October 8, 2017

Preview: Eskimos at Alouettes

The Eskimos have concentrated on the finer details during the past week in an attempt to stop a six-game losing streak that has dropped the club all the way to fourth place in the West Division.

Despite the recent losing efforts, one player who seems to be doing all the little things right is second-year slotback Brandon Zylstra, who became the second Eskimos player selected as a CFL player of the month this season after catching 31 passes for 532 yards and two touchdowns over four games in September.

“His route-running has improved tremendously (this year) and his attention to details,” said fellow Eskimos receiver Cory Watson. “He’s one of the most detailed guys we have on our team. He’s always in the right position and, when he gets his hands on the ball, he’s never going down on the first tackle and that really creates big plays for us.”

Zylstra, 24, ranks third in the league with 1,134 receiving yards on 75 catches and leads all CFL receivers with seven games of 100 or more yards. He also won a player of the week award for his season-high 187-yard performance on 10 catches in the Labour Day rematch game at The Brick Field at Commonwealth Stadium in early September.

But the six-foot-three, 220-pound slotback would gladly pass up all of the statistics and accolades if it meant the Eskimos, 7-6, could finally win again when they meet the struggling Alouettes, 3-11, at Montreal’s Percival Molson Memorial Stadium at noon MDT Monday.

“I’m here to win games,” he said.

So who is this respectful young man from Spicer, Minn., a town so small (around 1,300 people) that it shared a high school with a similar-sized neighbouring town?

“Just a motivated, determined individual who won’t take no for an answer,” Zylstra said. “I was just with some friends who flew up here the other day, and somebody asked: ‘What’s one word to describe Brandon?’ And they said: ‘Competitive.’

“That’s something I’ve been all my life. I’ve always wanted to be the best at everything I do.”

Zylstra did a lot of different things while growing up in a family of four brothers, playing football, basketball, baseball and participating in the high jump and long jump events in athletics. He also competed several times nationally in team water skiing. With a career high leap of six feet, 11 inches, he was the No. 3-ranked high jumper going into the NCAA Division III nationals one year.

“All of us brothers are super close,” he said. “Mainly me and the 20-year-old (Shane), he’s in college in Minnesota, but we’re basically twins – four-year-apart twins is what we always say. We look alike, we have the same build and everything and we’re both competitive as hell.

“My mom actually did daycare growing up, so all of us brothers were always together and we always had friends over, too, because my mom was there to help us and all of our daycare friends. We were always together, always doing something, whether it was exploring in my back woods, playing football, playing on the trampoline, water skiing, any of that kind of stuff. We always did everything together.”

Older brother Justin, who recently became a father, was a six-foot-six defensive end who played college football for about 1-1/2 years before he quit.

“He wasn’t as big into sports as the rest of us,” Zylstra said.

The other three brothers, including the youngest – Jaden, at age 14 – are all receivers, although Brandon was initially a linebacker on defence until Minnesota Vikings star receiver Randy Moss inspired him to switch to offence.

“His dominance of the game,” Zylstra explained. “He’s the one person who could never be stopped no matter what you try to do. I just loved his competitive nature and I just wanted to emulate that.

“I watched how he played the game, I watched the moves he made, how loud the crowd would get when he touched the ball and every time he stepped on the field. I was just like, ‘OK, I want to do that.’ ”

Zylstra has dreamt about playing professional football since “a super-young age.” A few years ago, he was looking through a bin of keepsakes his parents collected since pre-school and found a lot of pictures he had drawn of himself wearing a Vikings jersey.

“It was always No. 84, too,” he said, referring to Moss’s number.

Because he played at such a small high school in rural Minnesota, he received only three scholarship offers from Division II colleges and a couple from Division III.

He said he “got passed up by a lot of people” because he wasn’t considered fast enough or had played at a high enough competition level.

“Growing up, because I always hated the cold weather, I always told my mom that I was going down to Florida for school because that’s where my cousins went. When it got to that time, I didn’t even think about walking on anywhere. That just wasn’t a thought for me.”

Zylstra said he didn’t understand the college recruiting process and it was easy to just pick one of the schools that was relatively close to home. Unfortunately, the Division II school he selected in South Dakota “was not really what I thought it would be,” so he transferred to Concordia College, a Division III school in Moorhead, Minn., where his brother, Justin, had played.

“That’s why I transferred there just ‘cause I knew all the coaching staff, I had a place to stay right away (with friends from high school), it was an easy adjustment to the city,” he said. “I didn’t really look anywhere else.”

For someone who doesn’t like the cold, Zylstra moved the wrong way when he tried out with the Eskimos last season.

“As soon as the season’s done the last two years, I’ve moved down to Arizona and San Diego,” he said. “So I’m always going somewhere warm to go train. I grew up in the cold; I’ve had enough of it.”

While he’s making a name for himself with his ability to gain extra yards after the catch (YAC) – even if it means dragging a few opponents on his back along the way – Zylstra has caught 11 passes of more than 20 yards, including plays of 33, 41, 67, 46 and 39 during the last five games (plus a 76-yard bomb to set up the game-winning field goal in the season opener back in June).

He also leapt high in the air to grab a long pass down the sidelines against the Winnipeg Blue Bombers on Sept. 30.

“That was honestly something that was routine for me in high school,” he said. “I made catches like that all the time. I really don’t even think twice about that. That’s just another catch. See ball, get ball. That’s what Duke (Williams, an Eskimos rookie receiver) always says.”

Because he was mostly used as a possession receiver when he finally got a chance to play the last six games with the Eskimos in 2016, Zylstra didn’t get many opportunities to make the spectacular grabs he has this year, but he did average 40 YAC a game (almost half his overall total).

He has 330 YAC this year, but his average is down to 30 over 11 games this season.

“I don’t know if it was from me kind of being a sleeper last year and people were covering D-Walk (Derel Walker) and AD (Adarius Bowman) a lot more and they just kind of forgot about me so I was able slip on some,” he said. “They’re definitely on me quick this year. I just don’t like to go down easy. I make sure they know that, too.”

Zylstra has always set a goal of trying to lead his league in YAC since he started playing in college, but it probably won’t happen this season with Winnipeg running back Andrew Harris already at 639 yards.

In the wake of another injury to running back Travon Van, the Eskimos acquired CFL veteran C.J. Gable from the Hamilton Tiger-Cats in exchange for two players off their private negotiation list last week.

“He proved last weekend what he’s capable of if you give him some carries,” Esks head coach Jason Maas said about Gable, who rushed for 157 yards and two touchdowns on a season-high 18 carries against the Toronto Argonauts.

“He’s a quality back who can run, pass-protect, catch the ball out of the backfield. He fits very well into how we operate our offence.”

The 29-year-old Gable, who has 466 rushing yards and 5 TDs plus 25 catches for 186 yards during nine games this season, played 51 games over five seasons with the Ticats.

Although Mike Reilly gave up an interception-return touchdown late in the last game to kill any chance of a comeback against the Bombers, Maas said his quarterback “was pretty damn good” for the rest of the game.

Maas said Reilly “graded out very high and did a lot of the great things we expect out of our quarterbacks. If he continues to progress like that for the rest of the season and get better at getting through the progressions and getting better with his eyes moving with his feet, we’ll be a far more potent offence.

“The last three games, he’s done more and more of what we wanted him to do.”

Reilly is the other Eskimos player to have been chosen as a CFL player of the month this year (in July).

SHORT YARDAGE: Besides Gable, the Eskimos also added Jacob Ruby as a backup on the offensive line and recently signed John Delahunt as a backup fullback/special teams player. Also coming off the roster are linebacker Blair Smith and left guard Danny Groulx, who along with Van have been placed on the six-game injured list … O-lineman David Beard makes his fourth start, this time at left guard … Because of the national/international ratio issues, 2017 draft pick Christophe Mulumba-Tshimanga is listed as the starting middle linebacker … The starting defensive ends are Odell Willis and Phillip Hunt, with John Chick listed as a backup this week.