They enter as raw prospects with little or no experience in American football. Some have excelled previously in other sports, some have no experience whatsoever as professional athletes. But they all have one thing in common: the dream of making it in the NFL.

Ten weeks of intense training in Bradenton, Florida, for this year’s batch of 13 young hopefuls came to a conclusion on Wednesday as the Class of 2025 from the NFL’s International Player Pathway (IPP) took part in the University of South Florida’s pro day workouts in neighbouring Tampa.

The IPP prospects were put through their paces in front of NFL scouts. They can be picked during the league’s annual player draft taking place from April 24 to 26, or failing that, signed later by any of the 32 NFL teams as free agents. Or the dream ends and other paths must be followed.

Since its inception in 2017, 41 IPP graduates have signed with NFL teams, and there are 23 currently on its teams’ rosters. These include Jordan Mailata, a former rugby league player from Australia who won the Super Bowl in February as an offensive lineman with the Philadelphia Eagles.

The Athletic spoke to members of previous IPP classes — and one from the current crop — to find out about their experiences; did they really manage to learn those huge playbooks, and did they ever make it to the NFL?

Alex Gray: The rugby player who became a Gladiator

Gray, a former England Under-20 rugby union captain, was part of the first IPP group eight years ago. He was on the Atlanta Falcons’ practice squad, a supplement to an NFL team’s 53-strong active roster, as a tight end from 2017 to 2019 but is now a star on the BBC’s Saturday night game show Gladiators.

The now 33-year-old, from County Durham in the north east of England, had never played American football before joining the IPP, only ever experiencing it through the John Madden NFL video games. But he was excited by the challenge, especially after missing out on representing Great Britain in Rugby Sevens — a mini-version of the sport’s traditional 15-a-side union game — at the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro because of injury, causing him to fall a “bit out of love” with the sport.

Having grown up excelling in rugby union, which American football was derived from in the 19th century and remains similar to in certain aspects, in that it involves an oval ball and lots of contact, Gray said the IPP programme helped him step out of his comfort zone.

“I’d always been, ‘Alex Gray, the rugby player’, and probably had an entire identity tied up in that,” he says. “But actually I was, ‘Alex Gray, incredibly dedicated, incredibly hard-working, driven, positive, aspirational — who just happened to be good at rugby’.

“It kind of just opened my eyes to the possibilities of life, that as crazy a dream as you might have, all it takes is one phone call from the right person and you doing the hard work, and crazy things can happen. It was an experience for me that showed that most things are possible.”

While rugby training focused more on endurance and the NFL version on strength, training for Gladiators – where everyday members of the public, the ‘contenders’ challenge 18 ‘Gladiators’ in a series of physically demanding events — encompasses everything due to the varied nature of the games, from one-on-one confrontations, such as a pugilistic duel (Gray’s bread and butter) to climbing challenges.

“Again this is a complete career change, and it’s going into unknown territory,” he says. “But I know the recipe, right? I know the recipe for success. It’s about just working hard, taking all these opportunities, and trying to do the absolute best you can with it.

“Where in the world can you get into a big steel ball and roll around? You can’t, right? But I think being a rugby player and an American football player, aside from boxing or the MMA, that’s as close to being a real-life gladiator as you can be, anyway, so that’s kind of put me in good stead, definitely.”

Eduardo Tansley

Christian Scotland-Williamson: The commentator and barrister

Scotland-Williamson was signed by English top-flight rugby union side Worcester Warriors while studying for a Master’s in international business at Loughborough University in England. In 2017, he made a bone-crunching tackle which came to the attention of NFL scouts.

A member of the same IPP class as his friend Mailata, the 6ft 9in Scotland-Williamson joined the Pittsburgh Steelers as a tight end in 2018.

“I’d had some frustrations with rugby in general: not being understood, not feeling like I was really accepted or understood by certain coaches, which then limited my opportunities on the pitch,” he says.

“As soon as I got on that plane to go out there, it was very much a mentality of burning the ships. Everyone is a good athlete in the NFL. That’s not the difference — it’s the mental side. I had a maniacal focus. I rented an apartment on the same street as the facility. It was nine minutes from my bed to my locker. I was first one in, last one out. I lived that mentality.”

In a new country and learning a new sport, Scotland-Williamson applied his academic acumen to learn the playbook — a vast and often complex collection of all the team’s offensive and defensive plays which features new concepts and verbiage.

“For me, the playbook was a non-negotiable. I had two degrees at that point, and I approached it at that level, I had cue cards every night studying them,” he says. “I started working with a Harvard professor who specializes in hypnosis. I’ve read every book possible on skill development and talent development to break that 10,000 hours. I didn’t have 10,000 hours. I had a year.

“If I made a football error, if I dropped a ball, or my technique was slightly wrong in executing a block, then I would be quite kind to myself because that’s just repetition, that’s just time in the game, that will come. But it was unacceptable for me to have a mental error.”

As a Steelers fan, Scotland-Williamson was familiar with their head coach Mike Tomlin. But his position coach was equally formidable.

“Coach James Daniels was a real hard-nosed, old-school coach from Alabama. He was not scared to cuss you out every single day, so my main goal in the first year was to just shut him up. There were times when I thought he hated me and I thought I was cursed.

“But then in my second year, when he realized I was basically an encyclopedia, he’d go around the room asking people questions and then he’d only ask me last because he’d get me to correct other people if they had made a mistake.

“The Steelers’ defense was elite and Tomlin wasn’t scared to throw me in, even when I was awful. But it meant that I was getting quality work every single day from the best in the league. In terms of preparation, there’s no better practice environment I could have had.

“So when I was finally earning T.J. Watt and Bud Dupree’s respect with my blocking, that’s when I knew that I was doing well. I was seeing what they were doing to people on the weekend, and I was able to stand up to quite a few of their moves when we had pads on.

“In that second year, I finally got my legs under me, and had more confidence, but it took everything, it genuinely did.”

Scotland-Williamson receiving a fist bump from Mike Tomlin. (Karl Roser/Pittsburgh Steelers)

Scotland-Williamson’s time in Pittsburgh was plagued by injuries and cut short after two seasons.

“Unfortunately, my body didn’t really hold up to give me every opportunity that I felt like I deserved and had worked for. I have permanent nerve damage in my ankles and that ultimately ended my time with the Steelers,” he says.

Scotland-Williamson, 31, has since helped commentate on three Super Bowls with the BBC and UK radio station talkSPORT, as well as the annual NFL games played in London. In September, he will be called to the bar and will specialize in commercial sports law.

He says, “I would genuinely say the reason I’ve been able to do the bar and be successful is because of how I had to learn the playbook.”

Peter Carline

Mapalo Mwansa: From watching a YouTube clip to the Class of ’25

Mapalo Mwansa is in the third year of an economics and finance degree (NFL UK & Ireland)

YouTube’s algorithm changed Mwansa’s life. While he was at his parents’ home doing the dishes one day, an interview with sprinter Eugene Amo-Dadzie — known as the world’s fastest accountant — played at random on his computer. He was inspired.

“It was just a regular interview, him just speaking on the track, talking about his journey. I had no idea who he was. I’m a man of faith, and he’s also a man of faith. And he talked about his journey being illogical. It just didn’t make sense. He was 30 years of age, but managed to achieve the fourth-fastest British sprinting time ever at that age,” Mwansa says.

“I feel like if I can pull this off, it can be that same sort of inspiration to younger people, to people who are the underdog, people who just believe that they are someone regular — but there’s a big plan for you out there somewhere.”

A talented sportsman, Mwansa decided to focus on American football while studying at Loughborough University.

“I grew up playing in a multitude of sports — track and field, rugby, soccer, basketball and cricket. I went on to really pursue soccer as my main sport. And then at university, I dropped that and in my first year I started powerlifting and ran a track and field event in front of a couple of guys. And then from there on, I was invited to be part of the Loughborough University American football team. And the journey has been pretty crazy from then on.”

Mwansa, 20, is in the third year of an economics and finance degree. But that is on hold as the linebacker/edge-rusher attempts to earn a place on an NFL practice squad, to follow in the footsteps of Scotland-Williamson and another Loughborough alumnus.

“Adedayo Odeleye is now with the Baltimore Ravens. He was picked up by the Houston Texans (in 2022), and he had the same journey. The broadcasting of The Pathway documentary series (also on YouTube) last year really helped my understanding of what was going on in the IPP, and it made me feel like it’s tangible — ‘I can touch that’.”

“It’s a 10-week process to try and turn dreams into reality” says Mwanza (NFL UK & Ireland)

After flying out to Florida in January, Mwansa and his counterparts have now reached the end of a gruelling stretch, which has featured six-day weeks packed with training and study.

He explains, “We have breakfast at 8am, then positional meetings, where we watch some film (of games or previous training sessions). Then we take ourselves to the field for a little bit of conditioning. It’s called movement, but it’s really conditioning. And then we take ourselves to lift. Then it’s lunchtime at midday and a little bit of free time — if you eat quickly. Then you take yourself to treatment, because we’re going 100 per cent every day, you have got to make sure you take care of your body. Then we have our practice at 2pm.

“After that, it’s film study — looking at what we’ve completed and to practice what we could do better and evaluate our performances. That’s the only way you can get better. And then it’s dinner time. Then chill out in the evening… well, it normally turns into watching more film with our positional group.

“It’s a 10-week process to try and turn dreams into reality, to get ourselves onto an NFL roster. And then see what we can do after that.”

Peter Carline

Darragh Leader: Quitting JP Morgan to help the next generation

Irishman Leader, a professional rugby union player before leaving to successfully study for an MBA on a scholarship at Clemson University in South Carolina, was in last year’s IPP class. Since then, he has played a season in the ELF — a professional American football league with teams in nine countries across Europe — for Austria’s Swarco Raiders Tirol, finishing rated as the league’s top punter and fourth in points as a kicker, and joined an athlete transition programme at financial giant JP Morgan.

Earlier this month, however, he quit JP Morgan to join his brother, Tadhg, at Leader Kicking, a business which aims to help Europeans secure places as punters and kickers in U.S. college football. Tadhg is also an IPP coach who works with kickers and punters.

“The last two weeks since I joined my brother, I’ve been to a competition in Dallas, watched this year’s IPP lads in Florida, and then I am going to New York next week. So it’s a lot more enjoyable than staring at an Excel sheet, copy-and-pasting in some rich fella’s billion-dollar account,” he says.

Darragh (left) and his brother at the NFL Combine (Hugo Pettit)

“I was playing in the ELF last year, but I decided most likely to not do that this year and just go full-time coaching to try and find the next group of lads, getting more lads over for college football in the States. We’ve like seven guys that are doing very well at the moment and have attended all these kicking camps and done like top 20 out of thousands of people over the last three or four years. Hopefully, we will have seven more Irish lads playing college football come next season.

“We think there’s so many Irish guys, European guys, rugby guys around Europe that are walking around with massive legs and probably don’t even realize they could be over in America, playing college football (as kickers or punters), making money, trying out for the NFL.”

While on the IPP, Darragh ripped the quad muscle in his thigh off the bone, making it difficult for him to find an NFL roster spot. However, along with New Orleans Saints kicker Charlie Smyth and two others, he was part of the first group of Irishmen to take part in the NFL scouting combine, a pre-draft player analysis event. His journey was captured in a recent documentary titled Punt on RTE Player, an Irish public service broadcaster.

Eduardo Tansley

Aaron Donkor – Learning ‘the language of football’

Donkor had played American football in the German Football League, his country’s top division, and at college in the States before joining the IPP in 2021. He was with the Seattle Seahawks’ practice squad in 2021 and 2022 as a linebacker then dropped down below the NFL’s elite level with the Houston Roughnecks and Arlington Renegades in the U.S.-based XFL and the Calgary Stampeders of the Canadian Football League (CFL). Last September, the now 30-year-old won the European League of Football (ELF) title with German team Rhein Fire.

“Currently I’m just in the gym grinding. I haven’t signed anything, so I’m waiting, reading and training,” Donkor, who hasn’t ruled out another crack at the NFL, says having seen out his contract with the Fire.

“I’m not asking for a contract at all, I think I would love a workout because I believe if you bring value to a team, I think they’re winning. And let’s find out if I can bring value to a team. I think I can. So I’m grateful for an opportunity if it comes towards me and I’m patiently waiting for it.”

Donkor (No. 43) attempts a tackle playing for Seattle in the 2021 NFL pre-season (Steph Chambers/Getty Images)

The German, who also played basketball in Germany’s second tier, comes from a family of athletes — his brother Anton is a left-back for Schalke in 2. Bundesliga, the second division of soccer in his homeland.

His biggest challenge while with the IPP, he says, was changing position from outside linebacker to inside linebacker. His American college experience, at New Mexico Military Institute and Arkansas State University, gave him a head-start, and he says “learning the language” of American football is important for IPP athletes as it helps “put all the skills that you have developed at the right point at the right time on the field.”

The NFL has played at least one regular-season game in Germany each year since 2022, contributing to the growth of the sport in the country. “They really fall in love with the support of football once they see the details and it’s the same way that happened to me,” Donkor says of German fans. “When I first found out about football, I realised, ‘Oh, this is deeper than just running into each other.’ Once you look a little deeper, you find the beauty in it. I hope I can be a part of revealing how beautiful this game is.”

Eduardo Tansley

Ayo Oyelola – The Londoner attempting ‘the impossible’

Oyelola has been with the Jacksonville Jaguars for two NFL pre-seasons (2022 and 2023) and on the Pittsburgh Steelers (2024) roster. He was selected by the IPP twice, in 2021 and 2022, and was one of the first athletes to do so with a soccer background. He is now a free agent and preparing for the NFL’s training camps this summer.

The Londoner, a member of Chelsea and Dagenham & Redbridge academies when younger, quit soccer to study law at the University of Nottingham. For a time, his focus was his education.

“I fully stopped playing football when I went to university, and honestly, I can’t even tell you what I was thinking at that point. I wasn’t playing sports, and that was bad for me. I realized I needed to be playing sports,” says the 26-year-old.

“So when I was a student, I was between going back to soccer, boxing or American football, so I looked at the pathways for American football and I was just like, ‘Yeah, I think I can do this based off my athleticism.’ So from around 2017, early 2018, that’s been my goal — to make the NFL.”

That Oyelola can see a clear pathway to the NFL is a sign of how globalized the game has become. But the road to the NFL hasn’t been plain sailing. In his first stint in the IPP, Oyelola tore his hamstring, but he believes it was a blessing in disguise as he then went to the CFL and won the Grey Cup (its version of the Super Bowl) that year with the Winnipeg Blue Bombers.

When he returned to the programme in 2022, he was more confident.

“The first time I went on, that feels like the hardest thing I ever did,” Oyelola says. “I played academy football growing up, so I’m used to being in a structured professional environment when it comes to sports, but I think because what the programme is trying to do is basically impossible — trying to get you ready for the NFL in 10 weeks, which just isn’t possible, but they try and get you as close to it as possible.

“As an international, you’re getting told that in 10 weeks you can be in the NFL. That’s mentally just a crazy thing to be dangled in front of your face. So mentally, that is hard for everyone. Obviously, everyone doesn’t make it.”

But those testing 10 weeks, or 20 in Oyelola’s case, changed his life. “Even if I never made it to the NFL, it taught me a lot of life lessons,” he says. “It was such a monumental task; it shows you the value of process and hard work. For me, that’s when my faith (in God) strengthened, because I had to, because I could not do it in my own strength.”

Eduardo Tansley

(Top photo of Mapalo Mwansa: NFL UK & Ireland)