Montgomery looks to get career back on track with Eskimos
It’s not every day a third-round NFL draft pick makes his way to the CFL.
So you can imagine how quickly Sam Montgomery’s name jumped out from the list of 54 players the Edmonton Eskimos brought into last week’s mini camp in Florida.
And you can expect to hear plenty more of it once training camp kicks off on May 29.
An All-American out of LSU, the six-foot-three, 260-pound native of Greenwood, S.C., was taken 95th overall by the Houston Texans in 2013.
His rookie year was cut short, however, when he and former Eskimos defensive end Willie Jefferson were part of a trio of Texans rookies released by the club for violating team rules during a road game against the Kansas City Chiefs on Oct. 21.
While the violation officially went unspecified, it is widely held to have involved marijuana. Though, at the time, Montgomery claimed he had simply walked into the room where a cigar was being smoked.
“Well, you know, business is business,” Montgomery told the Edmonton Sun in Florida. “All I can say is of my player production, every time that I came out I gave it my all. And if I get another opportunity, then I’ll take it.”
With Jefferson currently getting a shot with the Washington Redskins following two seasons in Edmonton that culminated in the 2015 Grey Cup, it may look like a simple changing of the guard.
But the interest from the Eskimos dates back well beyond Montgomery’s release from the Texans.
“During the process of me training and coming out on our Pro Day at LSU, I actually met Paul (Jones),” Montgomery said of the longtime Eskimos player-personnel director. “He was watching us and told me at the beginning, ‘ You always have a place here.’
“That was a relationship that grew over time.”
Montgomery spent the 2014 season on the Cincinnati Bengals’ practice squad and was out of football last year, until being signed by the Eskimos.
He doesn’t see coming up north as any sort of consolation effort, but rather a chance to get his career back on track.
“The CFL became an option Day 1, it was just something where I had a better opportunity on the line and I just took the opportunity at the time,” Montgomery said. “I see the organization and the city are very family orientated.
“The game’s a little bit faster, the field’s a little bit bigger, but the heart and the intent is still going to stay the same.”
And he began to take those first steps during the three-day stint with the team down in Vero Beach, Fla., last week.
“In mini-camp, what you want to do is loosen up and get everybody up to speed of what it’s going to be like in the real fire,” Montgomery said.
“Coach already said it’s just letting you get a taste of what’s going to be coming down the line.”
While Montgomery had been criticized for going into his rookie mini-camp with Houston out of shape, Eskimos GM Ed Hervey shared no similar concerns this time around.
“Sam definitely has a shot,” he said.
“He’s someone that we’ve been trying to get over the last few years and has shown well. He’s done everything we’ve asked him to do over the off-season to get himself in the kind of shape that we feel he needs to be in to play.”