Louis Rees-Zammit to return to rugby after NFL stint

Louis Rees-Zammit is leaving the Jacksonville Jaguars to return to rugby - AP/Ian Walton

Welsh rugby star Louis Rees-Zammit has announced he plans to return to rugby following a failed 18-month stint in the NFL.

Rees-Zammit signed an active roster deal with the Jacksonville Jaguars for the 2025 season after being part of their practice squad for the 2024 season. He travelled to London for the games against the Chicago Bears and New England Patriots in October.

However, the 24-year-old posted on social media on Thursday night that he is giving up American football in an aim to revive his rugby career.

It's been a great experience, but it's time to come home. I've decided that this is the best time to make this decision to give myself time to get everything in place for next season," he said.

There's only one thing that's on my mind, that's coming back to rugby and doing what I do best. I can't explain how excited I am!!

There'll be more news to come soon but for now, see you soon rugby fans."

When he joined the Jaguars last September, he changed positions - switching from running back to receiver in the hope of finding his way on to the playing field.

Wide receiver Rees-Zammit was considered a long shot at playing for the Jacksonville Jaguars in 2025 - AP/Dave Shopland

He previously spent five months working as a running back with Kansas City.

But he made little progress and was considered a long shot at playing for the Jaguars in 2025. Rees-Zammit had missed the last five practices with a lower back injury.

He made 32 appearances for Wales before announcing in January 2024 that he would retire from rugby union in order to pursue his dream of playing in the NFL via its International Player Pathway Program. The programme is designed to give players from other countries a chance.

NFL teams can have up to 16 players on their practice squad and get an extra spot for a player from the programme. Rees-Zammit spent all of last season on Jacksonville's practice squad.

Practice squad players work the same amount as guys on the 53-man roster, but they don't get paid as much and would need to be promoted to the active roster to play in a game.

It was an opportunity to practise with the team while essentially waiting for an injury to open up a roster spot.

For Rees-Zammit, it gave one of the best wings in rugby for years an opportunity to pursue his dream of playing in the NFL.

His father's first love of sport" was American football, and the then-Washington Redskins were their team. But making the leap across the Atlantic and into the NFL was never something that everyone back home understood.

The news of his return is likely to come as a welcome boost to recently-appointed Wales head coach Steve Tandy.

Rees-Zammit's NFL stint should not be viewed as a failure

It was to Louis Rees-Zammit's great credit that he decided, at the tender age of 22, not to die wondering. While already the toast of Welsh rugby, with 32 caps for his country and a British and Irish Lions tour on his CV, he still had the ambition to chase the even rarer distinction of converting to an entirely different sport. Hopping across the Atlantic to chance your arm in American football can seem a fool's errand, a fantasy fated to unravel due to the terrifying depth of competition for places on NFL rosters. So although it might seem that this young Welshman, announcing his return to rugby after an abortive 18-month project, has joined the ranks of broken souls, he deserves praise for challenging himself to beat the odds.

The timing is not quite as he would have planned it. Rees-Zammit, having fallen short of playing in a regular-season game for either the Kansas City Chiefs or the Jacksonville Jaguars, must now dive back into Welsh rugby at its lowest ebb. At face value, it looks an unappetising proposition, with the team staggering from one indignity to the next since the moment he left. Where his final act was to score five tries in five appearances at the 2023 World Cup, his team-mates' subsequent record sequence of 18 Test defeats has left the squad with just one representative, Jac Morgan, in the Lions squad in Australia. He can hardly be coming back for a quieter life.

Rees-Zammit scored a hat-trick of tries for Wales against Georgia at the 2023 Rugby World Cup - MB Media/Getty Image/ Gaspafotos

There is wisdom, though, in Rees-Zammit choosing to be a big fish in a small pond. In the United States, his lack of any high school or college experience in his chosen craft consigned him to the chorus line. There, even the speed for which he was celebrated in rugby began to look ordinary, with his best time of 4.43 seconds for the 40-yard dash paling against Chiefs wide receiver Xavier Worthy's record of 4.20. Plus, of course, there is the issue of technique. It is one challenge to catch a ball at speed in rugby, but quite another doing so over your shoulder in full body armour, with your run timed so precisely that you do not even break stride. This was one demand with which Rees-Zammit, by his own admission, struggled.

Even though the Chiefs initially put him and his family up in a penthouse, and even though Taylor Swift sent him a signed letter wishing him good luck, Rees-Zammit discovered that life as an NFL aspirant was often unglamorous and highly precarious, with the knowledge that you could be jettisoned at any minute even after signing a three-year contract. Rees-Zammit, plainly, saw how the cards were stacked when he suffered a recent lower back injury, making it highly unlikely that he would be included on the Jaguars' 53-man roster next month. Now, he has little choice but to go back to his first love. While his NFL experiment arguably cost him a place on a victorious Lions tour, it should not be counted as a failure. Ultimately, you can only fail when you stop trying.

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