Carli Lloyd reportedly gets offer from NFL team

U.S. women’s national soccer team star Carli Lloyd has reportedly received an offer from an NFL team after making an impressive 55-yard kick at Philadelphia Eagles training camp last week. Her trainer, James Galanis, revealed in an interview that the two-time World Cup champion could get a chance to kick in a preseason game. 

Galanis told Fox Sports Monday that the football world took notice of her kicking skills and that a team made her an offer to join their roster. “Today, she got another call from another NFL team,” he said. “The one that called today, I don’t want to say who it is, was willing to put her on the roster for their next (game). They were willing to put her on the roster.”

With players and coaches on hand to watch, Lloyd easily drilled a field goal in between goal posts half as wide as the NFL standard. Video of her kick went viral on social media. 

All 32 NFL teams play their final preseason game on Thursday, and some teams, such as the Chicago Bears, are in glaring need of a kicker. According to Galanis, Lloyd showed interest in playing, but the proposed game would be on the same day as the USWNT’s matchup against Portugal. 

If the opportunity to play in an actual game comes around again, her trainer said Lloyd would take her time to prepare. “Knowing Carli, I don’t think she would just hop on and do it,” Galanis told Fox Sports. “She would need a couple of weeks training just to get comfortable and acclimatized. But things have escalated and it is real.”

The chance to make such a groundbreaking move for women’s equality in sports would be significant for Lloyd, according to her trainer. 

“We are thinking about what it would do to the sport itself, every sport at every level,” Galanis said. “She would be the first female that’s really playing with males, and what would it do to the whole equality (issue).”

While talking about her NFL field goal experience in an interview, Lloyd said she thought it was all fun and games at first, until she realized “this has the chance to be sort of a pioneering moment for women.”

Earlier this year, Lloyd and other members of the USWNT filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Soccer Federation, alleging institutionalized gender discrimination and demanding equal pay. The women’s team won its fourth FIFA World Cup championship in July, but earned less than a quarter of what the U.S. men’s team would have been paid for the same feat. Mediation talks between the two sides broke down in August after their first day of discussions.