Mitchell not taking anything for granted
There were three wide receivers cut Wednesday at Edmonton Eskimos training camp and Bryant Mitchell wasn’t one of them.
So there’s no need to ask how his day was going.
For rookie hopefuls, any day you dodge the coach’s axe is a great day, although the 23-year-old from Northwestern State admits that Tuesday night got a little spooky knowing that another round of cuts could come at any moment.
“It was scary,” said Mitchell. “You’re sitting in your room, and you hear the phone and it’s like ‘You get it.’ ‘No, you get it.’
“There was a couple of us sitting there saying ‘You pick it up.’ ‘No, I’m not picking it up.’”
Can’t blame Mitchell for being gun shy. The last time he had that uneasy feeling in his hotel room, it was the hatchet man coming to tell him his bid to be an Eskimo was over.
He fell victim to the last wave of cuts and spent the entire year out of football.
That he’s back again this year is a testament to his tenacity, not to mention the impression he left on the organization that invited him back.
“That does say a lot about him as an individual,” said head coach Jason Maas. “He understands it’s a new regime, and he’s going to get another opportunity.
“He obviously did enough within our organization (last year) to show what kind of character he had, because normally when you get cut, you’re not going to get asked back if you’re not a character guy.
“We preach to our guys ‘be good people first,’ and ultimately, you have to be a great player to stick around. But when you aren’t a good person, you usually don’t get a second chance.” Some players wouldn’t want a second chance from the team that cut them a year earlier, but there is no bitterness in Mitchell, just a commitment to write a better ending this time.
“It was actually the first choice for me,” he said. “I love the atmosphere here, I love the city, I love the people in this city. When they called me, I said ‘yeah, I’m there.’ It was definitely a first choice.
“I’m here, and it’s time to put my hard hat on and go to work. Last year is in the past.”
Normally when a player gets cut and has to take a year off of football, it means the end of the road. But in another testament to his character and work ethic, Mitchell held his own personal training camp, sandwiched around his work schedule, while he waited for another opportunity. As a result, he doesn’t look at all like somebody shaking off a year’s worth of rust.
“I went home (to San Diego) and I worked and I worked out,” he said. “I did two-a-days almost every day. I have a trainer. And I would go to the House of Boxing and box after that.”
He wasn’t going to let one rejection slip break his determination.
“My whole life, they told me no. I wasn’t that great in high school, I went to junior college. Went to college and had some issues, but I always told myself that I can.”
Through two weeks of training camp, the reviews have been good.
“He’s athletic, he can catch the ball, he runs great routes, but he’s also picked up our offence, and he’s been here every day, ready to go at every practice,” said Maas. “He’s played multiple positions and he’s been productive.”
Mitchell, who caught a TD pass in the pre-season opener in Calgary, spent a long time after practice Monday picking up tips from general manager and former receiver Ed Hervey, the guy who invited him back this year.
“It was a great talk, he was showing me a little trick that he learned,” grinned Mitchell, who says the key to surviving camp this time around isn’t very complicated.
“I have to make plays. Whenever the ball is in the air around me, I have to make that play. That’s the mindset I came out with.”