August 23, 2018

Mitchell Wouldn’t Trade Eskimos Experience ‘For The World’

If patience is a virtue, then Bryant Mitchell must be a really good man.

Mitchell, who has played only 12 games during four CFL seasons with the Eskimos, celebrated his 26th birthday last week with a career-high 128 yards on seven catches against the Montreal Alouettes.

At one point, he raced across almost the entire width of the field, coming out of nowhere to make an incredible touchdown catch on a ball quarterback Mike Reilly basically threw sky-high to avoid a sack.

“Whenever you get your opportunity, and you’re able to make the most of it, it’s definitely an experience,” said Mitchell, who had previously served as a backup for three games this season.

Five days later, Eskimos visit the Hamilton Tiger-Cats (game time is 5:30 p.m. Thursday at Tim Hortons Field). Veteran receiver Vidal Hazelton, who was injured in the season-opener at Winnipeg, is ready to play again and is listed as a starting slotback on the depth chart instead of Mitchell this week.

Mitchell, a speedy six-foot-two, 198-pound receiver, has been trying to crack the Eskimos lineup since he first attended Edmonton’s training camp in 2015.

That year, fellow wide receiver Derel Walker waited six games before getting a chance to play. Walker caught 10 passes for 125 yards in his CFL debut and followed it up with an even better performance – 14 catches for 183 yards in his next game – on the way to winning the CFL’s Most Outstanding Rookie award with 89 receptions for 1,110 yards and six touchdowns in only 12 games.

In 2016, Brandon Zylstra sat out the first 12 games before getting on the field. He didn’t get off to as impressive a start as Walker, but he caught nine passes for 186 yards and two touchdowns in the final game of the regular season and went on to lead the entire league with 1,687 receiving yards on 100 catches along with five TDs in 2017.

Mitchell played his first CFL game in the regular-season finale in ‘16, making five catches for 69 yards.

In 2017, another talented young receiver, D’haquille ‘Duke’ Williams, earned a starting job right out of training camp. Williams caught four passes for 110 yards and a touchdown in the season opener and had three 100-yard outings in July/August before sitting out three games at the end of the year because Walker had rejoined the team after an unsuccessful NFL tryout and Hazelton and Adarius Bowman had both recovered from injuries.

Because of the team’s excessive injuries in all areas last year, including receiver, Mitchell had the opportunity to play seven games, catching 32 passes for 482 yards and three touchdowns (he also had back-to-back 100-yard outings) before the numbers game with the roster also caught up to him.

Four years after he arrived in Edmonton, Mitchell is still waiting for his chance to play regularly. The Eskimos are once again loaded with talented international receivers (Walker, Williams, Hazelton and Kenny Stafford) and one of the team’s hardest-working players is still a spectator more often than not. It didn’t help his cause to miss training camp this year because of a hamstring injury.

“I’m one of those guys who tries to go 150 per cent at everything I do, so injuries happen when your body is getting worn down,” he said.

Despite his lack of playing time over the years, Mitchell said he wouldn’t change anything if he could do it all over again.

“Not at all. Not one thing,” he said. “This has been a great experience for me. I love this place. I love the people here. I love the fans. I love the city.

“I’ve got to learn a lot, been able to experience a lot – the nuances of the game, understanding of the game, routes. The receivers around me have only elevated my game.

“For me to be able to experience this, experience the guys that I’ve met, Brandon Zylstra has become one of my best friends, my brother you could say. Guys like Derel Walker, who I’ve been with since ’15. Just being able to have friendships and build bonds like that, I wouldn’t trade it for the world.”

Another recent highlight for Mitchell was meeting “a young man who had a high anxiety disorder” at one of the Eskimos youth football camps this year.

“(Eskimos running back) Shaq Cooper and I were able to talk to the kid and calm him down,” he said. “We let him know that ‘Once an Eskimo, Always an Eskimo.’ Whenever he’s here, he’s one of us. Just to see the smile on his face and just to see him light up, that’s been a blessing to me.”

Mitchell said he’s had to learn patience because he has three sons – seven-year-old King and three-year-old twins Kaleb and Kameron – but he’s really been patient with his football career for a long time.

“I had some mishaps coming into college, so I had to learn to be patient then,” he said. “Being patient isn’t the hardest thing in the world. Obviously, we want things when we want them, but you learn that things become better when you’re patient, and you let them come.”

Mitchell’s initial problems with his first California junior college started because he didn’t use the National Student Clearinghouse, which is mandatory to verify potential U.S. college students’ high school diplomas and college eligibility. He “didn’t get his grades together” right away and had to sit out a year.

Believing his first junior college was disorganized, he transferred to Southwestern College in Chula Vista, Calif., where he had to sit out another year of eligibility before finally playing a season.

He thought he had an opportunity to transfer to the University of California, Berkeley, for his final two college seasons, but “the issues that I had when I came into college held me back from going to Berkeley.”

Mitchell ended up at Northwestern State University in Natchitoches, La., “which I thank God for. I love my alumni,” he said. Because he arrived late to Northwestern State, he was behind the other players in learning the offence and then had to wait his turn to play as a newcomer. During his senior year, he played 12 games but was limited after tearing the labrum in his right shoulder.

“Lessons I’ve learned,” he said. “Learning how to be patient has become a great lesson for me.”

Mitchell was impressive last week, running for a game-high 73 yards after the catch (YAC), making a leaping grab for 23 yards and, of course, there was his sensational touchdown grab just before halftime. He was also inches away from a potential 58-yard pass-and-run TD in the third quarter.

“It was good to have him back on the field,” Reilly said. “I under-threw him by like two feet on a corner route in the third quarter. Chip (Montreal linebacker Chip Cox) made a great play. I think he was just running and he swung his arm at the right moment, and it popped the ball before it could get to Bryant.”

Mitchell shrugged off any compliments about his performance, quoting one of his favourite players, former Los Angeles Lakers basketball star Kobe Bryant, after the game – “There’s nothing to smile about. The job’s not done.”

“We’re trying to win a Grey Cup,” he said. “That’s the focus.”

Mitchell, who grew up in San Diego with his mother, Sharmaun, and four siblings, is proud of his sons – seven-year-old Amaur’e, whom he nicknamed “King,” and three-year-old twins Kaleb and Kameron – from two different relationships. King lives in San Diego while the twins are in Houston, where Mitchell recently moved.

“They’re my world,” he said. “My father (Steven) passed away when I was young – I think I was three – so that’s big time for me to be able to be a father and be in their lives.

“Being at home with them is very important to me, but sacrifices have to be made. I’m able to support them in this way.”

Mitchell travels back-and-forth between the two U.S. cities during the off-season to stay as involved as possible in all of his sons’ lives after having multiple father figures growing up – coaches and various family members – and now an adult one in Derricus Purdy.

“He’s one of the brothers from my church in Houston,” Mitchell said about Purdy. “He’s definitely my mentor in life right now.”

Mitchell has also been inspired by the Batman comic character.

“It’s never about Batman or Bruce Wayne,” he said. “It’s about his desire to save his city and save his people.

“For me, I feel like God has blessed me to be in a position to help people by my life and the things I’m able to accomplish and show and give him glory. I look at it in the same sense.”

Lineup changes

Running back C.J. Gable comes off the one-game injured list to play in Hamilton for the first time since the Tiger-Cats traded the 30-year-old veteran to the Eskimos on Oct. 2, 2017.

Gable, who played 51 games with the Ti-Cats over five seasons (2013-17), is currently third in the CFL with 532 rushing yards on 104 carries.

Rookie Shaq Cooper, who rushed for 102 yards in his CFL debut last week against Montreal, returns to the practice roster.

The Eskimos only other lineup change sees national wide receiver Sam Giguere return to the club to replace national fullback Alex Dupuis, who suffered a torn left bicep against the Alouettes, on special teams. Dupuis will miss the remainder of the season.

National linebacker Doug Parrish was also released from the practice roster.

Did you know?

That quarterback Mike Reilly didn’t miss a day of practice this week, even though his wife, Emily, had a scheduled C-section on Monday morning. Reilly’s second daughter, Cadence Isla Reilly, weighed seven pounds and 10 ounces when she was born at 9:52 a.m.

The Eskimos moved Monday’s practice from morning to afternoon so Reilly could be at the hospital with his wife for the birth and still get to practice (Edmonton had only two practices this week instead of the usual three sessions). But the re-scheduling practice also helped all of the Eskimos players “get rested up for the week,” according to head coach Jason Maas, whose club will be playing its second game within six days on Thursday.

Reilly has loved the name Cadence since a conversation he had with BC Lions quarterback and close friend Travis Lulay a while ago – “Obviously, it’s a great name, and it’s got football connotations, too,” he said.

Cadence refers to the words or numbers a quarterback uses to set the offence prior to the snap of the ball.

Coincidentally, Emily had already picked out that name without having any knowledge of Mike’s previous conversation with Lulay.

“And it has an Irish background to it, as well, so a perfect fit,” Reilly said.

Reilly’s other daughter, Brooklyn, was also born in Edmonton in November 2016.

Ticats struggle off bye weeks

The Eskimos will be looking to even the score with the Tiger-Cats after losing their home opener 38-21 to Hamilton on June 22.

While Edmonton will be playing on five days rest for the first time this year (the Esks will also have short turnarounds on Sept. 8 against the Calgary Stampeders and Oct. 13 against the Ottawa RedBlacks), Hamilton (3-5) is coming off a bye week. Historically, bye weeks haven’t been kind to the Tiger-Cats, who are 1-6 after a bye week since 2015 and 3-9 (.250 winning percentage) since 2011.

In comparison, the rest of the CFL’s teams have a combined record of 61-46 (.570) after bye weeks since 2011.

Short yardage

The Eskimos 536 yards of net offence last week against the Alouettes was their highest total in almost four years (since getting 550 yards against the BC Lions on Nov. 1, 2014) … The Eskimos have a 3-1 record in Thursday games this season … Reilly has thrown or run for a touchdown in his last 38 regular-season starts (66 passes, 29 rushing TDs) … He has also thrown at least one touchdown pass (19 overall) in the last nine regular-season game while at least one Eskimos receiver has had a 100-yard performance in each of the last nine games.