Sheets living his dream
Impeccable timing is allowing tailback Kory Sheets to return to the NFL.
Sheets signed a free agent deal with the Oakland Raiders on Wednesday, ending his stint with the CFL’s Saskatchewan Roughriders after two seasons.
But the 28-year-old product of Hartford, Conn., admitted Thursday that he was close to returning to the Roughriders and to a city that has grown on him.
“If this Oakland deal had come a day later, I might have been a Rider,” Sheets said from Tampa, Fla. “I was at a point where I was talking to my agent and saying, ‘Well, let’s go back to the table and see if we can work something out with the Riders.’
“I got off the phone with him and maybe an hour later, he called me and said Oakland had a deal for me.”
Sheets, who had a workout with Oakland in late January, said the Raiders and his agent had been talking since then but nothing had been finalized. That changed Wednesday.
Asked if reports he got a $30,000 signing bonus were accurate, Sheets replied: “I wouldn’t say it’s a signing bonus, but it’s something like that …
“It was enough money to where I needed to leave. It basically gives me the guarantee that I’ll be there and not just be a camp body.”
“I’M LEAVING WITH A DIFFERENT THOUGHT IN MY MIND THAN WHAT I THOUGHT I WOULD HAVE,”
KORY SHEETS
In reality, though, the five-foot-11, 208-pound product of Purdue University wasn’t after a big payday. While he’ll no doubt receive an increase over the salary he made in Saskatchewan last season, that wasn’t the main attraction about Oakland.
“I’ve wanted to play in the NFL because that was my dream growing up,” said Sheets, who had brief NFL stops with the San Francisco 49ers, Miami Dolphins and Carolina Panthers before signing with the Roughriders in 2012.
“If I had been in Canada and my dream was to play in the CFL, that’s where I would be right now. But it’s not. I have the opportunity to fulfil my dream and that’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to follow my heart.
“I’m one of those people who’s like, ‘I can’t live with myself knowing I didn’t do something or knowing that I didn’t try this or do that.’ I don’t want to be old and think, ‘Man, what if I hadn’t tried to go to the NFL?’”
Sheets admitted he rejected a contract offer from the Roughriders this off-season — “Everybody rejects the first offer. That’s just standard,” he said — and the sides never got to the point of discussing anything further because of Sheets’s NFL aspirations.
Now that he has signed in Oakland, he won’t be returning to Regina — a place that he said “affected me and changed the way I think.”
“I’m leaving with a different thought in my mind than what I thought I would have,” Sheets said. “When I first came up there, it was just, ‘All right, I’m just coming up here to play football so I can get back to the NFL.’
“But playing in Saskatchewan changed my mind and changed the way I viewed the city. Now I can call that place home. I can visit there any time I want and know that the people there will welcome me — and that’s a great feeling to have.”
Another player left the Roughriders as a free agent on Thursday.
Defensive lineman Jermaine McElveen, who played one season with the Roughriders, signed with the Montreal Alouettes, the team with which he began his CFL career in 2008.
McElveen’s departure is another hit to the depth along Saskatchewan’s defensive line. Already this off-season, the Roughriders have lost Keith Shologan and Zack Evans in the Ottawa Redblacks expansion draft and Alex Hall remains an unsigned free agent.
David Lee was signed Wednesday and joins Levi Steinhauer as a non-import backup. Imports who got limited playing time last season — Antonio Coleman, Richard Sumlin and Hilee Taylor — also remain under contract.
McElveen, Sheets and linebackers Craig Butler and Abraham Kromah, who both signed with the Hamilton Tiger-Cats, have left the Roughriders to sign elsewhere as free agents since Tuesday’s deadline.
Slotback Weston Dressler was released before the deadline so that he could sign with the NFL’s Kansas City Chiefs.