‘Ted Lasso in reverse’: Meet the anonymous Aussies shaping the future of the NFL in key roles

It’s the biggest show in world sport and Australians have been playing key on-field roles in the NFL for years. Yet as SHANNON GILL finds out, there’s a bunch of Aussies playing crucial roles off the field as well.

Whether it be taking punts in Super Bowls or holding down an offensive line, Australians have been faced with daunting situations on NFL fields in recent years.

Yet, arguably the scariest NFL assignment has been faced by an Aussie you’ve probably never heard of.

“It was very intimidating … but I always thought ‘I’m a female from Australia working for the New England Patriots, for Bill Belichick and Robert Kraft,” says Stephanie Burnham, Football Communication Strategist at the New England Patriots.

“There’s only one job like this in the world and I have it.”

Up until Belichick finished his 24-season Patriots tenure earlier this year it was up to Burnham, a Sydney local who previously worked with Hockey ACT and South Sydney in the NRL, to button down the notoriously gruff coaching legend on the sidelines.

Telling Belichick what to do is the sort of thing that makes the most-hardened NFL industry types tremble. Think Wayne Bennett and Alastair Clarkson all rolled into one.

Aussie New England Patriots staffer Stephanie Burnham speaks to coaching legend Bill Belichick.

Yet it was something Burnham had to do every week.

“At some points when I had to bring him across to the sideline he didn’t speak to me, but one of the coolest things was telling him something stupid – that it was the sideline reporter’s birthday.

“After the interview he said happy birthday to the reporter … so he listened!”

SCEPTIC YANKS

Burnham is one of a number of Aussies who work at NFL franchises gearing up for their season - albeit relatively anonymously.

Just like athletes they are hand-picked for skills, but ultimately come from a background devoid of the lifelong American football culture that most of their peers are steeped in.

Fellow Australian Sam Rosengarten knows that some can be sceptical.

Australian Baltimore Ravens Director of High Performance Sam Rosengarten. Picture: Supplied

As the Director of High Performance at the Baltimore Ravens he recalls not everyone was enamoured with the accented voice telling them what to do.

“We had an offensive lineman named Marshal Yanda, who’ll be a hall of famer one day,” he recalls.

“He led a bit of a revolt where the offensive line felt hardly done by and weren’t understanding how the metrics applied to them.

“There was a peaceful protest to put the measuring units in their socks rather than the back of their shirts. It totally messed up my data for a day,” he laughs.

The Australian eventually won over Yanda by showing how his data detailed that he was training harder than anyone else on the team.

“I sounded different, I struggled to get the right words between practice vs. training, boots vs. cleats … I was basically Ted Lasso in reverse.”

“You’ve got to have a sense of humour and laugh at yourself. In so many ways the culture is different.”

Now players like last season’s NFL MVP and Ravens quarterback Lamar Jackson implicitly trust him.

Rosengarten's data analysis took some time to win over Ravens players.

Rosengarten didn’t just land in Baltimore, he completed a significant apprenticeship before making it to the big show.

A cricketer, he started his working life as a physiotherapist before landing jobs at the Western Bulldogs and then Carlton in the AFL. He says the support of the Blues and concurrent work with universities propelled his career on to the world stage.

“We were really able to explore and do some things that had never been done,” he says.

“I was travelling around the world presenting on some of that stuff and that was the start of interest from the US. But the underlying view was if you haven’t done it in the States, you haven’t really done it.”

The Buffalo Sabres in the NHL did like what he was saying though, and hired him to lead their injury prevention program. From there it was the NFL Ravens, where Rosengarten hit it off immediately with coach John Harbaugh. Harbaugh had designs on revamping their approach to physical performance.

“He said ‘you should come and do this for us, people won’t really understand what you do, but just do it and be in the background and when the time is right we’ll pull back the curtain’,” Rosengarten says.

Eventually he won them over with his work. The sport won him over too.

“As a kid I would watch the NFL with Don Lane on a Monday night on the ABC and marvel at it. But I didn’t really know what I was looking at, it’s so complex. ”

Now he’s gearing up for his eighth NFL season.

“It’s the ultimate team sport and every week is a Grand Final. If you don’t turn up you get beaten. That’s what I love about it.”

THE ‘LONG ROAD’

While Rosengarten’s career ascent to the NFL took a linear path through Australian sport, Burnham’s was a different one.

It’s a story of perseverance and chance we usually associate with underdog athletes.

When working at Hockey ACT Burnham had heard about sporting executives going to visit NFL or EPL clubs to further their experience, sparking a circuitous five year wild goose chase to a bona fide NFL job.

The Australian connection; Stephanie Burnham meets up with Jordan Mailata.

Through LinkedIn Burnham connected with more than 100 people that worked in US Sports, and sent messages to more than 50 asking to shadow them and learn the mechanics of US sports.

“I got seven replies. Only four of them were yes.”

The end result was a five week ‘holiday’ in 2016 where Burnham somehow cobbled together a day working in the office and shadowing a game day for three NFL teams.

Loving it, she decided this was her future.

The next year she wrote to every NFL team and secured a training camp internship with the Indianapolis Colts – this would be her 2017 holiday.

In between was further visits for networking, and then there was a student visa where she studied at UCLA and worked part time for the college’s football team.

Next were one year internships with the LA Chargers and the LA Rams.

“I was paying expensive rent in LA and I was earning minimum wage with the internships,” she says. “It was a long road.”

Finally, in 2021 she secured a full time ongoing role at the New England Patriots.

Burnham’s role is the messenger between the team and the media, but also the internal organisation and the team.

Stephanie Burnham talks to New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft.

Underlining the differences between media access in Australia, one of Burnham’s roles is opening up the locker room three times per week for 45 minutes where media can access every player.

And then there’s preparing players and coaches for those media interviews, while also doing PR for Patriots owner Robert Kraft.

“I always knew I wanted to work in sports, but the NFL is just such a larger scale than anything back home.”

There are many other Aussies too; Yasmine Xantos is in the finance team at the Cincinnati Bengals and Emma Beanland is a sports scientist at the Buffalo Bills, and that’s just a small sample.

And while Rosengarten has a laser focus on winning a Super Bowl with his contending team he admits there are brief moments when the enormity of where he is sinks in. “I’ll be standing for the national anthem and pause just to think ‘wow’.”

Originally published as ‘Ted Lasso in reverse’: Meet the anonymous Aussies shaping the future of the NFL in key roles