Blue Bombers training camp sees more additions, subtractions, injuries

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 04/06/2015 (3995 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Additions, subtractions and injuries continue to be storylines at the Winnipeg Blue Bombers training camp.

Today, the Bombers added defensive back Vernon Kearney, a 26-year-old native of Sarasota, Fla., who has been with Oakland, Cleveland and Buffalo over the past two NFL seasons.

Monday, the team brought in 24-year-old Patrick Hall, a DB who played at USC.

Tuesday, they released DB Winston Wright.

It may seem like a lot of transaction action after training camp has already started but head coach Mike O’Shea said today there is method to this activity.

“(They’re) guys that the scouting department has tagged that finally have exhausted their other opportunities and now they’re willing to sign,” O’Shea said after today’s morning sessions on the field next to the soccer complex at the University of Manitoba. “It’s a combination of needing some depth and also with guys going down, you’re now in a position where you’re overloading the guys who are here, which eventually they get hurt, too, or their production goes down and you can’t get a true evaluation of what they can do.

“They’re always behind the eight-ball in terms of their fatigue so I don’t want to wear Chris Randle and Demond Washington out.”

O’Shea said, for instance, that neither Hall nor Kearney are just camp fodder.

“Guys we bring in certainly aren’t just camp legs,” the coach said. “These guys have been stalked by our scouting department for quite some time.

“Last year was different, trying to flip the negotiation list and develop the network they want to develop. Now that’s set in place so when we bring a guy in, it’s because they have something about them that we really like and they can compete.

“We’re not just in the business of bringing in camp legs and bodies.”

One of the newcomer defensive backs that has caught O’Shea’s eye still — he did so at the Florida mini-camp — is Johnny Adams.

“He’s still a rep thief, still out there getting in as much as he can,” O’Shea said, grinning. “Now we’re aware of that thievery. He’s in a battle. Obviously both himself and Shaquille Richardson at the corner, they have made plays on a consistent basis and so that consistency and the consistency of effort and execution has probably made us notice them more. We’ll see how it plays out.”

O’Shea said he really needs to see hopefuls like Richardson and Adams in the pre-season games. But so far, he loves that Adams is hard to hold back at practice.

“I love that,” he said. “You’re here to make an impression and you have a short time to do it in. So you need to make plays and you need to do it often. How do you do that? You do it by increasing your reps and taking more calculated risks.

“As you’re watching flim and you see the one-on-ones go and you see 10 one-on-ones and he shows up again and again and you realize if you’ve got 15 or 16 DBs and he’s taking four reps in the first 10, there’s other guys just standing around and not paying attention as he jumps in there.

“We’ve slowed it down a little for him because we want to see other people, too.”

Today, rookie receiver Addison Richards wasn’t able to participate in practice again, and the same for OL Stanley Bryant. During practice, OL Patrick Neufeld had to be helped off.

Today, the Bombers also released receiver Greg Childs, who suffered a suspected torn achilles tendon on Wednesday.

tim.campbell@freepress.mb.ca