SHEPLEY TAKES FIGHT TO JETS’ TRAINING CAMP
Hockey punch led Canadian-born lineman to switch sports and pursue football career
If it’s true that undrafted rookie Dakoda Shepley has only a puncher’s chance of making the New York Jets’ 53-man roster, so what.
In a way, it’s fitting.
The native of Windsor is only playing football right now — on the 90-man roster of an NFL team — because of a chance punch. While playing double-A midget hockey in Grade 10, Shepley broke his right hand after getting into an on-ice fight. Canadian to the bone, or what? “It was a boxer’s fracture. I was 15,” Shepley said in an interview following the Jets’ first training camp practice. “So I went to see a surgeon in Windsor, Dr. (David) Sion.
“I didn’t need surgery, luckily. But he said, ‘Why are you playing hockey?’ My mom was there. He said, ‘Look at the size of you!’ I was about 6-3 at the time, and probably weighed around 250 (pounds). He said, ‘You could get a scholarship in football and maybe play professionally,’ and so on.”
While the idea piqued Shepley’s interest, it instantly sold his mother, Lydia.
“She’s like, ‘You’ve got to play football!’ And I was like, ‘Yeah! Maybe I can play football.’ Then I got into it right away.”
Hockey had always been Shepley’s sport while growing up on Skyline Drive in Windsor.
“I went up as high as the double-A level. I was a decent hockey player, a defenceman,” Shepley said.
“But I’m left-handed so I switched myself to right wing.”
After Grade 10 he switched primary sports, to football. After three years of playing it at Holy Names Catholic High School in Windsor, then for five more years at the University of British Columbia, the now 6-foot-5, 290-pound Shepley finds himself working at right guard with third- and fourth-teamers at the Jets’ training camp.
Halfway through the Jets’ preseason schedule, the 23-year-old has yet to play in a game — at least on offence. He got one rep on special teams last week against Washington. That’s it so far.
On Friday night the Jets play their megalopolis rivals, the New York Giants, at MetLife Stadium. Because starters typically take the majority of reps in Game 3 of the four-game pre-season slate — then seldom, if at all, in the finale — Shepley’s best chance for playing time will come a week from Thursday night, at Philadelphia.
Two days after that — on Sept. 1 by 4 p.m. ET — NFL clubs must cut their 90-man camp rosters down to 53 for the regular season, which kicks off the following week.
It’s always a long shot for any undrafted rookie to make an NFL roster, but a handful do every year.
In the event the Jets do waive Shepley, there’s always a chance another team might put in a claim for him before noon the following day. That’s how undrafted rookie defensive tackle Eli Ankou of Ottawa last year went from the Houston Texans to the Jacksonville Jaguars on Labour Day weekend.
Barring that unlikelihood, Shepley would be a prime candidate for New York’s practice squad — or the practice squad of any other club that might want him. The minimum full-season salary in 2018 for NFL practice squad players is US$129,200, appreciably greater than the mean 2018 CFL salary of C$90,000 (US$69,262), and greater still than what top 2018 CFL draft picks have commanded.
Shepley said he knows the CFL will be there for him as a fallback option should his NFL dream not pan out. In May, the Saskatchewan Roughriders selected him fifth overall in the CFL draft.
“My goal is to make the 53-man roster here,” Shepley said of the Jets. “I just want to maximize my potential as an athlete.”
Really, this is all gravy for Shepley, someone who didn’t play football before his third year of high school. That right there makes him a rarity among the nearly 2,900 players on an NFL roster.
After redshirting with the Thunderbirds in 2013, Shepley helped UBC win the Canadian universities championship in 2015, and last fall was named a Canada West all-star as a right tackle.
He said it was a year ago in May — after he felt he’d played well in the annual East-West Bowl in Laval, Que., for Canadian university underclassmen — that he began to think seriously about a career in pro football.
“After that day, I had a few CFL teams talking to me. Actually Saskatchewan was the first team that talked to me, and they ended up drafting me.
“It really dialed me in for my fifth year at UBC. I was getting talked to by all the CFL teams. I was being told by some strength coaches, some other coaches and some teammates that maybe I could go to the NFL. My parents, obviously, were pumping my tires too, saying, ‘You’re going to the NFL.’ ”
Within hours after the NFL draft concluded April 28, Shepley agreed to a standard three-year deal with the Jets as an undrafted rookie.
By far the biggest hurdle for any NFL-aspiring Canadian offensive lineman who played his college ball north of the border is overcoming the line-of-scrimmage rule difference. In Canada, defensive linemen must line up a yard off the ball. In America, they’re snorting in your face, inches away.
“It was an adjustment at the beginning of (spring practices) in May. Now it’s just football. I mean, certainly the speed is a lot faster. But I’m already used to it. I feel like it’s just getting down the technique of playing American football now.
“I was a big guy in Canada, being patient with my sets, and being patient with my punch. And here it’s like, you’ve got to make up your mind fast, like it’s a baseball pitch coming at you and you have to decide so fast whether to swing or not. Just from that standpoint, it’s a lot quicker. And obviously the level of athlete is a whole different calibre.
“But I like a challenge and I think I’m doing well with it so far.”