Nate Ebner ... Olympian?

E5 Yaz

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The Patriots have given Nate Ebner permission to tryout for the U.S. Olympic rugby team.

"I also want to thank them and USA Rugby for giving me the opportunity to chase a dream I've had since I was a boy in a sport in which I've always had a passion," Ebner said. "I can't put into words how much this opportunity means to not only me, but my friends and family as well.

"I plan to represent the Patriots and our country to the best of my ability. Thanks again and Go Pats and go USA."

http://espn.go.com/nfl/story/_/id/14979461/new-england-patriots-safety-nate-ebner-taking-leave-train-olympic-rugby

It's a nice little story and all that; but really, it's just an excuse to post one of the greatest pre-draft videos this board has ever seen:

 
jsinger121

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I bet BB got him to take a large discount in return for the chance to go to the Olympics.
 
JohnnyK

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E5 Yaz

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JohnnyK

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In what regard?

And I still think the required conditioning for the two sports is pretty different - it seems like it's similar to the difference between 100m versus 3000m in athletics.
 
C4CRVT

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Have you watched much rugby? My son plays in HS. They spend quite a bit of time roving around the field at a light jog trying to maintain position then sprinting, tackling, resting, scrum/in-bounds play etc. It's not football but it's more like football than the analogy you made.
 
Number45forever

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Holy shit that video is amazing. He's wrecking people, leaps off the screen and I don't know shit about rugby. He looks really fast there. Just gives you perspective that speed like that makes Ebner, what, an average speed defensive/special teams player in the NFL?
 
MainerInExile

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Number45forever said:
Holy shit that video is amazing. He's wrecking people, leaps off the screen and I don't know shit about rugby. He looks really fast there. Just gives you perspective that speed like that makes Ebner, what, an average speed defensive/special teams player in the NFL?
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He ran a 4.47 before the draft, definitely fast for a safety, even in the NFL.
 
Eck'sSneakyCheese

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Saints Rest said:
Watching that video makes me wonder if the Pats ever considered him as a PR or KR.

If he does make the team, he would end up missing most of NFL preseason as he would be in Rio until around 8/21.
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Seriously! Can we get someone in the organization on this? Like, yesterday. I've wanted to see this happen since I first saw that video!
 
The Price Is Wrong

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Number45forever said:
Holy shit that video is amazing. He's wrecking people, leaps off the screen and I don't know shit about rugby. He looks really fast there. Just gives you perspective that speed like that makes Ebner, what, an average speed defensive/special teams player in the NFL?
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The people on the rugby team, even at tOSU, are mostly guys who showed up on campus and decided to join the drinking team, right? Varsity teams with scholarship money attached seem to be few and far between. So the guys we see in those videos are pretty much regular dudes - maybe they work out a bit more than average, but my sense is that genetically there's not much different between them and your average college student.

Every fringe professional athlete like Ebner is going to look like he's competing against 5-year-olds if you put them in that situation. It'd be like taking a AA-ball hitter and having him face high school pitchers. Will he crush them? Sure. Does it say anything about his abilities against peer professionals? Nope.

That said, I hope Ebner makes the team and wreaks so much havoc that New Zealand renames their team the All-Nates. It'd be fun if recent NFL retirees who still want to occasionally tackle somebody without being hauled off to jail decided to try out rugby. Maybe the Eagles would be able to finally withstand the onslaught from world powers like, um, Samoa.
 
Tokyo Sox

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C4CRVT said:
Have you watched much rugby? My son plays in HS. They spend quite a bit of time roving around the field at a light jog trying to maintain position then sprinting, tackling, resting, scrum/in-bounds play etc. It's not football but it's more like football than the analogy you made.
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Your son probably plays 15-a-side "normal" rugby (?) as opposed to 7's rugby, which is on the same sized field, but with only 7 guys a side. Sevens is a much faster game with a ton more sprinting and less standing around.

The Price Is Wrong said:
Maybe the Eagles would be able to finally withstand the onslaught from world powers like, um, Samoa.
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Samoa is a pretty legit 7's side. Perhaps you know but they beat us in the plate final in Vancouver this past weekend, but USA had a great tournament, beating France, England, and Wales, and losing to NZ, Fiji, and Samoa. That said I agree with the larger sentiment that it would be freaking awesome if the USA works their way into a consistent level of respectability.

Total aside, but another interesting side plot of this year's Olympic Sevens is that Fiji has never won an Olympic medal of any kind, but rugby is their national sport and Sevens in particular is where they excel.
 
Spacemans Bong

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The Price Is Wrong said:
The people on the rugby team, even at tOSU, are mostly guys who showed up on campus and decided to join the drinking team, right? Varsity teams with scholarship money attached seem to be few and far between. So the guys we see in those videos are pretty much regular dudes - maybe they work out a bit more than average, but my sense is that genetically there's not much different between them and your average college student.

Every fringe professional athlete like Ebner is going to look like he's competing against 5-year-olds if you put them in that situation. It'd be like taking a AA-ball hitter and having him face high school pitchers. Will he crush them? Sure. Does it say anything about his abilities against peer professionals? Nope.

That said, I hope Ebner makes the team and wreaks so much havoc that New Zealand renames their team the All-Nates. It'd be fun if recent NFL retirees who still want to occasionally tackle somebody without being hauled off to jail decided to try out rugby. Maybe the Eagles would be able to finally withstand the onslaught from world powers like, um, Samoa.
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College rugby has struggled to shed the drinking club with a rugby problem image, but the kind of teams that end up playing Sevens rugby on NBC are going to receive quasi-varsity levels of support and dedication. You're not getting on Notre Dame's rugby team if you've never seen a rugby ball before and just want to get shitfaced every weekend. They'll have paid coaches, their own dedicated fields, and usually access to some student-athlete support services and the gyms as well. Most of their US-born players (there's probably a good half-dozen or so foreign students from England/NZ/Ireland/South Africa that make an outsized contribution) are going to have been pretty serious high school players.

The problem is even a fully-fledged varsity program at a large state U with tons of pedigree and the best coach in the country - i.e., Cal - might have 1-2 players on the team that are good enough to play professional rugby in Europe. We're that far behind the curve.
 
JohnnyK

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C4CRVT said:
Have you watched much rugby? My son plays in HS. They spend quite a bit of time roving around the field at a light jog trying to maintain position then sprinting, tackling, resting, scrum/in-bounds play etc. It's not football but it's more like football than the analogy you made.
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I don't watch much rugby, no. I watched two rugby sevens games yesterday and I admit there is more downtime than I thought there would be, but it's still nowhere close to the start/stop nature of football.
 
C4CRVT

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Tokyo Sox said:
Your son probably plays 15-a-side "normal" rugby (?) as opposed to 7's rugby, which is on the same sized field, but with only 7 guys a side. Sevens is a much faster game with a ton more sprinting and less standing around.
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You are correct. And I had no idea that 7's existed. I can imagine that you're right on with the "more sprinting" in 7's. That would really open up the field.
 
Granite Sox

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JohnnyK said:
I don't watch much rugby, no. I watched two rugby sevens games yesterday and I admit there is more downtime than I thought there would be, but it's still nowhere close to the start/stop nature of football.
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Football is more start/stop than rugby, but Sevens is incredibly exhausting. My son played 15s in college (he was a flanker) after playing football in high school. I can tell you he was infinitely more spent after a rugby match than he ever was playing football. I know we're talking NFL here, but some of the conditioning elements are clearly translatable from the best college players on some of the best college teams.

I went to Dartmouth, and when I was there (80's) rugby was in its infancy. The program is built up now to where Dartmouth has been a recent national power in Sevens, along with Cal, Arizona, Kutztown, Life and a few other schools that focus on the sport.

As mentioned, the US is still not very competitive on the world level.
 
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Tokyo Sox

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I'll be there at the HK 7's next weekend, it would be awesome to see him take the field.
 
edoug

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Awesome news, Nate was selected to go to Rio as part of Team USA Rugby!!

Adam Schefter Verified account ‏@AdamSchefter


Patriots safety @NateEbner34 has become only NFL player selected to qualify for Rio Olympics and represent @usarugby per agent @seanstellato
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Ebner maybe the only current NFL player but former Detroit Lion Jahvid Best has made the St Lucian track team.
http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2016/07/16/jahvid-best-qualifies-for-st-lucia-olympic-team/
Two things that caught me by surprise. St. Lucia has an Olympic team and Detroit has a NFL team.
 
Jed Zeppelin

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edoug said:
Ebner maybe the only current NFL player but former Detroit Lion Jahvid Best has made the St Lucian track team.
http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2016/07/16/jahvid-best-qualifies-for-st-lucia-olympic-team/
Two things that caught me by surprise. St. Lucia has an Olympic team and Detroit has a NFL team.
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For some reason this makes me really happy. Talented player, would have thrived as a pass-catching back, but instead was gone from the league and forgotten before the concussion situation really blew up. I don't remember this for certain but it wouldn't surprise me if the narrative at the time had it that Best's injuries were some kind of rare freak thing.
 
mwonow

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Jed Zeppelin said:
For some reason this makes me really happy. Talented player, would have thrived as a pass-catching back, but instead was gone from the league and forgotten before the concussion situation really blew up. I don't remember this for certain but it wouldn't surprise me if the narrative at the time had it that Best's injuries were some kind of rare freak thing.
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If he picked living in St Lucia over living in Detroit he still has a few marbles to play with
 
DJnVa

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They lost and I think they're done. Ebner did run one in in last 90 seconds to give them a shot.
 
scottyno

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DrewDawg said:
They lost and I think they're done. Ebner did run one in in last 90 seconds to give them a shot.
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They're eliminated but they'll have 2 more consolation games, one today vs Brazil in a couple hours and then tomorrow in either the 9th or 11th place game.
 
edmunddantes

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The question is how many penalty laps does Belichick have him run for all his mistakes he made playing Rugby when he gets back to training camp.
 
Spelunker

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rodderick said:
Yeah, Zika is a huge problem because of microcephaly, but it's a little funny to see many people speak of the disease as if it were Ebola. A couple of days in bed drinking a lot of water and you'll be good to go.
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Well, if you're an Olympic athlete on a very compressed schedule, having a minor flu these two weeks is probably kinda like ebola.
 
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