Pass rushers almost as vital as QBs: GM
EDMONTON — 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 squad, which sports a record of 7-1, traded a second-round pick in 2018 on Sunday to the winless Hamilton TigerCats for veteran pass rusher John Chick and a fifthround draft pick next year.
“I think that John is still a dynamic pass-rusher and more than just his ability on the field, he’s a great person, he’s a leader, he’s going to fit in the locker-room,” Eskimos general manager Brock Sunderland said. “He’s still a guy that we think can potentially change the complexion of games with his ability to rush the quarterback.”
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 follow- ing their first loss of the year, falling 33-26 to the Winnipeg Blue Bombers in the wake of injuries to a line that was wasn’t the same Thursday without the services of defensive end Marcus Howard and defensive tackle Almondo Sewell.
“Actually, I’ve been talking with Hamilton for about three weeks now, so it wasn’t because of just the last game,” Sunderland said. “Any time you can get a good football player, even though we have a very good defensive line, you can never have too many good players.
“I feel the quarterback is the key ingredient in the team, and then I think rushing the passer is No. 2. So anybody of his calibre we can get on this roster, we’re absolutely going to go after at all times.”
It just so happened Sunderland made his first trade as a CFL general manager with the same person who gave him his first start in pro football management — albeit an unpaid one — with Ticats GM Eric Tillman back when they were with the then Ottawa Renegades in 2004.
Tillman, as it turns out, also brought Chick into the league in 2007 with the Saskatchewan Roughriders, with whom the 6-foot-4, 253pound Utah State product went on to win two Grey Cups and become the CFL’s most outstanding defensive player in 2009, before spending the next three years in the NFL with the Indianapolis Colts and the Jacksonville Jaguars.
He brings both a veteran skillset and a 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 on to the onegame injured list, leading to Edmonton’s lowest pressure-producing 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 situation instead of continuous tidal waves that have thrown opposing quarterbacks off their game all season.
In 2014, Chick led the CFL with a career-high 15 sacks and led the East with 14 last year on the way to the third all-star 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.
“We had to give up a second-round pick and you have to give value to get value,” Sunderland said. “Any time you get a player of his calibre, you’re not going to get it for free.
“The saving grace for us is we get a fifth-round back, and ... it’s proven you can draft extremely talented players in the fifth round too, so we really felt the picks were a wash.”