Stansly Maponga selected in XFL Draft

Sport
ZIMBABWEAN American football star Stansly Maponga (pictured right) is set to continue his career in the newly formed XFL, a new planned professional American football league owned by a professional wrestling promoter and American football executive and businessman Vince McMahon.

BY DANIEL NHAKANISO

ZIMBABWEAN American football star Stansly Maponga (pictured right) is set to continue his career in the newly formed XFL, a new planned professional American football league owned by a professional wrestling promoter and American football executive and businessman Vince McMahon.

The 28-year-old outside linebacker was a first round, third pick by the Seattle Dragons during the 2020 XFL Draft held via conference call on Tuesday and Wednesday.

Maponga was one of the 568 players selected in the 2019 XFL Draft for the fledgling league, scheduled to start early next year with eight teams of 40-man rosters playing a 10-game schedule.

The move to the XFL gives Maponga, who in 2014 became the first Zimbabwean to play in the lucrative American National Football League (NFL), another opportunity to work his way back to the NFL.

The XFL’s average paycheck of $55 000 per year, according to ProFootballTalk is significantly less compared to the NFL’s league minimum salary of $495 000.

However, it still presence a good opportunity to catch the eye of NFL franchises as players can leave to accept an NFL contract after the XFL’s championship game on April 25.

It is, therefore, a lifeline for Maponga who has been a free agent since being released by the NFL side Denver Broncos in August last year. Maponga was born in Harare, Zimbabwe in 1991 and migrated to the US at the age of nine.

While in the US, he loved soccer and rugby, but ended up playing American football instead.

After a successful college career at Texas Christian (TSU), Maponga’s breakthrough came when he was drafted in the fifth round of the 2013 NFL Draft by the Atlanta Falcons, where he went on to enjoy a solid season.

The New York Giants signed him to their active roster in 2015 from Atlanta’s practice squad and stayed at the storied franchise for two seasons, alternating between the practice squad and the reserve side until September, 2017.

A month later, Maponga reemerged at the Dallas Cowboys but his stint at the popular franchise only lasted a month before he moved to Denver Broncos on a reserve/future contract until August last year.