SIZING UP SKILL SET AT LEOS’ MINI- CAMP
B. C. coaches evaluate offensive star power
One of our quarterbacks is missing.
Jarrett Brown, the presumptive No. 2 QB for the B. C. Lions, didn’t get a chance to connect with his receivers in the first day of the Canadian Football League team’s mini- camp on Tuesday because of botched airline connections.
“He was on time, but the airline changed the schedule or something,” Lions head coach Mike Benevides explained. “He’ll practise here tomorrow ( Wednesday).”
With Travis Lulay the clear choice as starter, Benevides is using the three- day mini- camp to get a head start on developing a backup plan.
Lulay, holdover Thomas DeMarco and recently signed Rudy Carpenter participated in Tuesday’s inaugural offseason training session at the team’s Surrey practice field, which involved about 20 players and a total of zero who play on defence.
Indeed, only two offensive linemen, Angus Reid and Adam Baboulas, both centres, were there to snap balls to the three quarterbacks, none of whom recorded an interception or a knock- down since nobody was there to defend them.
“It’s entirely different than a regular practice,” Benevides said. “But you’re still competing against yourself and still going through the process. This is, first and foremost, about teaching and learning. It’s a chance for us to see how their off- season is going. The other thing is, there’s six weeks until training camp ( starting June 2 in Kamloops). They can go home, take the playbook with them, and make some adjustments.”
Without Mike Reilly, who signed with the Edmonton Eskimos in the off- season, the Lions are looking for a quality backup among DeMarco, Brown and Carpenter. Collectively, they have a total of 91 career passing yards in the CFL, all belonging to DeMarco, who threw 13 passes in mop- up time last season as the team’s third stringer.
Asked if he’s here to challenge for a backup role, or the starting spot, Carpenter was blunt in his response: He’s not really sure. “I have no idea what I’m doing here,” he admitted. “I came out here today for the first time. I don’t even know a ton of what’s going on. I’ve got so much to learn. I’m just hoping, honestly, for any kind of opportunity ... anything I can do to help the team out.”
Carpenter, who turned 27 on Monday, has spent time with the Dallas Cowboys and Tampa Bay Buccaneers since Dallas signed him as an undrafted free agent from Arizona State in 2009. He was recommended to the Lions by Kit Lathrop, who won a Grey Cup in 2000 with B. C. as the team’s defensive line coach and spent last season on the coaching staff of the Eskimos.
“Kit’s a good buddy of mine, and he lives in the ( Phoenix) area,” Carpenter said. “I told him I might be interested in playing in Canada. He told me, ‘ I’ll put in a call and see what I can do.’ ”
Understandably, Carpenter has no idea of the career paths followed by Lulay or quarterbacks coach Jarious Jackson, whose NFL experiences were much like his. All had impressive college resumés — Carpenter racked up 81 touchdown passes and 35 interceptions at Arizona State — and enough skill to get repeated NFL looks.
Carpenter’s decision to look north owes much to changes in the NFL collective bargaining agreement to remove the third quarterback designation. For most teams, having depth at another position is more useful than the ability to insert a third quarterback into a game at their discretion.
“I had and have opportunities to go to NFL camps,” Carpenter said. “But, for me, getting older in the NFL, my minimum salary ($ 615,000 US) being so high, and teams deciding to dress only two quarterbacks, I just figured, for the experience, for the chance to learn a new game, for the opportunity, somewhere down the road, to play, I’d try to come up here.
“Guys like Matt Hasselbeck, Matt Leinart, Luke McCown, Tyler Thigpen, Tavaris Jackson ... they’ve played, taken snaps and started in the NFL. Teams trust those guys a little bit more than someone like me, who’s only appeared in one NFL game.”
When the Lions’ mini- camp ends on Thursday, Carpenter will return to his home base in Westlake Village, Calif., to digest offensive co- ordinator Jacques Chapdelaine’s playbook and continue his off- season workouts with NFL and college players.
That should put him in a better position to compete when CFL training camps open in June — except there is no guarantee he’ll be in Kamloops.
The Lions are still auditioning players at free- agent camps throughout the U. S., and that includes quarterbacks. Indeed, those camps have culled players such as Lulay, DeMarco and Buck Pierce in the past. Who’s to say there’s not another one like them out there?
“You never stop looking to improve,” Benevides said. “We still have another four weekends of free- agent workouts. We still have ongoing discussions with certain people. The search never stops.
“Like I said today, there are guys out here ( mini- camp) who may not survive.”
Whether Carpenter has the tools to nail down a spot remains to be seen.