First woman in the NFL?
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Have you ever wondered if the NFL has ever had a woman play a game in it?
Well, the short answer is no, but that all might change due to Carli Lloyd. Carli Lloyd is a 2x FIFA World Player of the Year, 2x World Cup Champion, and 2x Olympic Gold Medalist. She plays soccer for the Sky Blue FC in the National Women’s Soccer League and the United States women’s national soccer team as a midfielder. She has recently popped up on scout’s radars because a video of her kicking a 55-yard field goal went viral on twitter. She went to a Baltimore Ravens and Philadelphia Eagles football practice to kick with Justin Tucker on August 20, and Tucker said that she was knocking down kicks left and ri
Soccer Career
Carli winning the World Cup, part of the 2015 winning team.
Carli Lloyd attended Delran High School in New Jersey where she was twice named the girls’ High School Player of the Year by the Philadelphia Inquirer. But she didn’t just play soccer for her high school team, she played for the Medford Strikers club team and helped them win back-to-back state cups. She was able to accomplish this because Carli played pickup games and practiced for hours on her own at her local fields. Lloyd went to Rutgers University, and she became the university’s all-time leading scorer and the first player in the school’s history to earn first-team all-conference honors for four consecutive years. Carli was able to become a member of the U.S. junior national team that won the Nordic Cup from 2002-2005. She then joined Sky Blue FC in 2010, where she has been since.
Possible NFL Kicker?
Carli kicking at the Baltimore Ravens practice on August 20th 2019
Carli was able to attend a Baltimore Ravens and Philadelphia Eagles joint practice on August 20. She was kicking with Justin Tucker, the most accurate kicker in the NFL. He went 222 for 222 extra point kicks before his dreading missed extra point kick against the saints on October 21, 2018. Carli went viral after her 55-yard kick on twitter got more than 2 million views. Multiple NFL teams saw this kick and asked her to possibly kick in a pre-season game. However, Carli didn’t end up kicking in the preseason this year.
James Galanis, Carli’s soccer manager said, “The one that called today (8/30/19), I don’t want to say who it is, was willing to put her on the roster for their next game.” This is huge because she was offered a spot in the NFL for a game. While Carli was told she could play a real NFL game on Thursday (9/5/19), she had a game with her national soccer team so she couldn’t attend the Thursday night game. However, this is just the beginning to a promising story of the first woman in the NFL, and there are possibly many more opportunities for her in the near future.
Players’ and People’s reactions
Many NFL players, coaches, and fans have mixed opinions about Lloyd possibility being in the NFL. Six-time Super Bowl winner, Tom Brady said, “I think if you’re good enough to do it and teams wanted to explore that then everyone should have an opportunity.” While AP Comeback Player of the Year (2017), Keenan Allen tweeted, “Sound sweet til somebody block the kick and all of a sudden she on defense. Would be like the stampede scene in the Lion King movie. She do got a boot tho!”
However, Carli Lloyd responded to Allen’s tweet saying, “I am not naive to know that there are big men in football and there is the chance of possibly getting tackled or hit.” While some might be doubtful about Lloyd’s abilities on the field, she has many supporters that believe that she can and will do just fine on the field and under pressure.
"No man has a good enough memory to be a successful liar." -Abraham Lincoln