Here’s a quick Shaq fact: Shaq Evans’ route to the Saskatchewan Roughriders began at an open tryout.
In the spring of 2017, the future CFL All-Star receiver was foremost among the attendees at a Roughriders camp in California.
“I remember that he didn’t want to run a 40-yard dash for me,” Roughriders Vice-President of Football Operations and General Manager Jeremy O’Day said with a chuckle in advance of this weekend’s open tryouts in Texas. “He just wanted to do the one-on-ones.
“I had asked Shaq to come to the camp. When he showed up, there were probably 125 people and it was very hot. It took forever to register everyone.
“I convinced him to stay. I told him, ‘It may take me an hour or two to get through all these registrations. Why don’t you go grab breakfast and come back?’
“He came back and he actually brought his quarterback (from college) to throw to him. That was great for me, because it can really mess up a free-agent camp if you don’t have a good quarterback.”
Evans had played at UCLA from 2010 to 2013 before being drafted by the New York Jets in 2014.
By the time he attended the Roughriders’ open tryout, his resume included NFL stints with the Jets, Jacksonville Jaguars, New England Patriots and Dallas Cowboys.
“At the end of the one-on-ones, I kind of pulled him to the side, because he was just dominating everyone,” recalled O’Day, who at the time was the Roughriders Assistant Vice-President of Football Operations and Administration. “He was a fourth-round draft pick in the NFL, so I just asked him, ‘What are you doing out here?’ He said, ‘Well, I’m here for an opportunity.’
“I said to him, ‘I’m just going to be honest with you: You’re obviously better than anyone else out here and we like you. We’ve watched you and we know you’re a good player. But when I go back and tell our General Manager about you, he’s going to ask how fast you ran the 40 and I’m going to tell him you didn’t want to run it.’
“He said, ‘Do you want me to run it?’ I said, ‘Yeah.’ So he went over to the sideline and ran the 40 in 4.39 seconds.”
The clocking was as scorching as the temperature.
“He was a 4.40 coming out of the (NFL) Combine,” O’Day noted. “So, three or four years out of the Combine, he’s just as fast as he was at the Combine.”
Evans’ four-year stay in Saskatchewan was highlighted by a 72-catch, 1,334-yard season in 2019, when he was named a CFL All-Star.
That select squad also included then-Roughriders linebacker Derrick Moncrief — another open-tryout find.
That was also the point of entry, CFL-wise, for linebacker Samuel Eguavoen, who wowed everyone at an open tryout in Dallas.
After playing for the Roughriders from 2016 to 2018, he began an NFL journey that continues to this day. He played for the Miami Dolphins from 2019 to 2022 before signing with the Jets last year.
The current Roughriders roster includes running back Frankie Hickson, who impressed the team’s staff two years ago at an open tryout in Atlanta. He went on to earn Roughriders rookie-of-the-year honours in 2022.
“Sometimes,” O’Day said, “you find a diamond in the rough.”
That is the Roughriders’ objective as they prepare to play host to open tryouts in Dallas (on Saturday), Houston (Sunday), Tampa (April 13), Fort Lauderdale (April 14) and Atlanta (May 4).
In some cases, members of the Roughriders football-operations staff request that certain players attend for evaluation purposes. But there are also players who show up right out of the blue.
Each attendee is asked to pre-register online and provide, among other details, a summary of his football background.
To begin each tryout session, individual testing is conducted in the 40-yard dash, broad jump, short shuttle and three-cone drill.
The players break off into position-specific drills, which are followed by a one-on-one competition period.
The number of participants can vary from camp to camp.
“I always say that I hope for quality, not quantity,” O’Day said.
“I’ve been at some camps where there are 150 players and that makes it really tough to evaluate everyone.
“The best numbers are probably 40 to 50. It just depends on where you are. In Atlanta, we usually get over 100 guys every single year.”
At this point of the off-season, the open tryouts are part of a fine-tuning process. After going through the free-agency period and immersing themselves in the usual off-season recruiting, O’Day and the Assistant GMs — Paul Jones and Kyle Carson — view the open tryouts as one more opportunity to round out the training camp roster and, ideally, find some impact players.
For more information, visit RIDERVILLE — OPEN TRYOUTS
