Drafting Optimism: MLR 2026 College Draft Reaction, Takeaways & Offseason Outlook

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right, time for a TFR episode 203 news dump.

I laugh because...

James, you put out a tweet.

I do that a lot.

Which one? Well, yes.

But one in particular, the one where you kind of just lumped in the signings of what the last 20 days.

And if that doesn't kind of, I guess, encapsulate kind of the slow trickle effect of what is the offseason, I don't know what does.

We talked a lot about these signings last episode.

So you can hear about a reaction there.

But there is one in particular.

that i think happened in the span of uh of us doing this show that i want to talk about and that is a former anthem rugby carolina player which obviously a uh a team that is no more uh and a highly touted one in fact a first overall pick uh as recent as last year uh so very very poetic in terms of a draft show having the former first overall pick uh making some big moves and that is signing with the Red Hurricanes Osaka in Japan's League One.

Will Sherman heads overseas, which in all intents and purposes basically locks him out of what will be an MLR appearance here next season as he takes his talents to the Japanese League.

Yeah, so this is Japanese rugby, League One, Division Two, because League One is broken into three different divisions.

So it's really, it's pretty much the second tier.

But it is interesting that a first overall pick has gone overseas.

I think this will be the first time that a first overall pick has been playing the NMLR season overseas.

So, you know, there has been some in the past that have gone and played, you know, in wherever new zealand for example um or somewhere else in the states whether it's the arp or something but they've never actually played somewhere instead of them a lot so this will be that um and as as you mentioned like anthem are gone so he doesn't have any contract doesn't have any you know loyalty to a team that doesn't exist so i mean good for him for being able to pick up a contract overseas uh Yeah, I'd be interested to see how much game time he gets because the Japanese league has a tendency to bury foreign players quite a lot.

But we'll have to try and keep an eye out for that.

I can't say I really follow the Japanese league very closely because it's in the middle of the night.

yeah lots of leagues across the world obviously can't follow all of them but hey yeah i will say and i've been a broken record on this podcast before that this is exactly what mlr is supposed to be when it comes to being a stepping stone for players to get some of this international exposure obviously the competition and um you know i know this is d2 but japanese rugby you hear about at least in their d1 like a lot of new zealand players to go earn some pro rugby experience over there, head over there to play as well.

Will Sherman here kind of following those footsteps in the D2 type form.

But hey, good for him.

And again, for me, I think the biggest takeaway, and I think there's two ways to look at it, right? It's twofold.

One side, you can say, hey, you know, it's a guy that obviously was drafted by Anthem Rugby Carolina, who is no more, who is now taking an opportunity to And we're losing a top talent in terms of, you know, a first overall pick.