HARRY KANE WANTS TO KICK IN THE NFL AND PLAY MLS

Harry Kane wants to become an NFL placekicker while he is still playing professional soccer, and this week he explained how the math could work. The Bayern Munich striker told reporters that pairing an NFL kicking career with a future move to MLS could let him run both schedules at once, in comments picked up by Yahoo Sports. He first raised the idea publicly on Good Morning America in 2023. Three years later, and one Ballon d'Or caliber season deeper, he has not dropped it.

That kind of persistence would read as vanity from most 33 year old strikers. Kane just became the fastest player in Bayern Munich history to reach 100 goals for the club, which is why the claim is worth taking seriously instead of laughing off.

Ninety Eight Games To A Hundred Goals

Kane scored his 100th Bayern goal in his 98th appearance, a faster pace than Cristiano Ronaldo or Erling Haaland managed at their peak European clubs. He reached 150 Bayern goals three games later, in his 153rd appearance, and closed last season with 61 goals across every competition.

Those totals sit on top of an England career that already made him the country's record scorer, past Wayne Rooney's total. Kane scored twice for England in a World Cup group game against DR Congo this year, the tournament where Jordan Pickford's green goalkeeper jersey never made it to retail shelves. Ninety one of Kane's first 100 Bayern goals came inside his first 100 matches, more than Robert Lewandowski or Gerd Muller scored in their own opening 100 games for the club. None of that is placekicking. All of it is the same right foot, repeated under pressure at a rate nobody else at his position has matched.

Brandon Aubrey Is Kane's Proof Of Concept

Kane points to Dallas Cowboys kicker Brandon Aubrey as evidence the plan is not fantasy. Aubrey was a first round MLS draft pick by Toronto FC who never played a game for the club, dropped to the lower tier USL, quit soccer to work as a software engineer, then made an NFL roster as a kicker in 2023.

In April, the Cowboys signed Aubrey to a four year extension worth 28 million dollars, the richest contract any kicker has ever received. Kane has described himself as a longtime Tom Brady admirer and a Patriots fan, and Aubrey's route from a failed MLS prospect to the top of the NFL pay scale is the outline Kane is now describing for himself, minus the part where he walks away from soccer first.

Penalties And Placekicks Share One Pressure Point

Kane's own explanation for the plan is technical, not sentimental. He said taking penalties and lining up a placekick draw on a similar pressure and a similar technique, a repeatable approach, a fixed plant foot, a strike that does not change shape because the scoreboard does.

He estimates six months to a year of dedicated training before he would be ready to compete for a roster spot, closer to a training camp timeline than a hobby. That estimate is the only concrete step he has attached to the idea since 2023, and it still has not started.

MLS Season Gaps Are Not NFL Season Gaps

Kane's own timeline is the part his plan has not solved. MLS runs from February to December, closer to the NFL's September to February window than the Bundesliga's August to May calendar, but closer is not compatible, and no top flight European club has ever released a contracted player midseason for a placekicking tryout.

The league Kane wants to join just spent a week showing how little patience it has for players who cannot finish a season healthy. NFL Week 2 sent Caleb Williams, Jayden Daniels and Jaxson Dart out of their own games with injuries, and none of those three were asking for a part time arrangement. Kane is still contracted at Bayern, still chasing a Bundesliga title and another Champions League run, and the kicking plan sits behind that schedule, not instead of it.

Aubrey needed two years between leaving soccer and signing his NFL deal. Kane is proposing to try it from inside an active playing career, on a calendar two professional leagues have never actually shared. The leg checks out. The calendar does not, not yet.