LA Rams reach to Italy for their next offensive lineman

The news was announced Tuesday that the LA Rams have just added an offensive tackle named Max Pircher from Italy to their 90-man roster via a special program known as the NFL’s International Player Pathway Program.  It’s a program that’s actually been around since 2017 designed to provide, well, a path for international athletes to play in the NFL.

It kinda’  strikes me as an NFL player internship program.

More specifically, that path comes in the form of what the NFL calls their International Player Pathway Program and assigns international players of American football (as opposed to football which is the American sport of soccer).  At the conclusion of preseason training camp, each player will be eligible for an international player practice squad exemption with his assigned team.

This provides the assigned team an additional practice squad member for the season  In effect, this gives the Rams an extra practice squad roster slot who is an international player who is also ineligible to be activated this season. Pircher must be carried by the team on its team roster until the end of training camp.

The 6-foot-7, 300-pound Pircher is one of four international players who are destined to join NFC West teams in 2021. Each year, the division that gets to accept the international players is chosen by a random draw.