Dolphins Draft Londoner Traore as NFL Academy's First Graduate
Get the Sports newsletter
Daily sports — scores, transfers, the storylines from the leagues you actually follow. Free.
- Seydou Traore was drafted by the Miami Dolphins in the fifth round of the 2025 NFL Draft in Pittsburgh, becoming the first graduate of England's NFL Academy — a development programme recruiting from non-American football backgrounds — to complete the pathway to the NFL.
- Butch Jones, then Arkansas State's head coach, compared Traore to Travis Kelce (whom Jones coached at Cincinnati) and flipped Traore's college commitment via a group video call with Kelce in February 2021, convincing him to transition to tight end.
- After a tough stint at Colorado in early 2023 where his toughness was publicly questioned, Traore transferred to Mississippi State, sat out the season under NCAA transfer rules, then became one of their top receiving threats in 2024 and scored a career-high five touchdowns in 2025 while developing a tea-sipping celebration nodding to his British roots.
- Zaia Traore, Seydou's French-Algerian mother, let out a 'zaghrouta' — a celebratory trilling sound traditional in North Africa — when the draft call came, with the clip going viral and Zaia describing the moment as an 'out-of-body experience' after five years apart from her son.
- Efe Obada, himself a London Warriors graduate who made the NFL and now serves as an NFL Academy ambassador, accompanied Traore on stage at the draft announcement after 'hijacking' the moment from commissioner Roger Goodell, calling it a symbolic 'passing of the torch' to international players.
- Aden Durde, the British Seattle Seahawks defensive coordinator who helped win the Super Bowl in February, called Traore 'the first one and there's going to be plenty more,' crediting the academy with breaking down barriers for international talent.
Why it matters: The Dolphins are now the team that took the first NFL Academy graduate to make the pros — a programme built specifically because international players face staggering odds, with only 0.08% of the one million US high school players who play each year reaching the NFL. Traore's selection validates that alternative pathway and hands Miami a 6ft 3in tight end whose athletic trajectory mirrors Kelce's own conversion story.
Ask SkimNews
