UNLIKELY HEROES SHINE IN NFL PRE-SEASON OPENERS
Former rugby star scores on 65-yard run for Bills on first carry in first football game
Never mind that of 22 NFL teams playing pre-season games Thursday, fewer than half played their starting quarterback. That isn’t exactly startling news.
What was startling is two pretty special moments occurred Thursday — and to the unlikeliest of players.
We’re referencing the long touchdowns scored by Christian Wade, a former British rugby union star and now a fledgling football player for the Buffalo Bills, and Damon Sheehy-Guiseppi, a recently down-and-out receiver/returner who lied his way into a spring tryout with the Cleveland Browns while basically homeless and practically penniless. (See related story.)
Cue the Rocky music.
“I still can’t believe it. That’s what dreams are made of, man,” said Wade, the former rugby icon who is now listed as, at best, a fifth-string running back for the Bills.
Wade was allocated to Buffalo in April as part of the NFL’s international player pathway program. He’s from a town that’s more English-sounding than Michael Caine: High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire.
He’d never played American football before the spring. Yet on his first play of his first football game Thursday, Wade took a handoff from third-string Bills quarterback Tyree Jackson at New Era Field, made a beautiful cutback to the right, burst through a hole created by a fabulous seal block by newly signed right tackle Jarron Jones, flew past Indianapolis Colts safety Derrick Kindred and was gone — 65 yards for a touchdown in Buffalo’s 24-16 win.
Wowsers.
Bills players, coaches, medical staff and equipment handlers went absolutely bonkers on the sideline, eventually spilling onto the field to engulf Wade.
“That was one of the coolest experiences of my football career, and I wasn’t even on the field,” starting Bills quarterback Josh Allen said. “It was just awesome.
“You saw the energy and excitement, not just of all the people in the stadium, but the people on the sideline. We had to push everybody off the field so we could kick the extra point.”
With that single carry, Wade displayed good vision, burst, instinct and breakaway speed. He led all rushers in the game, and now has a fine career yards-percarry average of 65.0. Not bad.
Wade admitted to being nervous before kickoff. He didn’t even have a pre-game routine.
“I was trying to use stuff that I used from rugby, like getting warmed up,” said the 28-yearold, who starred as winger for the Wasps in England’s top pro rugby league, having once scored a record-tying six tries in one game.
“The nerves were there, but it wasn’t like uncontrollable … I felt very relaxed and calm, knew I had a job to do, and was confident in my abilities to go out there and do what I needed to do for the team.”
How raw a football talent is Wade? Two post-game comments painted that picture rather starkly.
First, from Allen.
“All he’s used to is practice,” the quarterback said. “He breaks a long run in practice, and he goes straight back to the huddle. So after he scored that touchdown he was just kind of standing there, and (guard) Wyatt Teller had to tell him to get off the field.”
Second, from Wade.
“I get teased by the boys sometimes,” he said, “because I do stuff that, to them, is basic — but for me it’s completely new.
“Like, one of the guys will say to me, ‘You just need to read the blocks.’ I was like, ‘But how old were you when you first started (reading blocks)?’ He was like, ‘I was four years old.’ And I was like, ‘Well, I’m four right now, and you guys have been playing for however long. So think about you being four but on an NFL team. That’s the sort of situation that we have here.’”
Asked to put the touchdown, and his whirlwind NFL experience, into perspective, Wade said:
“I’m just kind of lost for words here. It’s what dreams are made of. To get out there, first of all, to have an opportunity to play with the Bills, and then score a touchdown. I couldn’t have dreamed it any better.”
INACTIVE PASSERS: Of the 22 teams that played Thursday, 11 held out their starting quarterbacks. Twelve if you count Andrew Luck, whose calf injury made the Indianapolis Colts’ decision moot.
That number is sure to skyrocket following Friday’s two and Saturday’s three games, featuring nothing but teams with established veteran starting quarterbacks: Ben Roethlisberger (Pittsburgh), Jameis Winston (Tampa Bay), Kirk Cousins (Minnesota), Drew Brees (New Orleans), Andy Dalton (Cincinnati), Patrick Mahomes (Kansas City), Jared Goff (Los Angeles Rams), Derek Carr (Oakland), Dak Prescott (Dallas) and Jimmy Garoppolo (San Francisco).
Chiefs head coach Andy Reid said Mahomes may play the entire first quarter against the Bengals. But would you be surprised if none of the others played? You shouldn’t.
MUST BE EGREGIOUS: Seems a foregone conclusion now that it’s gonna have to be as egregious a blown call as the infamous one near the end of January’s NFC championship game for a pass-interference challenge to be overturned.
Some official at Thursday’s Indianapolis at Buffalo game threw a flag for defensive pass interference on as chintzy a call as you’ll ever see. A Colts defender reached out and barely touched a Bills receiver. No matter, the call stood after a review.
Colts head coach Frank Reich later challenged another PI. Again, the call (or in this case non-call) stood.
The first successful overturn occurred Thursday night at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, N.J., when New York Jets head coach Adam Gase challenged an incomplete Jets pass on 3rd-and-8. The NFL’s central replay command centre agreed with Gase and applied a 33-yard defensive PI penalty.
“The defender significantly hinders the receiver’s opportunity to catch the ball,” Al Riveron, the NFL’s senior VP of officiating, tweeted. “The ruling on the field is changed because there is clear and obvious visual evidence.”
Clear and obvious. If those standards are honestly applied, we won’t see many overturns this season. And that’s a good thing. JoKryk@postmedia.com