Meet the German League WR who's trying to make NFL history

By foxsports
Published

A 6-foot-4, 227-pound wide receiver is making a splash with NFL scouts ahead of the 2016 NFL Draft, but most American football fans have never heard of him. That's because this NFL hopeful is not American, nor has he ever played in the United States.

His name is Moritz Boehringer, and he is a 22-year-old German player who is looking to make NFL history.

Boehringer, a wide receiver for the German Football League's Schwabish Hall Unicorns, only got into football five years ago when he saw an Adrian Peterson video on YouTube. He has a tough task ahead of him if he wants to make it in the professional football world; no German-born player has ever been drafted by an NFL team without playing college football first. The German league Boehringer played in does not come close to college football-level competition, and Boehringer only has one season of GFL football under his belt.

One former GFL player who did make it to the NFL, defensive tackle Markus Kuhn, started playing at 14 years old --€” three years earlier than Boehringer -- and he played college football for North Carolina State. Boehringer, meanwhile, was not even known in NFL circles until a month ago.

But there is good reason for scouts to be excited about Boehringer's NFL potential. The 22-year-old put up outstanding numbers at his first pro day at Florida Atlantic University. According to ESPN, he ran a 4.45-second 40-yard dash, boasts a 39-inch vertical and 10-foot, 11-inch broad jump, and he posted a 4.10-second 20-yard short shuttle. Boehringer also recorded a 6.65-second performance in the three-cone drill, a time equal to Ohio State's Braxton Miller.

In fact, all of Boehringer's numbers ranked in the top five for wide receivers in the 2016 draft class, which is doubly impressive considering his 6-foot-4 frame.

Boehringer is clearly dedicated to his NFL dreams. The 22-year-old was in school for mechanical engineering back in Germany, and according to a story from the Monday Morning Quarterback, he used to drive 50 kilometers both ways to football practice in order to hone his skills.

But an NFL personnel evaluator told ESPN that Boehringer still has a lot to learn.

Boehringer will not get the attention on the first day of the draft that the players who performed similarly to him in drills will receive. If he's taken in the draft at all, he'll go in the mid-to-final rounds. But the formerly unknown player has now fielded interest from at least eight teams, according to an NFL.com story.

One of those interested parties is Adrian Peterson's team, the Minnesota Vikings. If they are the ones who decide to take a chance on Boehringer, the 22-year-old might just complete the improbable journey from watching Peterson play in a YouTube video to possibly taking snaps alongside him one day in Minnesota.