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<\/p>\nThe NRL\u2019s tallest ever player Ben Te Kura has officially been granted a release from the Broncos to continue his pursuit of an NFL opportunity.<\/p>\n
Te Kura was given a provisional release in April to spend a six-week NFL training camp on the Gold Coast where he heavily impressed scouts with his size and athleticism. <\/p>\n
According to the Broncos\u2019 statement, Te Kura will \u201crelocate to Arizona to continue his pursuit of a career\u201d in American football.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Brisbane Broncos have released forward Ben Te Kura from the remainder of his current contract, effective immediately, to allow him to pursue an NFL opportunity in the United States in 2027,\u201d the statement read. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe 205cm front rower was initially granted leave from the Club\u2019s NRL squad commitments in April, to attend a six-week NFL training camp.\u201d<\/p>\n
Te Kura landed in the USA on Thursday morning. <\/p>\n
Sports agent Dwayne Budgen has been vital in Te Kura\u2019s journey to this point and revealed to Code Sports that there are several interested teams.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe is arriving in the US to undertake training with one or more NFL teams for them to ascertain what his potential is,\u201d Budgen said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s still a long way to go, but they want to get a feel for him close-up and see if it\u2019s worthy signing him up to be on a team.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere is one team \u2013 I can\u2019t name them out of respect to their confidentiality \u2013 that is particularly keen on Ben, and there could be interest from three or four other franchises.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe is naturally still very raw, so he will be working with an NFL specialist offensive linesman coach to speed up his education.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s a few options at play. An NFL club can sign him immediately, put him in their 90-man extended squad, and nominate Ben as an exempt international recruit, which effectively gives a franchise 91 players. Or he can be placed in the NFL\u2019s International Player Pathway program, like Jordan Mailata, in January, which would give him another year to develop.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mailata is an ex-Souths junior who gave up on his NRL dream to try out for the NFL through the International Pathway Program in 2017.<\/p>\n
He wound up being scouted by the Philadelphia Eagles, who drafted him the following year in the seventh round. <\/p>\n
Mailata has since emerged into one of the game\u2019s best offensive linemen, earning two contract extensions worth over $100 million US and winning a Super Bowl in 2025.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s Budgen\u2019s view that while Te Kura has a long way to reach Mailata\u2019s heights, the raw talent and size is there. <\/p>\n
\u201cAthletically, he\u2019s every bit as good as Jordan Mailata, maybe even better,\u201d Budgen said.<\/p>\n
\u201cJordan is a rare beast, but Ben is faster and moves better than Jordan did at the same stage of their development.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat made Jordan special was his mindset, intelligence and ability to learn NFL playbooks and methods quickly.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe don\u2019t know that yet with Ben, but he\u2019s also smart, intelligent and willing to learn.\u201d<\/p>\n
Te Kura, who played in just five NRL games for the Broncos, thanked the club for it\u2019s understanding.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m very grateful to the Broncos for everything they\u2019ve done to support me in pursuing an opportunity in the NFL,\u201d Te Kura said. <\/p>\n
\u201cI owe the club so much for the faith they\u2019ve had in me right from day one.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The NRL\u2019s tallest ever player Ben Te Kura has officially been granted a release from the Broncos to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":713361,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[559],"tags":[64,63,593,85],"class_list":["post-773430","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nfl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-nfl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/773430","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=773430"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/773430\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/713361"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=773430"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=773430"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=773430"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}