BACK ON THE FIELD
Norwood dressing for Riders
Eric Norwood has been an impatient patient.
The 28-year-old defensive end has had to wait to suit up for the CFL’s Saskatchewan Roughriders, who wanted his reconstructed right knee to heal completely before they activated him.
That wasn’t easy for him to accept.
“I’m very impatient,” said Norwood, who’s to make his Roughriders debut Saturday against the visiting Hamilton Tiger-Cats.
“I thought I was ready to go three, four months ago. Now I know that I wasn’t.
“Timing is everything. I’m just glad everything worked out the way it did.”
Norwood hasn’t played since the 2015 East Division semifinal, when he played for the Tiger-Cats.
In that Nov. 15 contest, the 6-foot-3, 255-pounder shredded the anterior cruciate, lateral collateral and posterior cruciate ligaments and the Iliotibial band in his right leg — and many believed his football career was over. But Norwood was undaunted. He underwent surgery to repair the extensive damage and rehabilitated the knee through the off-season, all the while looking forward to his return to the field.
“You learn a lot (about yourself),” said Norwood, who never pondered giving up the game. “You learn how to depend on others. You learn how to drop your pride. You learn that you really can’t do it all on your own, that you need a support staff. You just learn to trust people more ...
“Mentally you learn how to deal with little things, whether it’s crawling up the steps or whether it’s trying to get inside a car, inside an Uber, and you can barely fit with your crutches. There’s a whole bunch of stuff.”
The Tiger-Cats released Norwood on May 2 and Saskatchewan signed him May 13. He expected to go to the Roughriders’ training camp, but was prepared to miss their first two or three regularseason games.
Now, after missing Saskatchewan’s first 12 games, he’s finally getting a chance to play.
“I felt like I was ready to go versus Winnipeg, but that’s just me being me,” said Norwood, whose squad played the Bombers on Sept. 4 and Sept. 10. “We’ve got to play it smart. We’ve got to know the ramifications of different things.”
Roughriders head coach-GM Chris Jones knew the potential ramifications. That’s why he didn’t activate Norwood until seeing that the 2014 East Division all-star was back to full health.
“All football players think they’re invincible,” Jones said.
“They’ve always been able to transcend any rules or anything, so he was no different.
“He thought that at 60 per cent or 65 per cent, ‘Well, I can go out there and play 18 ball games.’ That’s not realism. As much as you’d like to try to play a guy, if he’s not completely healthy, all you’re going to do is play a game or two and be right back where you started.”
Norwood spent three seasons in Hamilton, recording 123 tackles and 24 sacks in 42 regular-season games. He had 30 tackles, seven sacks and two fumble returns for touchdowns in 2015, but played only 10 regular-season games due to calf and knee injuries.
Then he blew out his knee in the East semifinal.
While Norwood appreciates the work done by his surgeon and trainer in his hometown of Atlanta, he believes he would have been on the field already if he had been able to work with the Roughriders’ training staff starting in March or April.
Since returning to the practice field, Norwood has been doing different things during drills to test his rebuilt knee.
As a result, he’s confident that it’s going to hold up when he gets into his first game in 10 months.
“I don’t regret anything,” Norwood said.
“I’m glad I went through this injury. It put me in a different place. It put me in a different mindset.
“But I’m still the same animal on the field. I just want to be here to help my team win in whatever role I can.”