Holmes touted as a potential Patriot
Valentine Holmes will soon face his NFL D-Day and has a chance of joining elite quarterback Tom Brady at Super Bowl champions New England Patriots.
The former NRL star will be put through his paces on April 1 by scouts from 32 NFL teams at the Tampa Bay Buccaneers’ training facility in Florida.
Holmes will perform drills and be interviewed by the scouts.
If he impresses, an NFL team could swoop in and sign Holmes as a free agent.
Holmes, in pursuit of his NFL dream, quit Cronulla last year despite the club offering him a new A$5 million (NZ$5.17m) contract.
That opened the door for the Sharks to sign Shaun Johnson – a shock off-season departure from the Warriors – to play in the halves and switch Matt Moylan to fullback.
If teams do not deem Holmes as hot property he could be assigned to an NFL team’s practice squad as part of the NFL’s International Player Pathway programme.
Each year the NFL randomly selects one of its divisions to be eligible to receive Pathway players.
This year it is the AFC East, which includes Brady’s champion Patriots, the Miami Dolphins, Buffalo Bills and the New York Jets.
Practice squads allow players to train with a team but the player will not be eligible to play games.
The ‘‘pro day’’ at the Buccaneers’ facility will also include six other Pathway athletes from four other countries, including English rugby speedster Christian Wade and Brazilian judo champion Durval Neto.
The players have spent the past three months learning American football at the IMG Academy sports facility in Florida.
Former South Sydney Rabbitohs junior giant Jordan Mailata was in the Pathway programme at IMG last year and was so impressive at the pro day the Philadelphia Eagles snapped him up at the NFL Draft.