The European invasion of the NFL has officially begun.

Who wants to block this guy?

The Dream Team is often credited with popularizing basketball around the world.  The influx of foreign talent onto NBA courts started slowly and grew until the NBA could boast of #1 overall draft selections from Africa, Canada, the Caribbean Islands, Australia, China and Europe.  They have had three foreign born overall MVP's (those three have also earned Finals MVP's).   

The NBA has always had a role for the random foreign athletes who learned of the game and were able to excel at it, but after the Dream team came a generation of foreign players with aspirations of playing in the NBA, and their journey was different.  This was not a random occurrence of a tall athlete being found by a college coach, these were children inspired by a graceful sport who dedicated themselves to playing it at the highest level.  This is a transition the NFL will soon find.  

The first two roles that translated to the NBA were that of big men and shooters.   Foreign leagues required a long slow maturation process before they could adequately prepare foreign players in the ball handling, speed, creativity, and versatility required for many positions in the NBA but America did not have a monopoly on unusually tall men, and the NBA will forever provide opportunities for athletic tall men.  The NBA also has constant demand for expert perimeter shooters. A generation of foreign players with NBA aspirations did not have quality competition to practice against like domestic players faced, but they could spend hours practicing their shooting, and they did.  From this the first wave of foreign players were either tall, or expert shooters, often both.  

This is what Americans imagine when we think of foreign
basketball players.

As the foreign leagues developed the exporting talent also developed.  Soon many  foreign players no longer fit the mold of "tall fundamental shooter" (though we still stereotype them as such) but also included defensive experts, athletic transition players, and creative ball handlers.  

The United States still produces most of the best basketball players in the world (and as a wealthy sports obsessed nation with the worlds 3rd largest population and a robust system for developing basketball talent we should continue to be) but foreign countries are closing the gap, and soon the world combined will have superior talent to America alone, and soon after that basketball obsessed countries with comparably large or even huge populations (like China and Brazil) will match America as equals (even if it takes another hundred years).  

The same process is beginning for american football and the NFL.  

American Football is more expensive and dangerous than basketball.  A kid can fall in love with basketball and construct a hoop against a wall, bundle up a shirt or convert a soccer ball and they are soon playing.  Tackle football is not so accessible.  Even before the Dream Team basketball leagues were growing across the world.  Organized American Football has almost no foreign leagues.  That slows the process, but it does not stop it, not in the age of the internet.  Where the NBA will always find space for tall men and skilled shooters the NFL will find opportunists for unusually large/powerful men and expert kickers.  There are two foreign born trailblazers trying to make it in the NFL, whether they succeed or fail in their dream is largely irrelevant to the question of if there will be a wave foreign players joining the NFL as there once was in NBA, MLB and (I assume) the NHL.  

Am I doing it right?  Seriously, go watch this guys video,
he has NFL talent, but if he does not make a roster a team
should keep him for the half time show.

Havard Rugland is competing for a position as a place kicker for the Detroit Lions.  Once before kicking in the NFL was revolutionized by soccer players converting to American Football.  This will happen again, Billions of soccer players with powerful legs are beginning to look NFL kickers (and the hundreds of thousands of dollars they are paid) and think "I can do that."    Most cannot, but out of the billions who will try a solid handful of foreign players with booming legs will find their way onto NFL practice fields for for training camp.  

Lawrence Okoye is a British Olympian trying out for a spot on the San Francisco 49ers.  If he was born in America football coaches would have started begging him to play from the time he was 12.  He is built to be a football player.  He could probably have a career in some other professional sport (like Rugby) but he wanted to try his hand in the NFL.  His path to a roster spot will be harder than that for a random kicker.  A Kicker can buy a football and practice on any field.  A defensive or offensive player needs a team and coach to be properly trained in the fundamentals of football.  This is something someone simply cannot develop on their own.  Football evolved from Rugby, and Okoye is trying to make that evolution in himself.  America does not have a monopoly on large/strong/athletic men, and many will look at the NFL and try to make that leap.  They may be Iranian weight lifters, or Japanese Sumo Wrestlers, or South African rugby players but more world class athletes will see opportunity in the NFL, and some of them will find success there. 

The Prediction:  In ten years there will have been at least five starting foreign kickers and one five foreign players to have been regular starters on either offense or defense.  Foreign players are defined by having played no high school football.  

I am wrong if:  This is fairly strait forward, there is not a significant number of foreign players in 10 years I am wrong in my prediction.