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The second coming of Kenya’s NFL dream: Weru picks up the baton Adongo dropped
Former Kenya Simbas rugby player Joshua Weru.
What you need to know:
- Adongo’s transition was bold, his physique a marvel, his story irresistible. And yet, like many meteors, he burned bright, fast, and briefly.
- Joshua Weru is the product of the NFL Africa pipeline, a system designed with intention, structure, and the humility of lessons learned.
If sporting destiny were a storyteller, Daniel Adongo would be one of its boldest plot twists. Born in Nairobi, raised on rugby pitches where bruises are badges and courage is currency, Adongo carved his early legend with raw, unfiltered athleticism. He was a Kenyan kid who sprinted into the world with the force of a man who believed, as Muhammad Ali once said, “He who is not courageous enough to take risks will accomplish nothing in life.”
Then came 2013, the year the Indianapolis Colts looked across oceans, across continents, and across sporting logic, and said, “Yes. That one.” A rugby star with zero American football experience? It sounded like a dare. It felt like a myth. It became a moment. Adongo’s rise was meteoric, the kind of ascent that makes you believe in fate, or at least in the power of a perfectly timed YouTube highlight. His transition was bold, his physique a marvel, his story irresistible. And yet, like many meteors, he burned bright, fast, and briefly.
Injuries, turbulence, and off field storms dimmed the glow. The Colts released him. The headlines evaporated. Kenya exhaled, confused and slightly heartbroken, like fans leaving a cinema after a blockbuster that ends just when the plot gets good. But sports, like life, loves a sequel.
America loved him
Enter Joshua Weru. If Adongo was the unexpected prologue, Weru is the carefully crafted chapter. Built like a reinforced vault door and carrying the hopes of a continent, he arrives as a blueprint. Not as an experiment. He is the product of the NFL Africa pipeline, a system designed with intention, structure, and the humility of lessons learned. Where Adongo was tossed into the deep end and told to swim, Weru has been taught the strokes. Where Adongo was a gamble, Weru is a plan. Where Adongo was a spark, Weru might be the fire.
As Michael Jordan once said, “Some people want it to happen, some wish it would happen, others make it happen.” Weru is being sculpted to make it happen. Kenya’s reaction to Adongo’s signing was classic Kenyan. Pride, confusion, and a nationwide crash course in NFL terminology. Suddenly, Nairobi sports bars, normally temples of Premier League devotion, were replaying Colts highlights. Uncles who swear rugby is the only “real” contact sport paused mid rant to ask, “Huyu Adongo ako position gani?”
He was a linebacker. Or at least, he was learning to be one.
America loved him. Kenya adored him. Indiana practically adopted him. For a moment, Adongo was a movement. But movements sometimes stall. Now the baton has passed. And if Kenyan sports dreams were a relay race, Adongo ran the first leg like a man sprinting into a storm. Weru receives the baton with clearer skies, better coaching, and a league that finally understands the African athlete is not a novelty but an untapped reservoir of potential.
Super Bowl nights
The NFL today is not the NFL of 2013. It has camps in Africa, scouts on the ground, and a growing realisation that the continent that produces marathon kings, rugby warriors, and Olympic legends might also produce gridiron giants. Weru is a product of that awakening. He is strong, explosive, agile, and crucially, trained specifically for American football. He knows the playbook. He knows the grind. He knows the culture. He is not walking into the unknown; he is walking into opportunity.
And the stakes? Immense. Africa has conquered the NBA, the Premier League, the UFC, and the Olympics. But the NFL remains a frontier. A mountain unclimbed. If Weru succeeds, he becomes the first East African to truly plant a flag on that summit. He becomes a symbol, a catalyst, a possibility. As Kobe Bryant once said, “The moment you give up is the moment you let someone else win.” Weru is not giving up. Kenya is not giving up. The dream is not giving up.
If he thrives, Kenya will never look at the NFL the same way again. Imagine the ripple effects: Kenyan kids watching NFL highlights alongside Premier League clips; Nairobi sports bars hosting Super Bowl nights with a Kenyan on the field; local American football leagues gaining legitimacy; scouts flying into Nairobi the way they fly into Lagos and Accra.
Weru could be the spark that turns curiosity into culture. He could be the player who makes the NFL feel less like an American oddity and more like a global stage where Kenyans belong. And perhaps, years from now, when another young Kenyan signs with an NFL team, the country won’t react with confusion or Google searches. It will react with recognition. Because someone lit the path. Because someone carried the baton. Because someone made the dream feel less like a miracle, and more like a plan.
