One month after receivers Rod Windsor and Troy Bergeron joined the Arena Football League, a third NFL player has made the jump to the AFL. San Francisco 49ers’ kicker Fabrizio Scaccia signed with the Arizona Rattlers this week.
Scaccia signed a futures contract with the 49ers in January after spending the last two weeks of the NFL season on the team’s practice squad. Like Windsor, Scaccia played the 2010 AFL season with the Rattlers, appearing in 10 games and scoring 72 total points for Arizona.
He remains under contract with the 49ers, as does Bergeron with the Dallas Cowboys and Windsor with the Cleveland Browns. Following the NFL lockout, players were permitted to sign with another league, though their NFL team still owns each player’s NFL rights.
“We looked into it and saw it was allowed,” Scaccia said. “[Rod] Windsor did it first. I did a little more investigating. I talked to my family and I see nothing but positives in joining the league.”
Windsor and Bergeron came to the same conclusion in early March when they joined the Rattlers and Cleveland Gladiators, respectively.
“I don’t have time for this lockout thing to get settled; I have bills to pay,” Bergeron said to The (New Orleans) Times-Picayune. Bergeron has 372 yards and 13 touchdowns in three games this season.
In addition to his time in the AFL and NFL, Scaccia also played last fall with the Sacramento Mountain Lions of the United Football League, where he was once again teammates with Windsor. In the UFL, Scaccia made all 17 of his PAT attempts and tied a league record by converting on a 54-yard field goal. He also made headlines by kicking a 68-yard field goal in a minor league game, the second-longest kick in professional football history.
Scaccia joins the undefeated Rattlers (4-0) in time for Week 6 of the 24th AFL season. The team plays the Kansas City Command (1-3) Saturday, April 16 in Kansas City. His brother, Massimo, also rejoined the AFL as a kicker, signing with Ron Jaworski’s Philadelphia Soul last week.