Yeah, I can see the parallels in the AFL. You try to cover a player and often you don't know if the ball is coming or not since your back is turned to the kicker (quarterback). This situation never exists in league because there is no forward pass - you normally can see both runner and passer at the same time and the runner is normally doing a fly pattern. Even in the run game a defender doesn't need to shed blockers. I have cleaned up and seen cleaned up a lot of players that weren't accustomed to this back in the good ole pioneering days of gridiron in Australia! Kept the ambos in a job!

I played TE for 3 seasons and then DE/LB for another 3. It took me nearly a full season @ LB to appreciate what the helmet/pads allow you to do as far as throwing yourself around and into people goes - the old league habits (played about 10 seasons of that) need to be gradually eroded. Fun game when you get to that point!

So there are a lot of parallels but there are also a lot of differences.

http://wwos.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=8955976

Not to mention that he has zero experience with gridiron specific stuff like learning playbooks, etc. He'll be trying to learn all the nuances that have been 2nd nature to other competing backs since high school.

To make it in the NFL you need to cut your teeth in the colleges - there aren't a lot of NFL players that don't come through there.

He was actually on the front page of NFL.com on tuesday. Must be doing something right if you make it on there. Very similar article to WWOS article.

Getting ready to eat my hat. Although contact doesn't equal game time. Just means you are in the final 90, that gets cut to 75, that gets cut to 60, then 7 got to training squad and 53 go to first squad.

49ers

http://wwos.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=8963054