Former England wing Christian Wade claims breaking into the NFL will be one of his “biggest sporting challenges yet” following his decision to quit rugby union.
The 27-year-old announced his departure from Wasps in October and has since been spending time in Florida at the IMG Sports Academy to learn more about American football.
In January, he will join the NFL Player Pathway Program in a bid to make it into the league but has admitted he will have to work hard to reach his goal.
The player pathway scheme, which began in 2017, aims to provide players from outside of America with a chance to earn a spot on an NFL roster.
Wade told Sky Sports News: “It is 100 per cent [my biggest challenge]. Just because of my age.
“The odds are kind of against me making it into the NFL. It is definitely the biggest challenge and the kind of things I have on my side is my ability to learn.
“My physical abilities in terms of my attributes and that I have played 10 years professionally in rugby.
“It has given me some sort of experience of what it means to be a professional. I think they are the things I am riding on.
“Everything else I am going to have to learn and put my all into it in order to have some sort of chance to be successful.”
Wade made 159 appearances for the Wasps before joining Alex Gray and Christian Scotland-Williamson in making the switch from England to the United States.
The former Wasps player, who is looking to take up the position as running back or on special teams as a punt returner, is third in the all-time try-scorers in the Premiership with 82 tries.
Asked about if he ever thinks he has made the wrong decision, he said: “To be fair I have had a few of those days.
“There was a day when out in Florida when we were doing classroom stuff and I was just getting everything wrong.
“They were telling me to do all this stuff and I was thinking ‘no, I am pretty sure I learnt this last week and it’s supposed to be like this’.
“There have been times when I thought ‘oh what am I doing? This is going to be so hard, I am getting wrong and I thought I had this right’.
“I am just trying to figure out where I stand and how I am going to learn all this stuff.
“But then I just have to remember everything I have done in my career post this time and everything I have left behind as well.
“And that gives me the motivation to want to get things right, to learn and to figure out what I need to figure out to be successful.
“You can give up because it gets too hard or you can say right let me take a step back and figure this out – keep pushing through.”
