Christian Wade Starts NFL Journey In Florida

The former Wasps flyer will try and make it into the NFL in the near future.

Christian Wade Starts NFL Journey In Florida

Christian Wade Starts NFL Journey In Florida

A few months after shockingly announcing his departure from Wasps and rugby union, Christian Wade has started his NFL journey recently training in Florida with former Washington Redskins running back, Mike Sellers.

As the videos below suggest, he is quickly picking up the ins and outs of the game, but he also admits that he has a long way to go.

Wade recently told Sky Sports of his move: “The odds are kind of against me making it into the NFL. It is definitely the biggest challenge and the kind of things I have on my side is my ability to learn.

“My physical abilities in terms of my attributes and that I have played ten years professionally in rugby. It has given me some sort of experience of what it means to be a professional. I think they are the things I am riding on.

“Everything else I am going to have to learn and put my all into it in order to have some sort of chance to be successful.”

As you would expect from a career change, there have been bumps along the way too, to the extent the Englishman has questioned his choice to switch career paths.

Wade also said: “To be fair I have had a few of those days. There was a day when out in Florida when we were doing classroom stuff and I was just getting everything wrong.

“They were telling me to do all this stuff and I was thinking ‘no, I am pretty sure I learnt this last week and it’s supposed to be like this’.

“There have been times when I thought ‘oh what am I doing? This is going to be so hard, I am getting wrong and I thought I had this right'”.

Wade will be looking to become the latest in a short list of rugby players who have decided to switch allegiances. For example former Worcester Warrior Christian Scotland-Williamson now trains with the Pittsburgh Steelers and Alex Gray joined the Atlanta Falcons.

Rugby league stars Jordan Mailatu and Jarryd Hayne have also attempted to crack the American football scene – the former is currently with the Philadelphia Eagles while the latter spent a season with San Francisco 49ers.

Looking to be a running back or a punt returner on special teams, Wade will be part of the NFL Player Pathway Program in January. The scheme is designed to help competitors from outside the USA try and make it onto an NFL roster.

Wade continued with Sky: “I am just trying to figure out where I stand and how I am going to learn all this stuff. But then I just have to remember everything I have done in my career post this time and everything I have left behind as well. And that gives me the motivation to want to get things right, to learn and to figure out what I need to figure out to be successful.

“You can give up because it gets too hard or you can say right let me take a step back and figure this out – keep pushing through.”

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