Rees-Zammit left out of Kansas City Chiefs’ NFL roster

Louis Rees-Zammit has been released from the Kansas City Chiefs’ 53-man roster for the new season. Though the 23-year-old Welshman has not immediately realised his dream of making it in the NFL, he could still feature in Kansas’s practice squad, or even be signed by another team.
NFL franchises had to finalise their active squads for the season by 9pm BST on Tuesday, announcing which players were being waived from the group of 90 that took part in the off-season.
Rees-Zammit is among those released, but that does not mean Kansas City have washed their hands of him. He could still find a place in the Chiefs’ practice squad, with a season to continue learning his new sport, unless one of the other 31 franchises take a punt on signing him to their active roster. If Rees-Zammit remains unsigned by 5pm BST on Wednesday, as is expected, the Chiefs can name him in their practice squad.
Rees-Zammit started his attempt to make it in the NFL as a member of the International Player Pathway (IPP), a programme that guarantees franchises an extra place in their 16-man practice squad for those transitioning from other sports to the NFL. Rees-Zammit is not Kansas City’s designated IPP player — that is Chukwuebuka Godrick, an offensive tackle from Nigeria who was also among the 21 players waived by the Chiefs on Tuesday — and so he would be a regular rookie, though he could fulfil IPP status at another franchise.
Rees-Zammit, who has scored 14 tries in 32 appearances for Wales, signed a three-year deal with the Chiefs worth a potential £2.2million. As a member of the practice squad, he would be guaranteed about £170,000 for the coming season, and could still feature in the NFL. Those among the 16 or 17-man group train with the team and can become “active” during the season, and can be signed on to another franchise’s 53-man active roster.
It was always going to be a stiff task for Rees-Zammit to go from an athlete with no experience of American football to the NFL in seven months, after he quit rugby on the eve of the Six Nations. He trained for several weeks in Florida and demonstrated his athleticism at a Combine event, and was courted by several franchises before the Chiefs, the back-to-back Super Bowl champions, signed him. Rees-Zammit trained with the franchise over the summer with a view to earning a place in the active squad when the season began.
He made three appearances in pre-season against Jacksonville Jaguars, Detroit Lions and Chicago Bears, performing a variety of roles as a running back and wide receiver, on special teams as a chaser and returner, and even as a kicker. Across the three games Rees-Zammit was involved in 22 of the Chiefs’ 177 offensive snaps, and 22 of the 85 snaps by special teams, without making a splash in the same way as Christian Wade, who scored a 65-yard touchdown with his first touch for Buffalo Bills in 2019. Even that was not enough to get the former England wing a place in an active squad.
“We tried to get him the ball a little bit tonight, and he had some real positive yards,” Andy Reid, the Chiefs head coach, said last week. “That’ll be good for him to see and study himself on that, in live action like that. He’s a heck of an athlete. It’s just a matter of getting more familiar with it as he goes here. We’ll see how everything works out for him.”
Rees-Zammit was absent from Chiefs training on Tuesday because of a back injury suffered a day earlier. The No9 jersey that he wore in pre-season is on the shoulders of another player: JuJu Smith-Schuster, who was re-signed by the Chiefs on Monday, a day on which the franchise waived 12 players from their squad.
The Chiefs begin their season against Baltimore Ravens in Kansas City in the early hours of September 6 UK time.