That's good thinking--thinking outside the box. Puttyism
@waldoputty
Exactly right. Sure, the international players might not yet be up to scratch for our liking, but even a season on our practice squad would have to do them good.
According to this:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Practice_squad
International players[edit]
The practice squad has also been used by the NFL and their teams as a way to bring in and train players from outside the United States or Canada, where
gridiron football is not a popular sport. The NFL has operated programs in which selected international players were assigned to teams' practice squads as an extra member who did not count towards a team's maximum practice squad size.
The first, called the International Practice Squad Program, began operation in 2004.
[20] In 2005,
Rolando Cantu of Mexico was promoted to the
Arizona Cardinals' active roster after spending the previous season on the practice squad as a member of the program.
[21]Players from the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Finland, Sweden, Japan, and Russia also participated.
[20] In 2008, the program sponsored sixteen players, the largest number ever.
[21] The program was discontinued for 2009. The rule allowing for an extra practice squad player of international origin, however, remained in the NFL's rulebook and teams attempted to use the rule even after the demise of the program. For example, in 2013 the
Detroit Lions attempted to use it to add Norwegian kicker
Håvard Rugland to their practice squad, but were rejected by the NFL, which stated that the rule was meant to be used for players from
NFL Europe, which folded after the 2007 season.
[22]
A new program, the International Player Pathway, was created in 2017. This new initiative started as a trial involving only
NFC South teams. Each team in the division was allowed to sign one international player to its practice squad who would not count against the normal 10-player limit, but would not be eligible to be activated during the season after being signed.
[23] The pathway was expanded to eight teams (NFC South and
AFC North) for the 2018 season.
[24]
Additionally, several international players have tried to find their starts in the NFL through spending time on teams practice squads without having been part of these programs, such as
Efe Obada,
Moritz Böhringer, and
Jarryd Hayne.
So, if we were to bring in a player from an International League and stash him on our practice squad, he would not count against our maximum practice squad size. Since we need a safety, let's say, hypothetically, we signed Manuel Schimpfhauser (
https://www.munich-cowboys.de/mc-gfl-team/schimpfhauser-2018-ein-cowboy/) who plays DB for the Munich Cowboys. We could stash him on our practice squad for a year, and it would not count against our PS count because he'd be designated as an international player. That way, he can learn our system without costing us a roster spot. Then, the next training camp, if he turns out to be doing extremely well, we would end up finding a highly talented safety prospect. If not, we lost nothing, but planted the seed for a potentially better prospect in the future. That's a way to cultivate an international league, and essentially turn it into a minor league system without spending any money on the league.
