(Photo by Tom Dolan)
More than 3,000 miles and an ocean away from Foxborough, on a North Atlantic island a wee west of Scotland’s mainland, one doesn’t expect to find much interest in the NFL draft outside of a chance encounter with a fellow American tourist.
But here on Islay, the 240-square-mile isle of roughly 3,000 year-round residents famous for its peated whiskeys, Caroline Ogden’s eyes light up from behind the cafe counter at the Laphroaig distillery, where she manages the visitor center.
“The draft begins tonight!” she excitedly says to me on this Thursday afternoon.
Caroline is all Scot, all smiles and all-in for Joe Burrow and the Cincinnati Bengals. Her husband, however, roots for a different team and, right now, she wishes he were here to meet this New Englander and perhaps talk about who that team, the Patriots, might choose with this evening’s fourth overall pick.
It’s the second time in as many days of a trip split between a London family vacation, a Scottish celebration of a good friend’s milestone and middle-of-the-night draft-watching that I’ve forged a transatlantic relationship over America’s Game. The first involved a father and his teenage son who live a few hours by ferry and car east of Islay, in a small town this side of Glasgow.
Craig Flynn started Mini Tours Scotland in 2004, operating out of his home in Greenock and crisscrossing the United Kingdom and Ireland, cracking jokes and creating an appreciation of the local history and culture for his clients to take back home. In recent years, he’s also made time for personal travel, taking his boy Gregor to places as far away as New York and as near as not-so-far-away London.
“You might not believe why we go to London,” Craig said to me as I listened from the other front seat, the one on the left, as he drove us out of Edinburgh the day before. “We go there to see American football.”
In fact, Craig told me, unknowing of what I do or where I do it for a living, they were there last October to watch Gregor’s favorite team compete against the Jacksonville Jaguars at Wembley Stadium.
“That one started well,” I laughed, thinking back to the Patriots’ short-lived 10-0 lead in an eventual 32-16 loss, “before it took a wrong turn.”
Thankfully, Craig made all the right turns – odd as they were for me, from the left lane – and for the next few hours riding across Edinburgh’s cobblestones toward Argyll and Bute’s country roads, away from one castle en route to another, our conversation veered between Scottish, English and Gaelic history and American football.
Gregor, his dad was proud to say, played two kinds of football, neither being the one preferred by most kids in the U.K. The young lad quarterbacks the Scottish national flag football team and is a tight end and QB for the East Kilbride Tigers in tackle football.
Over lunch along our way, Craig shared some photos from Wembley, by then well aware that I was there too. Seated in an end zone section, Gregor stood out in a nautical blue jersey, the Flying Elvis on his sleeves and No. 10 on his front and back. It had been a Mac Jones replica shirt, until a strip of tape and magic marker turned it into a Drake Maye model.
This wasn’t a kid, I thought to myself, who learned the sport by watching NFL Europe’s Scottish Claymores. Their last game was in 2004, well before he was born. Nor, based on the positions he plays and his souvenir jersey of choice, was he drawn to the game in hopes of being another in the NFL’s line of Scottish kickers and punters, the next Graham Gano or Jamie Gillen.
I’ve seen broad examples of the payoff from the NFL’s 21st Century investment in international markets while calling Patriots games in Mexico City, Frankfurt and London. And I’ve heard them in the chants of “Bra-dy! Bra-dy!” at Estadio Azteca and cheers for Sebastian Vollmer at Deutsche Bank Park.
But here in Scotland, learning about a face in those crowds helped to put a face on a reminder that the appeal of the Patriots and the sport they play reaches well beyond the Maine and Cape Cod coastlines. Sometimes in deep, personal ways.
No, the Pats will never even remotely approach the level of interest Scots have in Rangers F.C., Celtic F.C. or, in another sport, their national rugby squad. Still, to quote Will Campbell, the player they chose with the aforementioned fourth pick of the draft, their “logo speaks for itself.” And, as I’ve recently heard, in more than one accent or dialect.
Same for the NFL shield. Once a sport that we Americans mostly owned to ourselves, it is increasingly a global game.
During his Super Bowl week press conference in February commissioner Roger Goodell kept alive the notion that a franchise could someday be located in an international market, adding that it wouldn’t surprise him if a Super Bowl were to follow.
Annually, new sites are being added to the league’s regular season world tour. São Paulo last year. Dublin and Madrid this year. Melbourne next year. Paris, perhaps, the year after next.
And new global markets are continually being assigned to individual teams. In March, the league granted marketing rights to four teams for Greece and the United Arab Emirates.
Within the last decade in Scotland, the 67,000-seat rugby stadium at Murrayfield in Edinburgh and 52,000-seat Hampden Park in Glasgow were considered possible sites to host NFL games. But such talk has quieted in recent years as the league has expanded outside of the U.K. Nevertheless, a pair of Scots made history in the Highlands over the weekend.
On the third day of the draft, the 162nd choice overall, selected in the fifth round by the New York Jets, became the NFL’s first pick announced live from Scotland. Brothers and professional strongmen Luke and Tom Stoltman donned tartan kilts matching their green Jets jerseys and in their Highland lilt read the name of University of Miami linebacker Francisco Mauigoa, an American Samoan, while standing before Aldourie Castle at Loch Ness.
All to feed a monster whose appetite may never be satisfied. The league says there are tens of millions of NFL fans beyond our shores, and tens of millions more of potential converts who will buy its merch and pay for tickets if and when a game is held in or near their neck of the woods.
Just like the Ogdens and Flynns in a land marked by silver birch and Scottish pines.
Sunday morning I received a text from Craig, who was off on another father-and-son football journey. This was a relatively short one to Inverness for an Under-19 matchup of East Kilbride and the Highland Wildcats.
Craig included another photo. In this one, Gregor is wearing his own jersey. He's in the Pirates’ red and black, standing in the grass, his helmet in hands and teammates in the background, and could pass for any of a million other kids his age across this country on any autumn weekend.
The picture came with an update. Gregor, Craig wrote, replaced the injured starter at quarterback and led the Pirates to a 35-24 win.
I read it with a smile, before moving on to reports about the Patriots’ post-draft class of college free agents. One of whom is a defensive lineman from Virginia Tech.
His name is Wilfried Pene. His hometown is Tours, France.
Bob Socci has called play-by-play for the Patriots Radio Network on 98.5 The Sport Hub since 2013. Follow him on Bluesky and Instagram.
