LONDON (AP) — Cam Little is confident Harry Kane has the skill to become an NFL kicker.
But the hard part for Kane, the Jacksonville Jaguars kicker said, would be shifting from star striker to bit player.
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“I think the transition from soccer to football is so much more cultural than like the actual skill,” Little said.
The England captain and Bayern Munich forward has mused over the years about one day kicking in the NFL. He recently floated the idea of combining his NFL goal with also joining a Major League Soccer team.
Who better to weigh in than Little? The soccer player-turned kicker, who remains a diehard Manchester United fan, booted a 57-yard field goal as time expired for the Jags to defeat the Philadelphia Eagles 19-17 last Sunday at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium. He also holds the record for longest NFL field goal — 68 yards.
“It’s just so different,” Little told The Associated Press of moving from being involved in a game for 90 minutes to being a kicker “sitting there on the sidelines the whole game.
“You’re not going to get on the ball, and you don’t have the same moxie, I guess, because he is a star striker for the team. So that moxie is just kind of put to the side. You’ve got to let everyone else do the big man’s job, and then you’re out there just to back everyone up basically.”
As far as Kane's ability, “he’s probably talented enough to do it... His technique in soccer is so good. But it’s just such a different mental, I’d say, challenge than soccer.
“It’d be like him taking five set pieces a day. And he’s got to deliver on all five set pieces, or you didn’t do your job for the day,” Little said Thursday after practice at the team's accommodations north of London in Watford.
“So, it’s just a lot different, but I don’t think he doesn’t have the talent level for it. I think he probably has the skill to do it.”
Little and the Jaguars remained in London this week ahead of the game against the Houston Texans on Sunday at Wembley Stadium.
Little, a sixth-round draft pick from Arkansas in 2024, had missed an extra-point attempt — after a high snap from fill-in long snapper DaVon Hamilton — late in the fourth quarter against the Eagles. The miss had looked crucial because Philadelphia then took a 17-16 lead with just 8 seconds left — before the improbable ending on Little’s heroics.
“Missing a set piece or missing a wide-open goal, you see a lot of strikers do that, and they’ll come back and put the game away,” Little said at his post-game press conference while wearing a Man United jersey. “I’ve got to have short-term memory and be at my best when the best is required.”
Little told AP that he’d be attending Fulham’s home game against Hull at Craven Cottage on Saturday. Jaguars owner Shad Khan also owns the Premier League club.
Little, an Oklahoma native, played as a midfielder before switching to American football in high school. England and United great Wayne Rooney was his favorite player.
“Maybe one day I’ll get to meet him or do a jersey swap with him. That’s my goal,” he said. "I’ve never been to Manchester. Only London, but I’m hoping to make it there this offseason.”
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