ability to tackle.
"It's less about LRZ making the kick and more him being there as an extra person to tackle the return guy," The Podcast Nobody Asked For explained on X. "Most kickers wouldn't do that, or at least not as effectively as a rugby convert. Basically gives them an extra guy on defence for returns."
Though somewhat strange, there were hints that Rees-Zammit would be used as a kicker as early as May. "Louis has done above and beyond what I expected," assistant head coach and special teams coordinator Dave Toub said.
"He can kick field goals, he can kickoff, he can be a kickoff guy for us. He's every bit as good as Justin (Reid) is at moving the football and stuff like that on kickoffs. And he's really working hard at the returner job. I've got him in there as a starter right now so he gets as many reps as he can. He's a student of the game — he comes in after practice, he wants to be great, he's a great athlete."
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Latest Comments
Nah, that just needs some more variation. Chip kicks, grubber stabs, all those. Will Jordan showed a pretty good reason why the rush was bad for his link up with BB.
If you have an overlap on a rush defense, they naturally cover out and out and leave a huge gap near the ruck.
It also helps if both teams play the same rules. ARs set the offside line 1m past where the last mans feet were😅
Go to commentsYeah nar, should work for sure. I was just asking why would you do it that way?
It could be achieved by outsourcing all your IP and players to New Zealand, Japan, and America, with a big Super competition between those countries raking it in with all of Australia's best talent to help them at a club level. When there is enough of a following and players coming through internally, and from other international countries (starting out like Australia/without a pro scene), for these high profile clubs to compete without a heavy australian base, then RA could use all the money they'd saved over the decades to turn things around at home and fund 4 super sides of their own that would be good enough to compete.
That sounds like a great model to reset the game in Aus. Take a couple of decades to invest in youth and community networks before trying to become professional again. I just suggest most aussies would be a bit more optimistic they can make it work without the two decades without any pro club rugby bit.
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