Former Geelong captain Ben Graham made history earlier in 2009 when the Arizona Cardinals punter became the first Australian to play in a Super Bowl. The Cardinals made it to the championship game after beating fellow Aussie Sav (Saverio) Rocca and the Philadelphia Eagles in the playoffs, but lost the final 27-23 to the Pittsburgh Steelers.
The Aussies are a hot commodity with NFL officials at the moment as they are known to be highly competitive and possess excellent skills when it comes to kicking and punting.
While Australian football players in the NFL have been few and far between, Colin Ridgway became the first one to break into America’s top league way back in 1965. Aussies who have earned paycheques in the U.S. since then were Colin Scotts in 1987 and Darren Bennett who played from 1995 to 2005.
But things peaked in the NFL in 2008 as four Aussies played in the league. They were Rocca, Mat McBriar (Dallas Cowboys), Cameron Stephenson (Jacksonville Jaguars), and Graham.
Graham, Rocca, and McBriar are all playing again this season, while Stephenson is currently on the practice squad with Jacksonville.
Graham grew up in Leopold, Victoria and began playing with the Leopold Football Club in the Bellarine League, where his dad Tony was a former premiership player and coach.
Ben, who just turned 36 years old on Nov. 2, played 219 games with Geelong in Australia from 1993-2004 and kicked 145 goals for the club. He was approached by the NFL’s New York Jets in 1997 to try out as a punter, but declined the offer.
While he made history as the first player from down under to take part in a Super Bowl, his NFL career has been a bit of a roller coaster ride.
It began with New York Jets in 2005. At the time, he became the oldest rookie ever to open a season in the NFL at the age of 31 and impressed enough to be offered a multi-year contract for several million dollars. Rocca, at the age of 33, would soon become the oldest rookie ever just two years later.
Graham played 51 games with New York and kicked 249 punts for an average of 43.5 yards. However, the was then cut from the team, re-signed, and then cut again in 2008 all within a two-week span, before catching on with the New Orleans Saints, where he played one game before being waived. He eventually hooked up with the Arizona Cardinals as a free agent in December 2008.
In the 2006 season he became the first Aussie in history to be named captain of an American pro sports club.
After 40 punts this current season, Graham is averaging 48.2 yards with 42.5 per cent inside the 20-yard line.
Rocca, of Melbourne, started his American career on a smaller scale when he signed a $330,000 contract with Philadelphia Eagles in 2007, after failing to catch on with the Buffalo Bills following a tryout in 2006.
The soon-to-be (Nov. 20) 36-year-old Rocca previously played in 257 AFL games for North Melbourne and Collingwood in a 14-year career, and managed to kick 748 goals, good enough for 13th place all time in the AFL. The punter was named the NFL's special teams’ player of the month in September 2008, after leading the league with a 44.1-yard net punting average and dropping seven punts inside the 20-yard line. He became only the second Eagles punter in history to win the honour.
Rocca’s younger brother Anthony, who formerly played for the Sydney Swans and Collingwood in the AFL is aiming to follow in Sav’s footsteps and currently training to become a punter in the NFL.
Sav was averaging 42.3 yards a punt for the Philadelphia this season as of Nov. 6 with 36.1 per cent of them inside the 20-yard line.
The 30-year-old punter McBriar was also born in Melbourne and began playing Australian rules at Brighton Grammar School. He attended the University of Hawaii after moving to the States and was then signed as an undrafted free agent by the Dallas Cowboys and made his NFL debut in 2004.
His best season was 2006, when he kicked a 75 yard punt which was the second longest in Cowboys' history. He was named NFC Special Teams Player of the Week twice that season for his excellent punting ability. He then ended the season off by being selected to play in the Pro Bowl, as punter for the NFC squad. He also led the NFL in punting average at 48.2 yards per punt, which was the highest the league for 43 years.
In 2007, Dallas extended McBriar's contract and offered him a five-year $8.5 million deal along with a $2.5 million signing bonus. Once he signed his name, McBriar became the highest-paid punters in the league.
However, all the money in the world couldn’t help him the next season as he suffered a season-ending break in his kicking foot on Oct. 12, 2008 when his kick was blocked and returned for the game-winning touchdown. To make matters worse it came on the final play of an overtime loss against Graham’s Arizona Cardinals. McBriar was averaging 49 yards a punt at the time of his injury.
He has recovered and rebounded from his injury well and as of Nov. 6 was averaging 46.4 yards after 30 punts with 56.7 per cent of them inside the 20-yard line.
These three Aussies have proven that AFL players can adapt to the NFL and carve out successful careers at the same time. Look for more Australians to follow their path in the near future.
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