Broncos practice squad has Mexican flavor

Known as 'futbol Americano,' NFL travels far south of the border

By Lynn DeBruin, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)

Published December 4, 2008 at 9:41 p.m.

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Photo by Eric Lars Bakke / Denver Broncos

Manuel Padilla, 25, a 6-foot-3, 245-pounder from Mexicali, Mexico, is a participant in the NFL's international practice-squad program this year. "It's about chances," says Padilla, who played college ball at Mexico's Monterrey Tech. "The only thing I need is a chance to make a team."

Photo by Marco Ugargte / Associated Press

Performers take the field in October 2005 before the start of the NFL's first regular-season game outside the U.S. The game between the Cardinals and the 49ers in Mexico City drew 103,467.

As Manuel Padilla ventured home to Baja to visit family during Denver's bye week, the border patrol agent scrutinized his passport.

Within a few minutes, Padilla found himself surrounded by a small entourage.

"Hey, what's happening with the Broncos?" one agent asked as another snapped photos.

Padilla was happy to oblige.

The 25-year-old Mexicali native might hail from a country where futbol still is king, but he's proof the long arm of the NFL is reaching ever farther.

Padilla is one of five players from Mexico given an opportunity to participate in the NFL international practice-squad program this year.

To unknowing Americans, the concept might seem strange.

But futbol Americano, as it is called, is huge in Mexico.

In Mexicali alone, there are three Pop Warner teams, three high school teams and one college team.

When Monterrey Tech takes the field, it's not unusual to have 25,000 fans show up to watch the college powerhouse.

And every Sunday, millions in Mexico tune in to watch live NFL games, with the average fan watching 3.5 games a month.

Though fans won't find Padilla suiting up on game day such as American-born Hispanic standouts Tony Gonzalez and Donnie Edwards (Kansas City), or Antonio Romero, better known as Tony Romo (Dallas), Padilla has done his part in practice.

One week, the 6-foot-3, 245-pounder is lining up on the scout team as tight end Kellen Winslow. Another week, he's impersonating linebackers Joey Porter or Tedy Bruschi.

"He's a pretty good football player," Broncos linebackers coach Jim Ryan said. "Is he NFL caliber? Probably not. But when you put him out there, you're not afraid to have him run your scout team. He can keep up with everybody. . . . Everybody knows if you don't have it strapped up, Manny's going to get you."

A natural

Padilla always was a very physical youth, whether he was playing baseball, basketball or soccer. But when he was 13, a friend introduced him to futbol Americano.

He was good enough to receive a scholarship to play at a private high school across the border, where his grandparents lived in Calexico, Calif. - halfway between San Diego and Yuma, Ariz.

After that, there were college offers from as far away as New York and West Virginia. But he chose to attend Monterrey Tech, where he went on to become a two-time all- star at the private school 400 miles south of San Antonio.

Frank Gonzalez, head coach at Monterrey Tech for the past 22 years, marvels at how far his program has come in the city of 1.1 million.

When he first arrived at Tech as an assistant in the early 1980s, weightlifting equipment was little more than paint cans filled with cement.

And when his modest teams ventured across the border to get a barometer on how good they were, the results were anything but positive.

"We'd go play the JV level in high school and we couldn't beat them," Gonzalez said. "Now we're getting (players) into NFL practice squads and getting linemen over 350 pounds playing football."

Catching on

It hasn't gone unnoticed.

The Los Angeles Times recently ventured south of the border to report on a sport where the NFL says it has as many as 20 million fans, with perhaps 5 million fitting the die-hard category.

Showtime was in Monterrey last week, working on a special for Inside the NFL, focused on Gonzalez's Tech team, which just won its 14th national college football championship with a 41-28 victory against crosstown rival Nuevo Leon.

Last weekend, the Mexican equivalent of the NFL scouting combine took place in Monterrey, with players put through a battery of tests - just as they are in Indianapolis each February.

This week, several coaches from Mexico visited Broncos practice in an effort to further grow the game south of the border.

Marcos Guirles, head of the NFL's five-person scouting program in Mexico, noted the interest but also acknowledged a gap between players in Mexico and the United States.

"If you see a college game in the U.S, you see all athletes on the field. Here, you have to find the ones who are athletes," Guirles said, noting that might be only 5 percent to 10 percent of players.

Monterrey Tech's Gonzalez said the biggest problem is finding steady competition. A school such as Southern California faces top opponents every week.

"It's not like that down here," he said. "That's probably what hurts them the most."

Then there's the age gap. Monterrey Tech is a five-year college. Add in the year or two it takes to transition to the NFL, and Mexican players might be 26 by the time they're ready to compete.

But the sport has grown by leaps and bounds.

In Monterrey alone, Gonzalez said, there are four college teams, 40 high school teams and 32 Pop Warner clubs for youths ages 4 to 16.

"That's more than 10,000 kids, just in our city, playing football," he said.

While American football might never be able to compete with professional soccer, he said it rules in Mexican colleges.

"If you go to one of our college soccer games, there might be 15 to 20 people watching. Go to one of our games and we might have 25,000 to 30,000," Gonzalez said.

That's nothing compared with the 103,467 who showed up on Oct. 2, 2005, in Mexico City's Azteca Stadium to watch the San Francisco 49ers play the Arizona Cardinals in the first regular-season NFL game outside the United States.

Then there are those American Bowl preseason games. Attendance at three played in Mexico rank in the top four all time in league history, with the 1994 Cowboys-Oilers matchup drawing 112,376 (No. 1 overall), the Cowboys vs. Patriots in 1998 drawing 106,424 (No. 2 overall) and the Broncos vs. Dolphins in 1997 drawing 104,629 (No. 4 overall).

"I think people would be pleasantly surprised at how big it is," said Chiefs linebacker Edwards, whose grandmother was born in Guadalajara and who, as a rookie in 1996, played in an American Bowl game against Dallas.

The next step

While there were more than 25 players of Hispanic heritage on active NFL rosters this season, they all grew up playing high school and college football in the United States.

Gonzalez said the true breakthrough would be when a Mexican player makes it to the big time.

Some think it could be Monterrey Tech's Daniel Roldan, a 6- foot-4 tight end with soft hands but slow feet, or Luis Iago Cano, a running back at Monterrey's Prepa Tech who will play college football in Mexico next year.

Padilla hopes it will be him, but he acknowledged he has to return to Mexico after the season to get stronger, faster and better in technique.

"It's about chances," said Pa-

dilla, who is working on his master's degree in international business. "Coaches might say, 'Here's Manny. He can play some football, but he's from Mexico.' There's that mark. So every day I practice, I want to change the way they think.

"The only thing I need is a chance to make a team. A chance."

Still, even as a practice-squad player, he said he's living the dream.

He endures teasing from quarterback Jay Cutler that his accent is a fake and that he actually grew up in Southern California.

And he's happy to assist when a player is looking for help in Spanish to woo a girl with a line about her pretty eyes.

Just don't ask him to identify the best Mexican restaurants in town.

"I don't eat Mexican food here in Colorado, because it's not any good," he said, his smile as big as the brow above his dark eyes. "I don't know if it's the beans or rice or the meat, but it's not the same."

That cannot be said about his sport.

"Football is football," Padilla said.

Though he only got in on one play during preseason - it was the last play of the last game - he made the tackle.

"One play. One tackle. One hundred percent," he said.

Growing the game

The NFL international practice-squad program is geared toward enhancing the development of elite football talent from around the world. Eventually, the NFL hopes to have an international player on every team, but for now, there are 16 such players, including Manuel Padilla of the Broncos. They are allowed to play in preseason but not during the regular season. International practice-squad players, like members of the regular practice squad, receive a salary of no less than $5,200 a week, according to the NFL. The Chiefs have a linebacker, Aden Durde, from the United Kingdom, on their practice roster. "He played in NFL Europe a number of years, and the kid has improved tremendously since camp. I think he might actually have an opportunity to be on an actual roster," Chiefs linebacker Donnie Edwards said.

• December 5, 2008

  12:51 p.m.

  Suggest removal

  denmex writes:

  im am mexican that lives in mexico city i travel every year to us to watch at list 2 bronco games, u r writh soccer is the king in mexico but there are millions that love the nfl millions, i know the nfl is triying to be and internacional league like the nba , but keaping a guy on the practice squad is not enofe i know that we still dont have the talent to be stars in the nfl but meaby the teams can keap an internacional pleayer active for the special teams or something, imagen how meany jerseays could the league sell, and olso try to imagen how would it feal to weare a jersey from ur favorite team that also have the neame of a guy that was born in the seame country that u. men i have 7 bronco jerseys i would love to wear padillas if i just couls se him pleay.
  the nfl is the best sports league in the worl period but they need to imprube on the internacional subject

• December 6, 2008

  11:24 p.m.

  Suggest removal

  Dynamicdave writes:

  Too funny, denmex, too funny. You speak moo-e be-an-o.

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