NFL Draft: Aussie Jeremy Crawshaw lands rare contract with Denver Broncos

Jeremy Crawshaw’s past week would be hard to beat. He married his sweetheart and landed a rare contract to become the next Aussie bound for the NFL. His coach tells JULIAN LINDEN of the punter’s ‘10 year deal.’

From the foot of the Blue Mountains to the Rocky Mountains, Australia’s Jeremy Crawshaw has scaled one of the biggest peaks in sport by landing a rare contract in the US National Football League (NFL).

Just days after he married his sweetheart Elle in Florida after a short engagement, the 23-year-old from Sydney’s Emu Plains was selected to join the Denver Broncos, one of the most successful and popular franchises in all American sports.

The first punter chosen in this year’s NFL Draft, Crawshaw was taken in the sixth round by the Broncos with pick No. 216, joining a select group of Aussies to get a shot at the world’s richest football league.

A classic Aussie underdog who refused to give in, Crawshaw has hit the jackpot, as long as he can secure a place in the starting roster for the three-time Super Bowl champions.

Jeremy Crawshaw is NFL bound. Picture: James Gilbert/Getty Images

That’s no guarantee in the cutthroat world of the NFL but he’s already defied the odds and made a huge impression for himself in his five years at the University of Florida, where he’s started in 53 games for the Gators and averaged 46.2 yards per punt.

They are big numbers in College football and Crawshaw has developed an even bigger following because he’s regularly been booming punts over 60 yards, with a career-long best of 69 yards that put him right in the shop window for NFL teams wanting a punter with a monster boot.

“He’s a jet,” his Australian mentor and coach Nathan Chapman told Code Sports.

“He’s a great character, a consummate professional in terms of the way he goes about his craft and his work.

“He’s really diligent, friendly, always has a smile on his face and just a joy to be around and a pleasure to coach.

“I got up at 3am to watch it unfold and then wait…to have Jeremy’s name called out was really cool. I’m so pumped for Jezza.”

Got ourselves a Gator. 🐊

Welcome to #BroncosCountry, @jeremy_crawshaw! pic.twitter.com/9jvBZNYxO1

— Denver Broncos (@Broncos) April 26, 2025

With a wedding ring on his finger after tying the knot with his partner, Crawshaw is now chasing a Super Bowl ring after he’d once dreamt of playing for the Penrith Panthers.

He didn’t quite make it in rugby league but got hooked on NFL in his early teens so approached Prokick Australia for help in how to make it in America.

Prokick’s founder, Chapman, a former AFL professional who signed with the Green Bay Packers in 2004, had already helped over 300 Australians get selected to play for US Colleges, with around dozen exceptional talents going on to get offered contracts in the NFL.

But he also knows how hard it is to crack in the US so when first Crawshaw contacted him, he warned him he needed to be patient.

“He was just 13 or 14 and he would email film all the time, saying ‘this is how I’m kicking,” but I’d have to say to him, “Jez, mate, I love your passion but you’ve got three years of high school left yet before you even move to Melbourne to start our program.

Jeremy Crawshaw married his sweetheart in the same week of the NFL draft. Picture: Instagram

Crawshaw plans to follow in the steps of fellow Aussie Jordan Mailata who won the 2025 Super bowl. Picture Ryan Kang

“So for him to go full circle, move to Melbourne, work hard at his craft, go to Florida..and then to get drafted, it’s unbelievable.

“It’s been a 10 year deal for him, from the 13-year-old to now, so credit to him for putting the work in.”

Crawshaw is following in a grand tradition of Aussies aiming high. Australia has been supplying punters to the NFL since 1965 when Colin Ridgway, an Olympic high jumper, was picked up by the Dallas Cowboys, though he didn’t play a game.

Plenty more have made it to the NFL in the years since, with three Aussie punters – Ben Graham, Mitch Wishnowsky and Arryn Siposs – all playing in the Super Bowl.

Western Sydney’s Philadelphia Eagles offensive tackle Jordan Mailata won a Super Bowl ring early this year but no Aussie punter has landed the biggest prize yet.

If Crawshaw ever does, his success will be all the more remarkable because unlike most of his predecessors, he started out as a rugby league junior.

“He didn’t grow up playing Aussie rules but he just had this natural ability that he didn’t want to swing his leg straight. He had big long legs so he worked really hard and watched a million videos,” Chapman said.

“It’s really about putting your hat in the ring and doing the work and getting a little bit of luck along the way.

“But he was also prepared to move out of home at 16, 17 years of age to come to Melbourne with the unknown.

“He was then prepared to move to the other side of the world and put up with being homesick and leaving friends and family to put himself in this window.

“People will look at it and go ‘oh, the bright lights, that’s unreal, I’d love to do it’ but there’s a lot of sacrifices along the way so we’re all very proud of him.”

Originally published as NFL Draft: Aussie Jeremy Crawshaw lands rare contract with Denver Broncos