“I want to be a role model for the next generation of football players,” says Leander Wiegand in an interview with the Deutsche Welle. “For everyone who is rejected again and again or who are said that the talent is not there or you are not big enough.”
Wiegand is a football professional. He has been playing for Munich Ravens in the European Football League (EFL) since 2024. The league, a European branch of the NFL that is supposed to promote and professional sport in Europe, has been a sporting home for several years.
Before his time in Munich, the 1.96 meter tall and 132 kilogram athlete 2022 in Cologne was active for the Cologne Centurions and 2023 in Düsseldorf at the Rhein Fire. With Rhein Fire, Wiegand even won the EFL championship and remained unbeaten with his team.
Wiegand’s third chance of an NFL career
The great career dream of the Hamburg native is the National Football League (NFL) in the USA. He had the opportunity twice to make it into the best league in the world. In 2021 he played with a football scholarship for the University of Central Florida.
However, Corona pandemic and family obligations at home reduced its time in the United States. In 2022 he tried to make himself interesting for a NFL team via the International Player Pathway (IPP).
The IPP is a program of the NFL that offers international football players the opportunity to improve in a ten-week training camp and to make fit for the challenges that the NFL has. Wiegand did not make it into the small group of talents three years ago, which was ultimately allowed to take part in the training camp.
It looks different this year: Wiegand has prevailed in advance and has been part of the IPP Class of 2025 since January, which consists of 14 players. The group is now almost at the end of its intensive training program, which is carried out at the IMG Academy in Florida.
Finally, with the so-called Pro Day, the participants must present their skills in front of NFL club scouts and trainers. Those who notice positively enough then have the chance to actually be selected by a team in the NFL draft at the end of April.
Later start to the football at the age of 19
It is noteworthy that Wiegand did it that far. The 25-year-old only started playing football in 2019. He was not quick at first and did not have much strength or endurance. But one day he started taking training, nutrition and relaxation seriously – and he learned to do without things.
The daily routine in the IMG Academy is also completely clocked for Wiegand and basically only consists of training on the field and in the weight room as well as meetings with the coaches. During the breaks there is time to eat and for medical treatments, you should be necessary. And Wiegand also uses his little free time for additional layers. “It is absolute grind [Schinderei, Anm.d.Red.]”, he says with a smile.
IPP participation no guarantee on NFL career
The IPP has been around since 2017. Overall, the quota is very low. The best examples that you can still succeed and that you can then establish yourself in the NFL are Jordan Mailata and Jakob Johnson.
The Australian Mailata was drafted by the Philadelphia Eagles in 2018, for which he still plays and with which he won the Super Bowl in February. Johnson is German. He was selected by the New England Patriots in 2019, at that time with Star Quarterback Tom Brady one of the strongest teams in the NFL. Johnson is still NFL professional and has played a total of 70 NFL games for the Patriots, the Las Vegas Raiders and New York Giants. He will appear for the Houston Texans in the coming season.
Mailatas and Johnson’s path shows that IPP participants can be trained with the right properties into NFL stars. “These properties can be explosive speed, coordination, balance, the ability to change direction at great speed, strength and explosive strength,” says Dominic Fevrier-McPherson, NFL International Football Development Manager, DW. “These properties are really needed in the NFL.”
Fevrier-McPherson also knows that players who come to the NFL via the IPP will not immediately make it into the active squads of the teams and have to wait for game inserts in the NFL. But you have a real chance of being included in the training group and further improving there. In daily competition with the established NFL professionals, you have to learn how to reconcile your physical skills with the mental requirements of a new life in America and as an NFL player.
German kicker with a real NFL chance
Since 2024, the IPP has not only been available for “ordinary” field players, but also for kickers and tunes. At the American Football, the kicker has to shoot the ball at Field Goals and extra points through the goal posts to score points for his team or put the “egg” into the opposing half at the kickoff. The period is another specialist who kicks the ball forward in certain game situations.
These “specialists” are not part of the IPP training camp right from the start, but later join them and they have it a little easier than the colleagues on the offensive or defensive line that have to train significantly more.
One of the most talented kickers of this year is 22-year-old Lenny War. At the age of 19, the Berliner gave up football because he had lost the joy of it and taught himself to kick the American Football by watching YouTube tutorials.
After a season at the Stuttgart Surge in the EFL, war was invited to the NFL Scouting Combine. During this trial training, he promptly converted all 14 of his field goals from distances between 35 and 55 yards. He was the only one who was perfect that day, and according to a report by the TV station ESPN, a scout even said: “He was better than most Americans.”
War that kicks two hours a day in the academy and checked his technology using films in the evening, depends on his craft and hopes to become an NFL kicker this year. “It is an honor for me to take this step and show young players and maybe even those who do not play football that you can cross this bridge and that it is never too late to change sport and have ambitions,” said war towards DW.
More and more Germans – with fans and players
In addition to Wiegand and War, Bastian Roppelt, the finish of EFL team Frankfurt Galaxy, is even a third German part of the group. All three would like to increase the growing number of German NFL professionals.
Last season, Amon-Ra St. Brown (Detroit Lions) and his brother Equanimeous (New Orleans Saints), Johnson (New York Giants), David Bada (Detroit Lions) and Brandon Coleman (Washington Commanders) were on the field. The sixth, Marcel Dabo (Indianapolis Colts), was in a team, but was not used.
Wiegand, War and Roppel want to emulate them – after all, the NFL is also booming in Germany and the lust of the fans on local heroes is great. On March 26, Pro Day is the draft from April 24th to April 26th. If the three German NFL candidates do it that far, a lot would be achieved.
Nevertheless, it would also be a further and hard path until the first use in the NFL. On September 4, Kickoff is on the first match day.
This article was made from the English original “International NFL HOPEFULS LOOKING TO CHANGE THE GAME” adapted.