June 8, 2016

Early Returns: Als GM likes what he sees from Adams

MontrealAlouettes.com

MONTREAL — Don’t expect any buyer’s remorse from Jim Popp.

The Alouettes general manager paid a hefty price to acquire promising young pivot Vernon Adams, giving up a first round pick to the BC Lions last month. But if early returns are any indication, Popp only feels validated by his gamble.

“Huge upside, huge upside,” Popp said of Adams. “He’s a great person, he’s exciting to be around, he’s got a great personality, the players all like him.”

First round picks are valuable commodities in the CFL and the Als’ head coach and GM knows that trading one isn’t without its risks. Perhaps the only thing more valuable is a capable starting quarterback, something Popp appears to believe he may have for a long time in Adams.

“You can tell he’s a great leader and he just walked right in the door,” said Popp. “He’s very personal, he comes right up to you and thanks you for his opportunity. You can tell every day he’s excited.

“He pays attention, mimics the starting quarterback, whoever’s taking the reps at quarterback every play,” he added.

“Doing our research, talking to the coordinators after we did the trade, learning about him – all said, if you don’t think he knows everything, he knows it better than you think he does, especially when he gets in the game.”

 

So far Adams has no professional experience under his belt, and whether he plays Wednesday night when the Als suit up for their first pre-season game in Winnipeg against the Blue Bombers Popp wouldn’t divulge.

Kevin Glenn was named the Als’ starter and will command the huddle first at Investors Group Field, while Popp concedes the likelihood is strong that Brandon Bridge will be next for the Alouettes in their pre-season opener.

The door is wide open after that as the Alouettes have brought seven quarterbacks along for the trip out West. What’s clear is that as highly-regarded as Adams might be, the Als plan to be patient with the 23-year-old arriving straight out of Oregon.

“He’s just getting to us,” reiterated Popp. “A lot of our quarterbacks that are all new have had an off-season of learning terminology and understanding what we’re doing, have gone through mini-camp.

“Vernon has not had any of that but he’s learned things very quickly and hopefully we can take things slowly with him and we’ll see where it goes.”

So while it looks like Adams and Bridge are the quarterbacks of the future while Rakeem Cato looks like the story that’s quickly becoming so last year, CFL fans are left wondering: just who is Vernon Adams?

A top dual-threat quarterback and league MVP as a high school senior, Adams’ height prevented him from earning a scholarship offer. That led him to Eastern Washington, where he redshirted in 2011 and became a starter in 2012.


RELATED: Als, Bombers set for pre-season action


Adams’ production was off the charts in 2014, his junior season in college, earning him First-Team All-American by the Associated Press and the runner-up for the Walter Payton Award, given to the most outstanding offensive player in Division I football – an honour previously won by current Stampeders star quarterback and Eastern Washington graduate Bo Levi Mitchell along with former CFL stars Dave Dickenson and Archie Amerson.

All of a sudden on everyone’s radar, Adams transferred to Oregon in 2015 where he competed with Dakota Prukop – a quarterback at one time on the Alouettes’ secret negotiation list – for a chance to become the Ducks’ starting quarterback.

“[Prukop] actually was doing the exact same thing Vernon did,” recalled Popp.” I know that family well so I got to see Vernon a lot competing against him, so I know what he’s capable of and I know that great quarterbacks come out of that conference.”

For the same reason he didn’t get a scholarship following a polished high school career, Adams was passed over in the NFL Draft. He attended free agent tryouts immediately after but couldn’t land on a team.

The BC Lions held his rights but before ever striking a deal, Adams was on his way to Montreal.

The Alouettes already had at least three young quarterbacks who had potential to be the long-term answer at quarterback in Bridge, Cato and Clemson’s Tajh Boyd. For them to give up a first round pick to add Adams to that stable, you know Popp can see something big in him.

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It’s the price you’ve got to pay, Popp acknowledges, for the chance to get a highly-talented young pivot with seemingly unlimited upside.

“If you think a player is good enough he can help you at some point – we take players in the first round and develop them for three years and they really don’t play for us or don’t play very much initially,” said Popp.

“We took one of our draft picks a year ago and put it on Brandon Bridge – he doesn’t count as a national player either,” he continued. “We’ve done it several times, whether it was Jesse Palmer or whoever it was.

It’s the type of gamble the Als’ veteran GM says he’s not just comfortable with, but one he believes is necessary to win in the CFL.

“I look at draft picks in my 20th or 21st season in Montreal, I think this is the fifth or sixth time we’ve give up the number one and I think the other ones have played out very well.

“So we’ll take that risk. If you don’t take risks, you’re not gonna grow.”