Ekakitie hopes to prove himself in Montreal
Defensive tackle thinks getting cut from Bombers more about numbers than his abilities
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Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 20/06/2018 (2108 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.
MONTREAL — Two weeks ago, Faith Ekakitie was certified as a bust.
The 25-year-old defensive tackle landed in Montreal last week shortly after being cut by the Winnipeg Blue Bombers, where he lasted only 13 months after being selected first overall in the 2017 CFL draft.
Ekakitie, who signed a one-year deal with the Alouettes, admitted his exit from Winnipeg was difficult to accept at first. The Als host the Blue Bombers tonight and Ekakitie, who was placed on the 46-man roster on Thursday, could be on the field against his old team.
“I don’t know if ‘devastating’ is the right word,” Ekakitie said following a walk-through on a practice field in the shadow of Olympic Stadium Thursday afternoon. “More so, I felt like I let myself down but it’s not like the world stopped spinning all of a sudden. I’m not naive… So I saw it, not necessarily saw it coming, but I knew something was going on. I just didn’t know exactly what it was.”
What did he think went wrong?
“I don’t think it had anything to do with my physical ability or how I was playing or what kind of shape I was in,” said Ekakitie, who cut 30 pounds before training camp when he realized his weight had crept up to 322 pounds.
“I think, honestly, it boiled down to salary-cap issues, (Canadian-American roster) ratio, them needing guys to be extremely productive for them now. And if you ask them, they’ll tell you that they didn’t think I was a player who was going to be able to do that.
“That’s fine. Just because you get drafted somewhere doesn’t mean it’s the best fit for you, which I feel happens all too often.”
Ekakitie dismissed the suggestion he was doomed by the high expectations placed on any No. 1 overall pick.
“Guys that are in this business understand the way the CFL draft works, and how much of a crapshoot it is, almost,” Ekakitie said. “So you understand when you draft someone, most of the time you’re not drafting him and expecting him to come in right away and start for you. If they are coming in and starting for you, you probably don’t have a very good team…
“A guy like (Winnipeg safety) Taylor Loffler. I don’t know where they drafted him, but someone gets hurt and he goes in and plays really well for them. That is very rare… most guys that get drafted don’t produce in their first couple of years.”
Loffler, a two-time CFL all-star, has clearly outplayed his draft position after being selected in the third round in 2016. Ekakitie has not, but he’s convinced he can live up to the promise he showed at the University of Iowa.
Ekakitie hopes to be able to develop his game steadily in Montreal, a franchise in the midst of a rebuild and short on high-end Canadian talent.
“The first pick in the CFL draft cannot, and should not, hold the same weight as the first pick in the NFL draft,” Ekakitie said.
“In the NFL, you can get drafted and they’ve got rookie contracts in place, and their contracts are for four or five years. When you draft someone, you plan on spending three or four or five years developing you, whereas the CFL, you get drafted and as a rookie you can sign a one-year deal. I signed a three-year deal — two-year deal with a one-year option.
“The CFL’s a very win-now league. We have a whole bunch of guys on one-year contracts. It really (doesn’t) promote continuity within any program, let alone the league itself.”
Winnipeg head coach Mike O’Shea admitted Ekakitie’s fate was tied to numbers.
“I don’t know if we soured on him,” O’Shea said. “There’s only so many guys on the roster, you know, we truly believed he was going to continue to develop and get better, but we had only so many guys we could play. We had a guy, Jake Thomas, coming back who, at this point in time, was a better player, a better fit… Those are tough decisions, they’re always second-guessed. From inside our organization, if we believe we’re making good decisions and for the right reasons, they’re good decisions in time.”
mike.sawatzky@freepress.mb.caTwitter: @sawa14
Mike Sawatzky
Reporter
Mike has been working on the Free Press sports desk since 2003.