Antoine Griezmann is a rare top-level footballer who loves American sports like Basketball (NBA) or American Football (NFL) too.
In 2018, Griezmann straight up admitted that he’d prefer watching an NBA game over a football match. He’s also evolved his taste to become an avid follower of the NFL games.
Griezmann’s love for NFL compelled the league organizers to bring him over to the USA to take part in a funny football challenge with San Francisco 49ers’ wide receiver Deebo Samuel Sr.
Antoine Griezmann Involved In NFL Challenge With Deebo
A version of the ‘NFL vs La Liga’ sees Griezmann try his best at testing his American Football skills against the experienced Deebo – who has covered over 4,000 receiving yards in his NFL career.
In this challenge, the Atletico Madrid forward had to go one-v-one against Deebo and try to stop him from scoring points or touchdowns.
The challenge was mostly a case of Griezmann being tasked to stop Deebo’s separation dribbles and try to intercept the football that was thrown by someone else.
For those unknowing, a separation in American Football is when a player tries to open up space to drive at a defender to create a one-v-one situation.
Basically, Griezmann had to create coverage to try and stop the football from reaching Deebo and try and intercept it.
Deebo tried a variation of different separation techniques against the France forward.
T0 his credit, the Atletico Madrid star actually showed impressive resolve in making it as tough as possible for Deebo to secure a point by producing some admirable defensive techniques.
Griezmann Praised For His NFL Skills
He wans’t able to intercept the ball, but the football challenge ended with Griezmann finally managing to score a point.
He tricked Deebo and collected the ball from the thrower, impressing the San Francisco 49ers star in the process too.
The French forward is actually earning a lot of praise from NFL fans for the effort and even the kind of technique he displayed despite not being a professional American Football player.
Griezmann has been praised for being ‘better than 90%’ of the NFL corner-backs, whose job is to defend against wide receivers like Deebo.
He’s also earning applause for having the ideal reaction to Deebo’s movement and following him around very impressive, showing quite a lot of tactical knowledge with his defensive work.
Even the 33-year-old’s coverage styles and movement have earned him praise from supporters.
But there is a reason why Griezmann didn’t come off as a complete amateur in this impromptu challenge.
That is because he actually watches NFL clashes regularly and has enough tactical knowledge of how aspects like separations, coverage and defending works in American Football.
Griezmann has had a history of covering NFL matches for local outlets in Spain in the past and is a long-time admirer of the sport.
Last year, he even signed up to present a weekly programme on YouTube covering the NFL which is called ‘NFL’s Grizzle Hustle’.
He does this for the Mundo NFL channel and the videos are all in Spanish, where he and the host discuss the hot events around the league and stuff that happened in matches.
The 33-year-old also spoke about his love for the NFL and American sports in general last year, noting:
I like American sports: NFL, NBA. I’m doing a lot of fantasy leagues! In baseball, I’ve got one this year and, in the NBA I’ve got two, so there I am looking at all the results and looking at the players! You watch things or different skills from players – for example: not in American football as much.
But maybe the quarterbacks, their vision during the game, and in baseball, since last year I’m very interested. I think it’s a very complicated sport, especially for the hitter! The NBA is the most famous and most well known sport here in Europe and I think American football and American baseball are sports that I also love and I watch and I really follow them.
Griezmann definitely has a few more years left in his tank as a professional footballer in Europe. But seeing his love for American sports, it won’t be surprised if he turns into a Sportscaster covering the NFL or NBA and potentially even become a popular Twitch streamer like Sergio Aguero!