Harry Kane has been considering a second career as an NFL kicker for years. Now the Bayern Munich striker is even talking about how he would prepare for a possible switch. Other footballers have taken this unusual route before him.
When it comes to life after football, Harry Kane already has some idea of what it could look like. The Bayern Munich striker is interested in golf, but considers another plan more realistic: Kane wants to find out whether his right foot is good enough for the NFL.
The idea isn’t new. But in September 2026, at England’s training camp, the now 33-year-old said he wanted to look at it more seriously in the future. When that might be, Kane leaves open. It depends, he said, on how his career goes over the next five or six years.
Harry Kane’s NFL Dream Began With Tom Brady
Kane’s connection to American football goes back to a time when his own career was anything but mapped out. Tottenham were sending him out on loan, and a breakthrough at Spurs was still some way off. It was during this period that he discovered an athlete whose story felt familiar: Tom Brady.
On YouTube, the then 18-year-old came across “The Brady 6”. The documentary tells the story of the six quarterbacks selected ahead of Brady in the 2000 NFL Draft. Brady himself had to wait until pick 199 – and went on to become one of the most successful players in NFL history.
Kane saw parallels with his own path. Stardom hadn’t been handed to him either. Brady’s story gave him the belief that a career like that was possible for him too, Kane told Jimmy Fallon on “The Tonight Show” in 2022.
The inspiration grew into a passion for the NFL. Kane started following the New England Patriots and named one of his dogs Brady. In 2019, while sidelined through injury, he travelled to Atlanta, watched the Patriots win Super Bowl LIII in the stadium and then, at Brady’s invitation, celebrated with the team.
By then, Kane had long since found out for himself what it feels like to send an American football between the posts.
Back in 2017, on a US tour with Tottenham, he had nailed a 50-yard field goal at the New York Giants’ training facility. A training pitch rather than an NFL stadium, no game, no opposition pressure. As proof of NFL potential, it counted for little. As a taster, it counted for rather more.
Kane Has Held On to His NFL Dream for Years
In 2019, Kane spoke publicly about his NFL dream for the first time in terms that left little room for doubt. Asked by ESPN whether he was serious about kicking, he replied: “That’s real.” He wanted to give it a go in 10 or 12 years. Even then, a possible stopover in MLS was part of the picture before Kane would make the move to the NFL.
In 2021, Kane talked to NFL star J.J. Watt about what might work in his favour – and what a switch would require. He knew his experience as a footballer alone wouldn’t be enough. A serious attempt would demand a great deal of training and practice.
Kane sees one potential advantage in dealing with pressure. An NFL game can be decided by a field goal in the final seconds. As a penalty taker, Kane argues, he knows the pressure of a decisive kick from football.
In May 2023, he reaffirmed on “Good Morning America” that he definitely wanted to explore the possibility. But he wasn’t expecting to just walk up and start kicking field goals.
In September 2026, the idea took more concrete shape. Kane believes he would need six months to a year of dedicated training before making a serious attempt. He also came back to the idea of MLS, where the two sports could perhaps be combined around the seasons.
A Good Footballer Isn’t Automatically an NFL Kicker
However tempting the maths – accurate penalty taker plus powerful right foot equals NFL kicker – it rarely works out that way in practice.
On a field goal, snap, hold and run-up have to come together in a matter of seconds, while players on the other side are already charging in to block the kick. It’s a movement that looks familiar, yet a footballer still has to learn it from scratch.
Clive Allen went through that switch himself. The former England international scored 49 goals in all competitions for Tottenham in 1986/87. Ten years later, at 35, he changed sports and became a kicker for the London Monarchs in what was then the World League of American Football.
At first, Allen hadn’t expected that a kicker could get hit. Above all, though, he had to practise the timing: the kicker starts his run before the ball has even been snapped. Allen converted all six of his field-goal attempts. He still never made it to the NFL.
There was another connection to Kane, too: Allen later joined Tottenham’s coaching staff and worked with him as a young player. He backs Kane to make the switch to the NFL.
Tony Meola found out how quickly such an attempt can end. In 1994, he had just played at the home World Cup as the USA’s goalkeeper when the New York Jets signed him as a kicker. After a trial, general manager Dick Steinberg praised his leg strength and accuracy. With experience and some technique work, he said, Meola had the potential to become a solid NFL placekicker.
Training camp, however, showed how big the adjustment was. Only one of his five preseason kickoffs reached the end zone. The Jets did see progress in his technique, but it wasn’t enough to earn him a roster spot. Before the first game of the regular season, they parted ways with Meola.
“Wembley-Toni” Makes It From Football to the NFL
By then, an Austrian had long since proved that a professional footballer could make it all the way to the NFL.
Toni Fritsch was a Rapid Vienna striker and an Austria international. In 1965, he scored twice in a 3-2 win over England at Wembley. From then on, he was known as “Wembley-Toni”.
Six years later, his career took a turn that still sounds unusual today.
The Dallas Cowboys were scouring Europe for footballers they could turn into kickers. Austria manager Leopold Šťastný recommended Fritsch. Cowboys representatives travelled to Vienna, had him kick an American football – and signed him.
Fritsch had never played American football and barely spoke English when he arrived in the US. Soon afterwards, he was in the NFL.
In his very first season, Fritsch was part of the Cowboys roster that won Super Bowl VI in January 1972. After his regular-season debut, a hamstring injury ruled him out for the rest of the season, but he still received a Super Bowl ring.
He then established himself as a kicker and went on to play for the San Diego Chargers, the Houston Oilers and the New Orleans Saints. Eleven years, four teams, 125 NFL games.
Brandon Aubrey Needed Years to Make the Switch
More than half a century later, another story leads back to the Dallas Cowboys.
Brandon Aubrey played four years of college soccer at Notre Dame and was selected by Toronto FC in the 2017 MLS SuperDraft. His professional football career never really took off. By 2018 it was over, and Aubrey went on to work as a software developer.
His second sporting career began on the sofa.
In 2019, Aubrey was watching an NFL game with his wife when she said he could do that too. Aubrey gave it a go – and found himself a kicking coach.
What started as an offhand remark turned into three years of training: three times a week with coach Brian Egan. In 2022, Aubrey got his first chance as a professional with the Birmingham Stallions in the USFL. A year later, the Dallas Cowboys signed him.
In April 2026, Dallas extended his contract by four years and $28 million. At an average of $7 million a year, that made Aubrey the highest-paid kicker in NFL history.
Aubrey needed three years of training before his first chance as a professional. Kane reckons on six months to a year of preparation. How far that would get him is a question even history can’t answer.
For now, football comes first. Should he actually try to turn penalties into field goals one day, it would be a remarkable second career.
It wouldn’t be without precedent.
