He was a first round draft pick and he is still getting chances six years later despite failing everywhere he goes.
It is rare that they carry someone who has no other place on their depth chart even on occasional plays. We don’t know how they feel about him in that way. Whether they see him being useful in other circumstances. But I do think he seems to be doing well enough for them to take a chance. Your other points are very valid.
Hayne, if he’s successful can build up your brand, there are loads of fans in Australia who are going to tune in and watch him play or buy jerseys with his name on it. You don’t sign a guy who’s 27, a huge international star, and never played football before, just to cut him because you need an extra roster slot.
Like with Tebow, his international notoriety means he’ll have to fail before he gets cut, right now he’s not failing.
Sure, there are reasons to keep him aside from his football skills. But the $100,000 signing bonus isn’t one of them, and those reasons don’t make criticisms of what he’s done on the field any less valid.
I think you are losing your point if you ever had one. What does that have to do with anything? He was a Heisman Trophy winner who’s stock fell and was picked up late in the 1st round to the surprise of many. He did not have a good Combine. There were questions about his arm strength, ability to read defenses and slow release. He has gotten a lot of chances as a back up because he is a big strong athletic guy and there aren’t a lot of hidden gems on the bench of NFL teams. They were able to get him and his publicity on the bench for a little over the rookie salary limit. So what? He is a quarterback not a kick returner. Apples and oranges.
I’m a transplanted Aussie who hopes that Hayne succeeds in the NFL, but i do think he’ll need to be more selective in his catching on an NFL team. That over-the-head-facing-backwards catch that he took was very nice, but it is a far more risky play in American football than it is in rugby.
In rugby (either code - league or union), the player facing a high kick like that is nearly always better off trying to catch the ball, because in both rugby codes the members of the kicking team are allowed to come through and try to gain possession of the ball. This is true even if a person on the receiving team has not touched the ball first, as long as the chasers were onside (i.e., behind the kicker when the ball was kicked). So, if you let a high ball drop in rugby, it effectively becomes a free-for-all where either side could end up with possession.
In the NFL, by contrast, basically the worst thing that can happen if you let the ball drop without touching it is that you end up with possession on your own 1-yard line. By contrast, if you try for a risky catch, and fumble, the negative consequences are huge, because the kicking could team could end up with possession, and if they do it will usually be within 20 or 30 yards of your own goal-line. Disaster.
I think Hayne’s running looks fine, even if he runs a little more upright than the typical NFL ball-carrier. I don’t think he was running into people any more than the typical return guy. One of the side-effects of American football rules, with blocking and such, is that ball-carriers sometimes run into players from the other team, or even their own players, in their efforts to find the hole.
As someone who played rugby quite a bit as a kid, i think one of the hardest things to get used to in the NFL would be the idea that you are NEVER going to pass the ball. Hayne is, the world of rugby league, a big strong guy, and one of his key skills as a rugby player was the ability to hit the line, run into defenders, and then offload the ball to a team-mate. As such, every time he got the ball he would have been looking not only to make yards himself, but to position himself in such a way that he was able to pass the ball before or during the tackle, creating opportunities for other players on his team to advance the ball further down the field. That’s a key reason that he is so good at stiff-arming would-be tacklers, and why he does it so much; a key tactic in rugby is to hold of a defender with one arm, and slip the ball away with the other. Without that ability, he would have been far less effective as a rugby player, and it’s something that he really can’t use to the same effect in American football.
I’m willing to admit that i might be wrong here, but i think you’re overestimating how much Australians care about this.
I just spent six weeks in Australia visiting friends and family. I went to a couple of rugby league matches, and watched a bunch more on TV. I have friends there who are massive rugby league fans. They all know that i’m a real convert to American sports, and that i’m an especially big fan of baseball and the NFL.
You know how many brought up Jarryd Hayne in our conversations about sports? Not one.
There are certainly some NFL fans in Australia, but they’re mainly ex-pat Americans, or Aussies who have spent time living in the States. If Hayne succeeds, it will certainly be reported in the papers and on the news (here’s a story on the Australian Broadcasting Corpration’s site), but i don’t think the NFL, or the 49ers for that matter, can count on much revenue from Australia even if Hayne makes the team. And nor do i think that Aussies will be gathering the torches and pitchforks if he gets cut.
The NFL takes a long view on expanding their brand. They started playing preseason games in England 1986. This season there will be three regular season games. Having a popular Australian on a team won’t be instant success for the league but it couldn’t hurt.
My point is simple: Hayne is being viewed with suspicion because he played a different sport (read the thread if you don’t believe me) despite succeeding (so far) at everything he does. Tebow, a football player since birth, fails at everything in the NFL but keeps getting chances because he is a “football player.”
Knowing what you know now, would you take a chance on a Rugby League player with a similar skillset to Hayne’s or give a guy like Tebow one more chance? What would the smart thing to do be? Which is more likely to succeed? Should we put an asterisk* next to Hayne’s stats?
- Rugby player, not a football guy.
Heres what I don’t get about somebody like Hayne. He is a world class athlete, so why on earth does he want to play American football?
I don’t mean that in a snarky way, I like watching the game, but going from the talk in here Hayne may or may not squeeze into the 53rd spot of the teams roster. He may or may not be a cog in the machine, sitting on his arse the vast majority of time that the game is ongoing, only maybe getting one or two chances to actually get on the field and show his quality.
When I played sport for me the biggest thing was actually playing! Forget sitting there like a chump, I wanted to be out on the field for the full 70mins, 90 mins, whatever it was. Hayne had that, he was a regular for a top side and he got to get out there and play, why would he want to swap that for being part of a sports team that has 53 fucking players to choose from?
I could never, ever play American football, at any level. The very idea of training my balls off to stand on the sideline for most of the game is insane to me, and I can’t understand why Hayne wants to waste his time doing exactly that.
Apples <----> Oranges
It is not an either or proposition. The considerations for a quarterback and a kick returner are completely different.
By your definition every bench QB is a failure. And yet they are needed.
Tebow succeeded in getting his team to the playoffs and winning a playoff game. Hayne has caught a few punts in preseason. He may wind up having a much better career than Tebow in the NFL. But right now Tebow has absolutely succeeded more than Hayne. Hayne hasn’t even succeeded in making a team yet.
That being said I have no confidence in Tebow as a NFL quarterback. Never did. But the Eagles risk very little to have him in camp. He will probably make the team. But as the 3rd string QB. So what? They have a name player who brings publicity. A good guy in the locker room and bench. And they get him for a little over the rookie minimum. He probably won’t play a down unless they have some trick plays for him. Name me a better 3rd string QB? They are a dime a dozen and most have no experience in the limelight.
Right now I would probably give Hayne a chance unless my roster is really tight. That is unless in practice I see he is not showing good judgement and instincts for when and when not to catch the ball and when to run and when to fair catch.
Nope, not even close.
I live in Colorado and lived through the Tebow era. That is the single lamest excuse for Tebow that exists, and a ton of them exist. The Broncos changed their entire offense to suit Tebow’s game, and then a kicker led them to victory in the regular season and playoffs, but the Tebow apologists try to give all the credit to him. The Broncos succeeded despite Tebow, not because of him.
That being said I have no confidence in Tebow as a NFL quarterback. Never did. But the Eagles risk very little to have him in camp. He will probably make the team. But as the 3rd string QB. So what? They have a name player who brings publicity. A good guy in the locker room and bench. And they get him for a little over the rookie minimum. He probably won’t play a down unless they have some trick plays for him. Name me a better 3rd string QB? They are a dime a dozen and most have no experience in the limelight.
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Tebow doesn’t belong in an NFL locker room and all the players know it. They know that a more deserving player isn’t getting an NFL paycheck because of him. Thay also know that telling the truth about Tebow is a terrible career move, so they keep quiet until they retire. Then they speak the truth.
Still, this isn’t about Tebow. Hayne belongs, and the other players know it, and aren’t afraid to say it.
I understand what you’re saying, but i can think of a few reasons.
New challenge?
He’s done just about everything you can do in rugby league. He’s represented NSW in the State of Origin series (sort of like a Pro-bowl or All-Star Game, except it actually matters and they play at full steam), he’s represented Australia, and he’s won the Player of the Year Award twice. About the only thing he hasn’t done is win a Grand Final (Super Bowl equivalent). This move might be because he wants a new challenge.
Bigger stage?
Australia’s a big country, but it has a pretty small population. The whole population of Australia is about 1/15th of the US population. There are about 16 million more people in California alone than in the whole of Australia.
Hayne’s rugby league team, the Parramatta Eels, has played in front of an average home crowd of about 15,000 people this year, with a high of 35,000. This week, in an essentially meaningless pre-season game, the crowd at the 49ers home stadium was just over 70,000 people.
Money?
If Hayne does make the team, his rookie salary will be more (taking into account current exchange rates) than he made as one of the best players in rugby league. The sheer size of the market means that even the marginal guys make more in American professional sports.
Hayne’s turning his back on league stardom to take a shot at making it in a different sport is the very thing that makes his story so compelling in my opinion.
How many running backs does a team normally take into the regular season anyway? And while there’s no way Hayne will post a 20+ yard average on returns throughout the season (due to facing better defenses and other teams figuring out ways to counter him) surely there’s a spot on a roster for a returner who will get you 10+ yards a return, and can play running back if needed as well.
I think you might be slightly off the mark here. While I absolutely agree that there will be no torches and pitchforks if he doesn’t make it (in fact there are some people who don’t like Hayne and would love to see him fail), nor that the NFL or the 49ers will see any material revenue boost out of Australia, but there is certainly quite a bit of interest in seeing him succeed. There have been regular stories on him while he was at training camp and after both of the pre-season games there has been quite a few news stories about how he did, and comments from the coaching team, etc, etc. There’s certainly been a fair bit of chatter amongst my circle of sports friends about him.
As an aside, some of the commentary of the stories have been pretty laughable, after the recent game, one story as crowing about how well he did, even mentioning the play where Hayne was chasing a kick off/punt, the story was written to say Hayne was “doing well even in defence where he managed to get an arm on the receiver to slow him down to make him easy for his teammates to tackle”. You know what everyone else would just call a missed tackle? :rolleyes:
Definitely the first two, not so much the money angle directly I understand. He’s had to pass up a $1M a season contract to try this shift, and sure if he does make it, his salary will presumably be better, but he had no guarantees of a payday for a year or two and even now he’s having to ‘get by’ on $100k a year at the moment.
As you have said, he’s pretty much been there done that in League. With any elite athlete there’s a personality component that makes you strive for more. Hayne wants to go from being a big fish in a small pond to a big fish (hopefully) in a big pond.
Tebow doesn’t belong in an NFL locker room and all the players know it. They know that a more deserving player isn’t getting an NFL paycheck because of him. Thay also know that telling the truth about Tebow is a terrible career move, so they keep quiet until they retire. Then they speak the truth.
Still, this isn’t about Tebow. Hayne belongs, and the other players know it, and aren’t afraid to say it.
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You are successful in doing what few could, making me defend a player I think stinks and a team I hate. But if you think there are any future star QBs waiting for a third string spot go ahead and show me. The Eagles get a veteran QB who has been in big games as a back up to the back up for a little more money than a rookie. He gets to hold the clipboard and maybe come in as a wildcat every now and then. It’s not a bad idea rather than take a shitty rookie that you hope never has to take a snap. At least you know he can hand off the ball.
But back to where it all started. What is undeniable is he has been more successful than Hayne at football. Todd Marinovich is more successful than Hayne. At least he made a team. Hayne has obvious athletic talent. He has the potential to be successful. But at this point that’s it. Potential. Not success. To say he has had any success in the league because of a couple of practice games is ridiculous. I hope he is successful. It makes for a good story.
As an unproven rookie special teams player he would earn the minimum which is considerably less than 1mil.
Right.
When i said earlier that he would make more as a rookie in the NFL than he did in rugby league, i was talking about his last rugby contract, which was $A500,000 per season. At the current exchange rate, that’s about $US360,000. This year’s rookie minimum in the NFL is $US435,000.
I didn’t realize that Hayne had turned down $A1m.
I stumbled across an interesting article about Manfred Moore - who went from the NFL to play League in Sydney back in the 70s.
In case it seems like I am completely down on Hayne being successful or rooting against him I want to let everyone know I picked him for my last spot on my fantasy team. What the hell if he makes it great if not I’ll pick up another long shot on waivers.
He’s got the highest selling jersey at the moment. It would suck if the number got changed.