Why do I see so many American guys playing on teams in the NFL Europe? It shows the guys getting interviewed and they don’t even have accents like they should have from france or Germany.
NFL Europe is kind of a farm league for NFL teams. They send players over there to improve their skills and get more game experience. Kurt Warner, Rams quarterback, used to play in NFLEL until the Rams decided to add him to their roster for the regular season.
Actually, I think Kurt Warner came from the Arena Football League (AFL). This is the indoor league here in the US. He played for the Iowa Barnstormers if I remember correctly.
Being a farm league is a good way to describe it. Although, instead of an entire NFL Europe team being designated to an NFL (USA) team, the individual players are under contract with different teams. I think there are only 8 teams in the league.
One team could have players under contract for the Cowboys, Eagles, Redskins, Giants, etc. Some aren’t under contract at all.
World Bowl IX is on Sunday on FOX between Barcelona and Berlin if you’re interested.
Well, it is American football, after all. There is not much of a support infrastructure in Europe to turn out many skilled native players. The only football games I saw when I was in Europe (prior to the formation of NFL-Europe) were American military teams playing each other.
Rhetoric, I forgot about the AFL. He did play in NFLEL at one point, though, about 1996 or 7, when it was still the World League of American Football, IIRC.
Warner indeed was over in Europe. He likes to tell the story about how, when he was playing for the Amsterdam Admirals, he had to pass a whole bunch of whorehouses on the way to church.