Rogerio Barbosa/Montreal Alouettes
CFL.ca Staff
TORONTO — With seven of eight CFL mini-camps in the books, only a month stands between now and the start of CFL training camp. The Toronto Argonauts hold their mini-camp from May 2-4 in Florida, but outside of that CFL teams and their players will refresh and re-focus before football consumes their lifes for the next six months from June through November.
Mini-camps have become an important off-season staple for many CFL teams, an opportunity to both get organized before training camp starts and get rookies up to speed with the intricacies of the Canadian game. Instead of getting ahead, early spring camps are becoming more about not falling behind.
In an off-season characterized by drastic personnel changes as well as CFL rule changes that’ll alter the way players are coached, this year’s mini-camps brought forth a bevy of storylines well in advance of training camp.
Here are some of the top storylines from each CFL mini-camp:
BC Lions
1. The health of Andrew Harris and Travis Lulay.
While plenty of talk around the Lions’ off-season surrounded a coaching change, the best news for the Lions all off-season had to be getting Andrew Harris and Travis Lulay back on the field for this week’s mini-camp. Wally Buono initially suggested Lulay’s participation in the three-day offensive camp wasn’t essential, leading some to believe the former Most Outstanding Player might not yet be ready to return.
But after playing in only two games in 2015, Lulay was back leading the huddle and feeling himself.
“It was great for me to just be out there and be back in the huddle and doing some of the procedural stuff with the guys,” Lulay told BCLions.com. “Having been hurt, you don’t take a minute of that for granted anymore.”
Also making a return to the Lions’ huddle was Andrew Harris, one of the league’s most dynamic dual-threat running backs. Harris was among the top rushers in the league before a season-ending injury last year, and while he says he’s not 100 per cent quite yet, he assures he will be in time for the season.
“I’m seeing a big difference in the last month or so and I’m really just making strides now,” said Harris. “We still have a long time before we play our first game. I have confidence in my ability, and obviously we have a new coaching staff so you have to prove yourself, but I don’t want to push myself too hard where I’m hurting myself. I’m going to be patient with it, but I’m feeling really good. It was a good test to see how I felt.”
2. Jeff Tedford and the Lions’ new-look offence.
Given the recent off-season rule changes, it’s no surprise ‘tempo’ was a buzz word throughout the month’s spring mini-camps. That was undoubtedly the case in Surrey, B.C., where speed was the name of the game for the Lions this week.
The Lions’ offence worked fast all week as Jeff Tedford began installing his new-look attack.
“Everything was very regimented, very much in order,” said Lulay. “It seemed to go really fast. It was fast and furious out here, both the speed of what we’re doing and in between drills and we got a lot accomplished in our time frame. You can tell he’s committed to winning.”
The Lions plan to use tempo to their advantage this season, whether it means speeding up the game or, other times, slowing things down when they need to keep the ball longer.
3. Competition at QB and receiver.
While the Lions’ offence will go through Travis Lulay and Emmanuel Arceneaux, as usual, competition at both quarterback and receiver behind those guys looms large at this time of year.
It’s hard to say who, outside of Arceneaux, will be the Lions’ top producing receiver this season after the team lost Ernest Jackson, as Courtney Taylor and Shawn Gore will be competing for looks with a number of other veterans and younger up-and-comers — including ex-NFLers Lavelle Hawkins and Austin Collie (a national).
At quarterback, meanwhile, the question remains who is Lulay’s successor? BC has been a factory of young up-and-coming quarterbacks in the past, producing pivots that have been developed patiently from a younger age (Casey Printers, Travis Lulay, Mike Reilly and Buck Pierce come to mind just to name a few recent ones).
The learning curve for a young quarterback is steep and the team knows it’ll have to be patient. Jordan Rodgers, brother of star Green Bay Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers, is one of several young QBs in Lions’ camp.
“The first step is a guy’s gotta be willing to learn, that’s absolutely number one,” said Lulay. “You’ve gotta come in with a humble mind and know it’s going to be fast and it’s going to be furious and there are going to be times when you don’t know what we’re talking about quite yet.”
“But both the newest guys seemed eager to learn. We learned a little bit of that last year with Travis and Jordan, we got to know them a little bit. But both the other new guys, you could tell, in meetings they’ve done some of their prep work and it was good for them to get a few reps out here and get a feel for what we’re trying to do and it’ll be fun to get to see those guys play.”
Edmonton Eskimos
1. Continuity key with Jones back at the helm.
Continuity is critical in the CFL, and after a successful first year under rookie head coach Chris Jones, the Eskimos are sticking with the same winning formula as last season. Not a lot changed in Edmonton this year and after the team’s dramatic turnaround last season, that’ll be key in the team’s hope of taking the next step in 2015.
As Mike Reilly grows into the system and Jones continues to build more depth, the Eskimos are a far cry from where they were at this point last season. Instead of
heading into unchartered waters, the point of this year’s mini-camp was to build on the strengths that are already there and create competition at all roster positions.
2. Competition fuels Eskimos’ success.
Competition can bring the best out of your players, a belief that Esks GM Ed Hervey takes to heart. With the only veterans at Esks’ mini-camp being quarterbacks Mike Reilly and Matt Nichols, the emphasis was on young players trying to earn an invitation to training camp — where they’d ultimately have the opportunity to push proven CFLers out.
“Depth, depth, depth – that is the motto around here,” said Hervey in an interview with Esks.com before the mini-camp kicked off. “And the only way you can find that depth is having that depth compete against one another.”
“In the end, whichever players we end up bringing to camp we feel confident will be able to come in and compete to not only push our veterans, but compete to earn a roster spot and potentially more.”
3. Depth at receiver brings flexibility.
While Adarius Bowman has emerged as an elite CFL receiver, reps behind him could be up for grabs this season. Kendial Lawrence and AJ Guyton will be primed for more looks this season, while nationals Shamawd Chambers, Akeem Foster and Devon Bailey will also look to get more involved.
But the X-factor in training camp this season could be Kenny Stafford, a young lengthy receiver acquired from the Alouettes in the Fred Stamps trade. We all know the Eskimos like size at the receiver position, and if the 25-year-old is ready to emerge as a productive CFL receiver then the Eskimo offence will be even more difficult to defend.
Stafford was at Esks mini-camp and may be one of the lesser-knowns of the receiving corps, but look out for him this season if he gets his break.
Saskatchewan Roughriders
1. Durant puts his injury in the past.
