New Eskimos’ quarterback Jonathan Crompton. Pic courtesy of Esks.com

The Edmonton Eskimos will go into training camp next month with five quarterbacks, after signing former Tennessee Volunteers’ pivot Jonathan Crompton on Tuesday.

Crompton, six-foot-four and 225 pounds, was drafted by the San Diego Chargers in the fifth-round of the 2010 NFL draft. He went from the Chargers to the New England Patriots in 2011 and then to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. He was cut from the Washington Redskins in 2012.

At Tennessee, he became the school’s seventh all-time leading passer, making 348 of his 629 attempts for 4,187 yards and 36 touchdowns. He completed 58.3 per cent of his passes as a senior, amassing 2,800 yards and 27 touchdowns.

The 27-year-old will come into camp competing against Mike Reilly and Matt Nichols, who will go head-to-head for the No. 1 job. Veteran quarterback Kerry Joseph is in the mix as well, and will be joined by CFL rookie Jacory Harris, who signed with the team on Feb. 6.

Training camp opens on June 2.

The team released defensive back/special teamer Delroy Clarke, who’d been with the club since 2011 and added wide receiver Ismael Bamba and defensive lineman Gregory Alexandre. 

Clarke has 45 special teams tackles and two fumble recoveries in 59 career games since joining the Canadian Football League in 2008 with the Toronto Argonauts. 

Bamba, six-foot-one and 195 pounds, spent the 2012 season with the Saskatchewan Roughriders. He grabbed attention late last year when he had to catch a ride with the team’s equipment to a game in Vancouver because he didn’t have any ID on him when the team got to the airport to fly to play the Lions. Aside from that travel fiasco, Bamba was a sixth-round pick (39th overall) of the Riders in the 2012 CFL Canadian Draft and made one catch last year for 17 yards. He started his collegiate career at the University of North Dakota but transfered to Sherbrooke and played well in Canadian Interuniversity Sport. He had 50 receptions in his senior year for 543 yards and four touchdowns. he also returned 12 kicks for 310 yards and one touchdown. He ran back 18 punts for 208 yards and one touchdown. 

A University of Montreal product, the six-foot-two, 285-pound Alexandre went 35th overall in the 2011 CFL draft to the Argonauts. He’ll be 28 when training camp opens in June and has been a free agent since last season, when the Argos released him. At Montreal, he had 96 career tackles and set a school record with 19 quarterback sacks. He was the 2007 defensive rookie of the year and was a first-team CIS All-Canadian and a four-time First-Team All-Conference selection. 

The Eskimos’ training camp will open on June 2. 

The New York Giants are giants on social media, reflecting the personality of irascible, approachable Pat Hanlon, the team’s vice-president of communications. While many professional teams work hard at being as bland and inaccessible as possible, the Giants unabashedly use social media to promote and cheer for their team, engage their critics and reach out ...

The Edmonton Eskimos dealt the six-foot-three, 268-pound defensive lineman from St. Raymond, Que. to the Calgary Stampeders on Monday during the Canadian Football League draft, in exchange for Calgary’s fourth-round pick. Edmonton used it to take offensive lineman Taylor Servais from the University of Ottawa.

News of the trade had Legare overwhelmed with questions.

“Do I move right now? Do I move during the season? What’s going to happen?” he said. “I’ve got my girlfriend (in Edmonton), she’s working here. I just needed to turn that switch off and sit and relax.”

So he went to a movie. What’d he see?

Pain and Gain, starring Mark Wahlberg and a former Calgary Stampeder named Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson. He recommends it.

“When I woke up (Tuesday) I’m feeling good about what’s going on for me,” he said. “And now it’s just a new day, it’s a new part of my career and I’m pretty pumped about it.”

Legare was hampered by injuries last year, starting the season battling mononucleosis through training camp and missing the first four games of the season. He played four games and then hurt his knee against Calgary on Sept. 7, ending his season. On top of that, he had off-season shoulder surgery. The bumps, bruises and scalpel wounds of the past year clouded over a promising 2011 season that saw  him make 17 tackles and five quarterback sacks.

He came to Edmonton in 2010 in a trade with the Toronto Argonauts.

“When I was in Toronto and they traded for me here that was the beginning of my career. I didn’t have a lot of playing time in Toronto and I came here and they gave me a chance,” Legare said. “2011 was a pretty good year for me.I finally had the chance to show what I could do.

“If you take 2012 out of the equation it’s pretty good,” he said, laughing. “I leave and there’s no bad feeling about anything. It’s football, you’re going to be traded, that’s the nature of the game. There’s no hard feelings. This is a good organization and I’m going into a good one. I’m playing football at the end of the day, so it’s hard to be mad about anything.”

He’s looking forward to reuniting with Calgary defensive coordinator Rick Campbell, who was Edmonton’s special teams coordinator in 2011 when Legare was enjoying his best season as a pro. Once the sting of the trade wore off and he spoke with the coaches in Calgary, Legare said he began to see the positives in the move. In Edmonton, he’d be fighting for scraps at the team’s most loaded position. In Calgary, he sees opportunity.

“I feel good about it because I talked with Calgary and they want me there, they need a Canadian D-tackle,” he said. “Hopefully I’ll be good to go there and show them what I can do.”

He just has to heal up first.

“Uhhh, everything is 100 per cent,” he said of his health, before drawing an imaginary line down his right side, “if you take the shoulder out.

“I’d say I’m at 40, 45 per cent recovery. Things are going well, but the fact is that surgery needs a long-term rehab and I have to be patient and I hope that Calgary will be patient with me. They’ll give me the time to come back healthy and let me show what I can do.”

Eskimos release three; with new running back on his way?

The Eskimos released three players on Wednesday morning, parting ways with Canadian fullback Peter Thiel, import linebacker Kye Stewart and Canadian kick returner Steven Turner.

Stewart appeared in five games last year and had five special teams tackles. In the Eastern semifinal against Toronto he had two defensive tackles and two on special teams. Thiel joined the team on May 24, 2012, played in three games and had one special teams tackle, filling in for an injured Matthieu Bertrand. Turner was on the Eskimos’ practice roster briefly, signing on Oct. 15. The team’s season ended on Nov. 11.

The Salt Lake Tribune is reporting that University of Utah running back John White has signed with the Eskimos, as confirmed by White’s representative, Derrick Fox.

From the SLT:

The 5-foot-8 White was the only running back in Utah history to gain 1,000 yards in back-to-back seasons.

He set school records for career rushing yards per game (106.7) and career 100-yard games (14).

White also finished his career ranked sixth in career rushing yards (2,560), fourth all-time in career rushes (534) and tied for fourth in career rushing touchdowns (23).

White was an honorable mention All-Pac-12 in 2012 and second team selection in 2011.

The club took the Regina Rams product 10th overall, with the first pick in the second round of the 2013 CFL Canadian Draft on Monday morning.

Charles has signed an NFL deal with the Tennessee Titans, so the Eskimos will have to see how the six-foot-five, 324-pounder from Oshawa’s NFL option will play out before they can think about him joining the CFL ranks.

“We’re happy to add Charles to the Eskimo family,” Eskimos general manager Ed Hervey said through a news release.

“We chose the best player available to us, as was our plan going into this draft. We know we are going to have to wait a while. He is physical, tough and plays with an edge. He has the attitude we want to reinforce to our football team.”

Watch a video of Charles’ interview with Eskimos GM Ed Hervey from March’s CFL Draft Combine here.

Working on the TSN panel, Manitoba Bisons head coach Dobie raved about Charles’ potential.

“I have a lot of respect for this young man. He’s gone through a lot to get where he is,” he said. “He’s a load. He’ll require double teams as he matures into a player. He is emotional. He’s an emotional young man, he has a lot of pride.

“When he steps up and uses that in a positive way…he’s unstoppable. He’s a player, he comes to play the game. When he’s on…he’s going to be a huge impact player in the CFL.”

The Eskimos have five more picks in today’s draft, going sixth (24th overall) and eighth (26th overall) in the third round, fourth in the fourth-round (31st overall), seventh in the sixth-round (51st overall) and third (55th overall) in the brand-new seventh round.

The Hamilton Tiger-Cats took University of Calgary defensive lineman Linden Gaydosh with the first overall pick. Follow along on the Journal’s draft tracker for a complete listing of today’s selections.

More to come…

Just five days away from the 2013 Canadian Football League draft, the league has announced that it’s tacking on a seventh-round to the proceedings.

“The talent of football in Canada is the strongest it’s ever been,” Kevin McDonald, the CFL’s vice president of football operations said in a statement issued with the league’s press release. “And with this increase in the depth of Canadian talent, we wanted to ensure our teams had an increased opportunity to draft, train and coach Canadian players.”

The release added that the draft order for the seventh round is determined by waiver priority. The order will be: Hamilton, Winnipeg, Edmonton, Saskatchewan, Montreal, BC, Calgary, Toronto.

The Hamilton Tiger-Cats have the first overall pick this year. The Eskimos will pick 10th overall, with the first pick in the second round. Edmonton lost its first-round pick to the Montreal Alouettes (third overall) in September when the team traded for kicker Brody McKnight, who was subsequently traded to Saskatchewan on March 1 along with Edmonton’s sixth-round pick for a pair of fifth-round picks.

Check out the full draft order here along with the CFL Scouting Bureau’s final rankings of this year’s draft-eligible players.

With the added players to teams’ rosters through free agency and the draft, the league offered some clarity on roster size prior to the start of rookie camps opening on May 29.

League rules permit teams to bring 75 players to training camp plus players selected in the 2013 CFL Draft, two additional non-imports, players selected in a previous draft by the team that have never attended a professional training camp in Canada or elsewhere, any junior player who has been identified to the League Office (to a maximum of four per team), a Rookie non-import quarterback who is participating in training camp at the quarterback position and an underclassman non-import quarterback who is ineligible to sign a contract or play in a pre-season game.

A league source has confirmed that the Edmonton Eskimos held a mini-camp last week in Florida. Mike Reilly and Matt Nichols were there and so were other players, though none of that matters at this point. There isn’t a quote or a video clip to show from the camp, not even on the Eskimos’ website.

As you’ve read or will read about, the other seven teams in the Canadian Football League have opened or will open the doors on their mini-camps. The Hamilton Tiger-Cats and B.C. Lions held their camps last week; the Winnipeg Blue Bombers are on the field this week and the Toronto Argonauts and Montreal Alouettes are headed to Florida later this week to hold their respective camps. Calgary has a scaled down version of a camp on May 10 in Florida, with two quarterbacks and no veteran players.

The Saskatchewan Roughriders got the ball rolling in Florida early this month and had extensive coverage on their camp by the Regina Leader-Post’s Murray McCormick, not to mention on their own website. Seven teams had or will have media access. The Eskimos are the only ones who shut the media out.

These camps are short, but for any team and especially in Edmonton’s case this year, they are the beginnings of crucial story lines for the season that fans want to follow as soon as possible. This was our first chance to see how Mike Reilly and Matt Nichols stacked up against one another. Did Reilly’s play over the course of the camp back up the demeanour he’s shown since signing here in January? What about Nichols? Has he fully healed from his ankle dislocation in last year’s playoff loss? Is he on track? Did he out-play Reilly? How was the chemistry between both QBs and their receivers? Which receivers were there? Which defensive players were there?

As Murray McCormick reported when he was in Florida, the Riders had 68 players at their mini-camp. How many were at the Eskimos mini-camp? Can we assume that last week’s release of Ronnie Prude, Terriun Crump and Marcus Rivers stemmed from poor play in Florida, or outstanding play from some of their teammates?

We have no answers from the camp because even after the Eskimos ventured out on a solo mission, no one from the team will comment on it.

The CFL’s media policy includes activities that start with training camp and go forward into the regular season and playoffs, meaning that the Eskimos haven’t broken any rules. Still, they’re the only team in the league that didn’t offer availability to the media for their mini-camp, in a league that commissioner Mark Cohon stresses as fan-friendly and accessible. It’s worth noting that the league may be looking into an amendment on mini-camp accessibility requirements for the future.

When I tweeted the news about the mini-camp on Saturday night, one of the first responses I got back was from someone criticizing the team’s communications department. This isn’t an entire department’s fault. The day that Ed Hervey was hired as GM he said that he was going to do some things that the media didn’t like. I can tell you that this is one of them.

From a football standpoint, Hervey has had a great off-season. He’s gotten the players he’s wanted, he has two quarterbacks that ooze upside and he re-signed every free agent that he wanted. He did it all without going over the salary cap, which was a massive concern for the organization as the 2012 season wore on.

But moves like this? Trips across the continent to work your quarterbacks out without having to deal with quarterback controversy questions? I don’t see the point; especially when it all could have been done here. Unlike the Riders, the Eskimos have a facility. That field house at Commonwealth is only two-years old and don’t forget that the Eskimos contributed to the $96 million it cost to build it.

Instead, the media was shut out, the fans were shut out and thousands of dollars were spent for this community-owned team to have a private camp in Florida. I don’t know what your definition of fan-friendly is, but that doesn’t match mine.

The Eskimos released three players, in defensive back Ronnie Prude and a pair of receivers, in Terriun Crump and Marcus Rivers.

Prude played in five games last year for the Eskimos, starting in one. He had 12 tackles, one on special teams, a knockdown and one interception. This is his second release from the Eskimos. The team let him go on Oct. 11, but had re-signed him on Nov. 7, leading into their playoff game with the Toronto Argonauts.

Crump had spent the last few weeks of the season on the team’s practice roster, while Rivers’ stay in Edmonton never got off of the ground. He signed as a free agent on Feb. 13, marking his time with the team at just two months and five days.

Lokombo top-ranked prospect going into CFL draft 

University of Oregon linebacker Bo Lokombo is at the top of the CFL Scouting Bureau’s final edition of its Top-15 prospect list, heading into the May 6 CFL Canadian draft.

Lokombo is six-foot-three, 233-pounds and held on to his No. 1 spot from the winter rankings, which were released on Dec. 12.

A pair of Canadian Interuniversity Sport standouts are ranked behind Lokombo, in University of Regina defensive lineman Stefan Charles and University of Calgary defensive lineman Linden Gaydosh.

The Eskimos are currently out of the first round of this year’s draft, but have the first pick in the second round, at 10th overall. Check here for the full draft order.

The full list of 15 is below, courtesy of CFL.ca

1. (–) Bo Lokombo LB Oregon

2. (4) Stefan Charles DL Regina

3. (–) Linden Gaydosh DL Calgary

4. (2) Matt Sewell OL McMaster

5. (6) Andy Mulumba DL Eastern Michigan

6. (10) Nolan MacMillan OL Iowa

7. (5) Ben D’Aguilar DL McMaster

8.  (11) Brett Jones OL Regina

9. (–) Brent Urban DL Virginia

10. (14) Mike Edem LB Calgary

11. (NR) Seydou Junior Haidara WR Laval

12. (7) Corey Watman OL Eastern Michigan

13.  (8) Jesse Joseph DL UCONN

14. (NR ) Connor Williams DL Utah St.

15. (NR) Brander Craighead OL UTEP

NR – Not Ranked.

Mitchell couldn’t have said it any more concisely.

“I’m not going to Toronto,” he said to Sportsnet. “I’ve already made up my mind, I’m not going to Toronto.”

TSN spoke with Mitchell’s advisor, Guy Gillingham, who added that, “Khalif just wants a fresh start and wants to play his final season in the CFL.” He added that he was “1,000 per cent” sure Mitchell would not be in Toronto because of a desire to stay on the west coast.

Mitchell, 27, said that an herbal drink business he’s started in Seattle is the source of his desire to stay in the CFL’s West Division through 2013 — the final season of his contract.

“The reasons for not going to Toronto (is because) off the field, in this off-season right now, I started a business opportunity that I haven’t had and wanted for a long time,” Mitchell explained to Sportsnet.

“As professionals, we don’t make a lot of money in the CFL, but we get to play a great game for a little amount of time. And the relationships we can build playing this game is what I’ve actually taken advantage of and I actually have an opportunity now where we have a nice herbal drink going on and I don’t want to lose the opportunity and I want to see it grow.

“I’m a natural athlete; I don’t take no supplements and to be a part of something that’s growing, a part of not taking stimulants, any growth in that development or in that avenue I’m for it.”

TSN noted that Mitchell would like to see this season resolved in one of the three following ways:

- To have his trade with the Argos reversed and to be released by B.C.

- To be traded to Calgary.

- To be traded to Edmonton.

TSN added that Mitchell has his eyes back on a return to the NFL at the end of the  season, after he spurned an offer from the Miami Dolphins last year to re-sign with the Lions.

All three proposed CFL scenarios seem unlikely, but for Eskimos fans, the third is the most absurd. Mitchell’s troubles in the 2012 season began against the Eskimos, back in Week 4 when he violently hyper-extended the arm of Eskimos’ offensive lineman Simeon Rottier. The play left Rottier’s teammates screaming foul (to put it lightly) and had the league suspending him for two games.

When the two teams met again during Week 13 in Edmonton, Mitchell made throat slashing gestures at Rottier and the Eskimos’ offensive line and was fined in the days following the game. He garnered more serious negative attention in October last year when he posted a derogatory term against Chinese people on his Twitter account. As a result, the Lions decided to sit Mitchell before the team played — you guessed it — the Eskimos on Oct. 19.

Even if Eskimos general manager Ed Hervey were to roll the dice on Mitchell, plunking him down into the Eskimos’ locker room would likely not sit well with the team’s offensive line. There’s a fierce rivalry in those trenches that goes back two seasons, to when then Lions’ defensive tackle Aaron Hunt accused the Eskimos’ o-line of being dirty.

Also keep in mind that the Eskimos have committed to their defensive line already, in signing defensive end Odell Willis to join Marcus Howard, Ted Laurent and Don Oramasionwu, to name a few.

If possible, Calgary could be the best option on Mitchell’s strange list. When he was traded, he told the Vancouver Province’s Lowell Ullrich that the Stamps had interest in him before B.C. dealt him to Toronto. But again, Calgary could only become an option if he were traded there by Toronto or outright released by the Argos.

Despite all of the drama, Mitchell’s skill set could buy him another chance in the CFL as a one-year rental. When Mitchell is focused on the game, he’s a force. The problem is, those days seem like a long time ago now.

The team will make the signing official on Tuesday, after it picked up Rockhill’s rights in a five-player trade with the Hamilton Tiger-Cats back on Feb. 5. Rockhill, 22, was drafted 13th overall by Hamilton in 2012, but the six-foot-six, 284-pound offensive lineman chose to weigh NFL options and eventually went  back to the University of Calgary.

“We were very high on him last year in the draft and we liked his size,” Eskimos general manager Ed Hervey said of Rockhill when he’d traded for him. “We want to get bigger on the offensive line and become more physical on the offensive front.”