Edmonton Eskimos acquire pass rusher John Chick
The injury-ridden Edmonton Eskimos have relied on the next man up all season, but now, they’ve brought in help from outside the team.
The Canadian Football League’s leading team, which sports a record of 7-1, traded a secondround pick in 2018 on Sunday to the winless Hamilton Tiger-Cats for veteran pass rusher John Chick and a fifth-round draft pick next year.
The beaten-up and bloodied active roster has seen replacements brought up through their own ranks week in and week out to fill an ever-depleting depth chart during an injury-jinxed, yet extremely successful start to the 2017 season.
The move comes following their first loss of the year, falling 33-26 to the Winnipeg Blue Bombers in the wake of devastating injuries to a defensive line that was wasn’t the same Thursday without the services of defensive end Marcus Howard and defensive tackle Almondo Sewell.
This time, they had to look outside their locker-room. But there will still be no need for a name tag — or even introductions, for that matter.
Chick, the CFL’s most outstanding defensive player in 2009, brings both a veteran skillset and proven presence to an Eskimos front four that will be without Howard the rest of the way due to a torn Achilles suffered two weeks ago against the Ottawa Redblacks.
That was the same game that sent Sewell onto the onegame injured list, leading to Edmonton’s lowest pressureproducing performance of the season against the Bombers. While they still got after Matt Nichols in spurts, earning three sacks, they managed only one other pressure instead of continuous tidal waves that have thrown opposing quarterbacks off their game all season.
Chick’s acquisition shows not only how integral D-line pressure is to the Eskimos’ continued success, but also how important it is for the club to translate a seven-win start to the season into something meaningful. Albeit at a cost to the future.
The upside in the short-term, on the other hand, is readily apparent. A two-time Grey Cup champion with the Saskatchewan Roughriders, the six-foot-four, 253-pound Utah State product began his CFL career in Regina in 2007.
Following an all-star season in 2009, when he was named the league’s top defender, he turned his attention down south in the National Football League, where he spent 2011 on the practice roster of the Indianapolis Colts.
He went on to play 19 games with the Jacksonville Jaguars before returning to the Roughriders in 2014. The following year, he led the CFL with a career high 15 sacks and added 14 more last year on the way to the third allstar selection of his career.
However, he will also be turning 35 a week ahead of November’s Grey Cup in Ottawa and, as such, likely wasn’t going to be a big part of the Ticats’ plans for a future rebuild after what’s been an obviously disappointing season, which has already included a pair of losses to the Eskimos. So while the Ticats will be getting younger with the move, the Eskimos can go with an experienced starter as opposed to parachuting in an American.
He has 16 tackles, two sacks and a forced fumble this season, contributing to career numbers of 226 tackles, 69 sacks, an interception and 15 forced fumbles in 117 games.
Chick plays with an insulin pump after being diagnosed with diabetes as a youth. He and his wife, Catherine, have eight children.