There's a template for making it to the NFL: Grow up in the United States watching and playing football, move on to play college football to get noticed, get drafted or signed by a pro team.
It's not often you hear about a story like Babatunde Aiyegbusi.
The Minnesota Vikings signed Aieygbusi, an offensive tackle who played in the German Football League last season, seven days after he got his travel visa to the United States. Aiyegbusi is – are you ready? – 6-foot-9 and 351 pounds. He's the fifth Polish-born player in NFL history. Three of the other four are kickers.
Aiyegbusi never played college football. In 2013 he was playing in the Polska Liga Futbolu Amerykanskiego (the Polish American Football League if you need the translation). But when you're the size of an airport hangar and can move, you're going to get noticed if you're playing football on the moon.
According to an ESPN.com story, agent Jeff Griffin heard about Aiyegbusi from Kevin Curtis, a Texas Tech assistant coach who played safety in the NFL and NFL Europe. Curtis got a YouTube video of Aiyegbusi from a former coach in Europe, but Aiyegbusi couldn't play in college because of his professional experience. So Curtis passed it along to Griffin, and that started Aiyegbusi's journey.
I'll give you all the caveats before you watch this highlight video, that the competition is not what he will see in the NFL and he might be overwhelmed by the speed and size of defensive ends at the highest level and on and on ... but man just look at Aiyegbusi absolutely freaking maul his opponents. Just watch and have a laugh at this guy who looks like he was made on "Madden" push around guys half his size.
Can Aiyegbusi (the Vikings say his full name is pronounced bah-BUH-tune-day ah-YEG-boo-see if you're curious, but "Babs" for short) make it in the NFL? Who knows. He's obviously raw.But the 27-year-old obviously showed the Vikings enough in a pro day workout at the University of Texas-San Antonio and a private workout in Minnesota this week to sign him.
He came to the United States on a 22-hour flight, arriving in Sn Antonio at 3:50 a.m. on Sunday, according to the Vikings web site and ESPN.com. Judging by his highlight films, the defensive linemen in Poland and Germany are hoping he makes it in the NFL, just so they never have to deal with him again.
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