This utterly confused Australian man is the world’s best NFL writer

With former Australian rugby league star Jarryd Hayne making his NFL debut, The Guardian assigned a Sydney-based journalist to live blog the event—hilariously.

Extra Mustard | Sep 14, 2015

This utterly confused Australian man is the world’s best NFL writer /

Former Australian rugby league star Jarryd Hayne made his NFL debut for the 49ers on Monday and thank god we had an Australian there to help us make sense of it all.

The Guardian assigned Sydney-based freelancer Matt Cleary to live-blog the game from Levi’s Stadium. “I don’t admit to knowing a motherlode about American football,” Clearly admitted at the start. Good, because his ignorance made for a delightful reading experience. It was a million times more enjoyable than the typical American hot takes. Please, please read the whole thing.

Cleary was in awe of the size of the players: “Vikings ... throw to Ellison in the middle, another massive human, he grasses it. Straight at his chest. Dropped it colder than tea.”

• Watch: Jarryd Hayne fumbles on first NFL touch

He took a few jabs at the officials: “[T]he refs are talking to each other, there’s forty of them, it’s a committee meeting.”

It wasn’t long before Americans started taking notice.

There is no part of me that can handle how absolutely lovely this is, @guardian pic.twitter.com/ridEf9N0Ic
— Steph Auerbach (@StephLauren) September 15, 2015

I DEMAND that "Aussie only slightly familiar with American football" replace Trent Dilfer. http://t.co/hhoflewkcB pic.twitter.com/jL9HQtSKBa
— matt ufford (@mattufford) September 15, 2015

• OBJ’s new haircut is as meme-worthy as Antonio Brown’s

Cleary kept going on like this all night, oblivious to the particulars of what he was seeing but nonetheless extraordinarily enthusiastic.

Screen Shot 2015-09-15 at 11.22.54 AM.png

Screen Shot 2015-09-15 at 11.22.33 AM.png

Screen Shot 2015-09-15 at 11.21.48 AM.png

Our own Robert Klemko came up with a brilliant idea, which we totally support.

.@SI_PeterKing Can we pleeeeaaaseee hire this guy? http://t.co/XmFXg5jGs3 pic.twitter.com/ED3de0ElTY
— robertklemko (@RobertKlemko) September 15, 2015

Come on. Wouldn’t you read a weekly column on The MMQB from Matt Cleary?

- Dan Gartland

Published Sep 14, 2015

EXTRA MUSTARD

Where Culture Meets Sports: Your dose of Hot Clicks, viral videos, bizarre and hilarious stories and more from the intersection of pop culture and sports.