Daniels aims to better stellar rookie year
Young receiver packs on the muscle to handle the rigours of full 18 games
Receiver DaVaris Daniels knows there’s some serious hype surrounding his sophomore season.
Of course he knows that. After all, he’s the CFL’s reigning Most Outstanding Rookie.
People obviously are going to be excited to see how the Stampeders’ young star fares in his second goround in the CFL, and there’s no reason for Daniels to pretend he doesn’t know that.
Daniels also knows, though, that buying into the hype can be dangerous, even if he readily admits that he’s excited to see all the work he’s put into football getting recognized.
“I’m kind of trying to not let it get to me too much, but I’m excited,” Daniels said.
“I definitely worked toward this, it’s something I’ve worked toward in the past, and now that I’m here, I’m just trying to embrace it all and just kind of roll with it.
“Not really doing anything different, but just keep doing what I did last season, keep it rolling and keep our chemistry good.”
Daniels entered training camp looking like a new man on Sunday. He packed on muscle in the off-season after working tirelessly with his dad, Philadelphia Eagles assistant defensive line coach Phillip Daniels.
The receiver who took the league by storm after making his debut in Week 9 last year was athletic, but carried almost none of the bulk that this year’s version of Daniels is carrying on his body.
It’s not like he’s suddenly turned into the Incredible Hulk, to be clear, but Daniels is definitely a bigger man than he was a year ago.
That might be a concern to head coach Dave Dickenson if it was slowing Daniels down in any way, but after Day 1 of training camp, it didn’t sound like the additional muscle was slowing down the Notre Dame product at all.
“I let the guys try to assess their own bodies, and (last season) I felt like he was more than durable and strong,” Dickenson said.
“But he’s a young kid, and I want to make sure he’s still running and fluid, and he is.”
Being more durable was clearly one of the motivating factors in Daniels’ decision to add muscle in the off-season.
He finished the regular season with 885 yards receiving and nine touchdowns, but racked up those stats in only 11 games.
That’s impressive, no doubt, but Daniels felt he needed to get stronger if he was going to keep up that pace over a full 18 games.
“I was just prepping myself for the long haul of the whole season,” Daniels said.
“I know I’m going to lose a little bit of weight throughout the whole process, but I just wanted to come in and make sure I was strong enough to endure all of the things that come with a full season.
“I’ve been running a lot and I’ve got used to the weight and the strength and everything. It’s more muscle weight, so really I feel like I’m a lot faster than I was last year.”
If Daniels is faster than last year, his stats could be eye-popping. He refuses to define his personal goals for the season, though, saying only that he wants to help his team go one step further than they did last season and win the Grey Cup.
He does, however, believe he’s got a bigger role to play with the Stampeders receiving corps now that Bakari Grant has left the team in free agency to join the Saskatchewan Roughriders, and that starts at training camp.
“I’ve got to be a better leader,” Daniels said.
“Losing Bakari, he was a vocal guy in our receivers groups, so I just feel like it’s my role to step up a little bit. It’s (Marquay McDaniel’s) receiver group, but you need another voice sometimes and I’m more than willing to step up.”