Speaking recently in these pages, Northwestern University football coach - that of the American variety – Pat Fitzgerald touched on the crossover skills between kicking sports such as rugby and his own. He sees opportunities for Irish players with boot-to-ball skills to thrive in America: “Having watched Ireland play Wales in the Six Nations and having watched Johnny (Sexton) hit those kicks from tough angles, yeah, there’s no doubt there’s an opportunity.”
By bringing up one of Irish rugby's most treasured sons, Fitzgerald is playing to the crowd given he is trying to raise awareness of his side's clash with Nebraska in the Aviva next August. Regardless, the timing of his comments could not be more apt given the presence of two men in this weekend's NFL draft: Enniskerry's own Daniel Whelan and James McCourt of Dartry, Dublin.
After moving Stateside with his family aged 13, the former St Gerard’s pupil Whelan swapped playing outhalf in rugby for the gridiron, eventually earning a scholarship as a punter at the University of California-Davis. Listed at 6’6” and 215 pounds (98kg), Whelan has the physical attributes to be successful in a contact sport, but his role is very specialised and rarely requires physical altercation. Whenever his team fails to progress the ball beyond a certain point in a limited number of plays, Whelan is sent on to kick it back to the opposition somewhere on the field that is more advantageous for his defence.
The position requires a powerful leg, accuracy when kicking out of hand and an arsenal of different kicks that can deceive in the air, all of which Whelan has shown in recent seasons with UC Davis. During the 2021 campaign, his average kick distance was 46.6 yards, down a touch from his 2020 mark of 47.9 that saw him named an FCS All-American, but the fact that Whelan made 35 more punts this season and still kept in touch with his career-best mark is significant.
McCourt's position is different, him being a kicker, but no less specialised. His job is to do what Johnny does, so to speak, kick the ball between the uprights. After moving to America aged eight, he eventually plied his trade for the University of Illinois, a top flight Division One school. He famously scored the game-winning kick in an upset of Wisconsin in 2019, and this season recorded his career-best kick success rate of 78.3 per cent.
So what of the chances of either man hearing his named called on draft day? Let's start with Whelan. There are some hindering factors. The FCS, the division in which UC Davis plays, is the second tier of college football. This may have lowered his profile among media draft analysts. The Athletic and Sports Illustrated rate him as 10th on their list of punters in this year’s draft, in other outlets he is as high as number six. Very few punters actually get drafted, most instead enter the league via the undrafted free agent route.
There is a prevailing sense among those close to Whelan that NFL special teams coaches who are responsible for punters and kickers do not care about the standard of playing talent around a prospect. They are less likely to see playing at a lower level as a hindrance, so long as he can kick a football well.
There clearly is some interest from NFL teams. Last year, Whelan’s coach at UC Davis publicly stated that pro clubs were inquiring about him. In recent weeks, the Wicklow native is expected to have held half a dozen private pre-draft workouts with teams.
For McCourt, it seems not quite as heralded a prospect as Whelan. Similar to punters, kickers rarely have a draft kick spent on them though, seeing as they are point-scoring players, they do tend to be more frequently drafted. Notably in 2016, Roberto Aguayo of Florida State University was picked up in the second round by the Tampa Bay Buccanneers.
McCourt is rated highly by some. He is reported to have been the only kicker at a local pro day for the Indianappolis Colts, while Sports Illustrated have him at number four on their list of kicking prospects.
If either Irishman is drafted, it will be in the lower rounds on day three, Saturday. If not, the worst-case scenario for both is almost certainly an invitation to training camp as an undrafted free agent from one of the league’s 32 teams.
If that is what comes to pass, come Saturday evening/Sunday morning, there will be at least one Irish man with a chance at making an NFL roster for the first time since Neil O’Donoghue left the St Louis Cardinals in 1985.
