Book extract – Raider: The Raymond Chester Story

In an extract from Raider: The Raymond Chester Story, published this week by Calon, rugby fan Jon Gower considers the pace and acceleration of American footballers.

“Football is a speed game,” Coach Kevin Bullis at Division III powerhouse Wisconsin Whitewater.  (Washington Post, September 2021)

The NFL has its speedy players galore and some of them are so fast that they beg the question are they actually faster than track and field athletes?

Raymond Chester, who had been a track athlete in his college days, had speed on his side as a player.

He could run the 100 yard dash in 9.8 seconds and then sprint the 40 yard dash in 4.45 seconds. That’s a speed of 20.87 miles per hour. He wasn’t the fastest in the game but he was far, far from being the slowest.

For a little bit of context each and every year, the NFL tracks the fastest players each game. A total of 36 NFL players ran faster than 21 mph during the 2022 regular season, but only Parris Campbell and Kenneth Walker surpassed the 22 mph threshold. Campbell’s 22.11 mph speed ranks as the fifth-fastest top speed by a ball-carrier during an NFL season since 2016.

Mercurial 

Speed is one of the principal reasons why the talented Welsh rugby winger Louis Rees-Zammit was selected by the NFL as a member of its International Player Pathway. It was Welsh rugby’s loss and the NFL’s gain.

When he announced that he was leaving the national squad to try his hand at NFL football you could hear a deep collective sigh of disappointment. After all, here was a mercurial winger who had quickly won the respect of fans and run rings around opponents on the pitch, courtesy of his astonishing acceleration.

The already brilliant star decided to put his rugby career on hold to chase his “dream” of playing American Football. “I’m excited, I can’t wait to see the difference. I get that question all time; what is harder hitting, rugby or American football? We’ll soon find out,” he said. “It’s going to be fun. I’ve played a contact sport since I was 12. That’s bone on bone but we’ll see what it’s like when we come to pads.”

Global talent

The NFL’s International Player Pathway has been in place since 2017, allowing select divisions to be allocated players. In September 2023 it announced that the NFL was increasing opportunities for international players that will see practice squads expanded to 17 players if a qualifying player was included.

Tampa Bay Buccaneers owner and chair of the NFL international committee Joel Glazer said at the time: ‘The opportunity for all 32 clubs to utilise an additional practice squad roster spot for an international player is a significant step forward in helping to identify, develop and enable more exciting talent from around the world to play in the NFL’.

As Rees-Zammit explained at the time, “I’m trying to learn as much as I can and trying to bring what I’ve got already in rugby to the American football side of it, and give it my all.”

Rees-Zammit signed for the defending Super Bowl champions Kansas City Chiefs and appeared to be making a good impression in training. But sadly he didn’t make it through into the squad.

That said, Louis Rees- Zammit is fast. The Welsh TV broadcaster S4C put their own speedometer on him in a game, showing Rees-Zammit reached a top speed of 24 mph, or 10.73 metres per second. This easily beat one of his own previous top speeds when he’d been clocked at 23.48mph in a game for the English side Gloucester against Saracens.

In a totally different context that running speed is half that of a mountain lion or puma when it’s really running. Although you might run even faster if you had a puma coming after you!

Louis Rees-Zammit had properly shone in rugby, including some real moments of acceleration. One of the most memorable came in a home game in Cardiff’s Principality Stadium when the young winger received the ball pretty much at one end of the pitch, inside his own 10m line, chipped the ball in front of him and successfully gave chase to it, beating his opponents who had a 20 metre start on him.

Stepping on the gas

It’s uncommon to hit such speeds during a match as it’s easier to concentrate in the controlled environment of the training ground but players such as Rees-Zammit can really step on the gas. Another player who did so was the New Zealand winger Rieko Ioane was ran at 10.69 metres per second (23.92 mph) when making a successful try-saving chase and downing tackle against old rivals Australia.

So, NFL athletes are some of the best in the world but Rees-Zammit’s pace makes him a contender, with quarterback Patrick Mahomes stating recently that the 23-year-old’s speed “is real”.

But speed isn’t the only quality you need. There is balance and the ability to read the game, not to mention taking the bone-crunching tackles, too.

In his book of recollections of Violent Sundays, leading receiver Bob Chandler recalls knees aching from the high speed torqueing, or being crunched in a tackle.  He also describes how his chin had required six stitches after being torn open, how one of his front teeth was knocked out, both elbows had been so bruised that he had to have fluid drained out of them every week.

Then one day, his lung burst after being hit in the back with a helmet while stretching out for a high pass. He ‘thought the impact had knocked my heart loose.’

It’s what happens ‘When very big men charge into you at 40 miles per hour with no intention whatsoever of slamming on the brakes. The body ends up as a car wreck.’

Raider: The Raymond Chester Story by Jon Gower is published by Calon and is available from all good bookshops.