THE CANADIAN PRESS
VANCOUVER — For Adam Bighill, the hardest part is over.
The former Lions linebacker turned heads this month by earning a ‘futures’ contract with the New Orleans Saints, taking advantage of the brief window the Lions granted him to try out with NFL teams.
Now, the rest should come easy for the 28-year-old coming off his sixth season as a BC Lion.
“Because now, I’m just going to go in there and do what I’ve always done – work my butt off and be the one that blows everyone away and impresses everybody,” Adam Bighill told CFL.ca’s Brodie Lawson in an off-season interview.
“The hardest part for me was getting in the door.”
RELATED
» Esks, Lions have holes to fill following departures
» BC linebacker departs with Lion-sized memories
» Bighill lands three-year NFL deal
Bighill is in the door, trading in orange stripes for some gold sparkle. He’ll also go from the west coast of Canada to the south central region of the United States. And of course, for the first time in his professional playing career, football will have four downs instead of three.
What won’t change is the player – in particular, the work ethic.
Bighill knows he’ll make it in the NFL for the same reason he made it in the CFL seven years ago, when he arrived at Lions training camp after coming out of Central Washington without so much as a look from the NFL.
“I’m willing to outwork every other person in the building to help the team win and earn a job and this has been my life’s work,” said Bighill. “Football and family have been my number one priorities and this is obviously very, very important to me.”
Signing with the Saints is both a beginning and an end. A lifetime achievement but also the start of a new goal.
The former Lion remembers being seven years old and dreaming of playing in the NFL. How he got there – a six-year detour through Canada – he never could have guessed.
“I knew I wanted to play professional football,” said Bighill. “Getting paid to play football is such a pleasure. I’m playing a game for a living and the fans are great – I do it all for them. But I never expected this route.”
“There have been a lot of people that haven’t believed in me and there are a lot of people that have jumped on board and now are big believers in me.”
– Adam Bighill
Adam Bighill departs south of the border following six CFL seasons (Jimmy Jeong/CFL.ca)
Bighill could play alongside former CFL players Delvin Breaux, Erik Harris and Forrest Hightower. Breaux joined the team two years ago after emerging as one of the league’s top shutdown corners with the Ticats, while Harris signed up last year and Hightower this off-season.
Some familiar faces should help the transition, as should the Saints’ history of giving CFL players a chance.
“The Saints, they believe in CFL talent,” said Bighill. “They give guys opportunities to play and that’s proven.”
Still, it won’t be long before Bighill is missing life in the Canadian Football League, with its tight-knit community where everyone knows each other’s name – “I almost feel like I’m leaving family,” reflected the veteran linebacker.
Even if he doesn’t feel like he’s leaving, Bighill’s path takes him south. The road to the NFL is an unexpected twist after six years north of the border, where he recorded 489 tackles in six seasons including 100-plus tackles in back to back campaigns.
It’s no secret that Bighill is disproving the theory of at least a handful that he was either too old, had been around the CFL too long or simply wasn’t big enough to be an NFL linebacker.
In another way, though, maybe this could have been seen coming. Bighill worked as hard as anyone to make it this far. Cliché, sure, but how else would you tell his story?
“I did know I was willing to put my nose down and grind and earn myself everything that I get,” said Bighill. “There’s been a lot of sacrifice, a lot of adversity, there have been a lot of people that haven’t believed in me and there are a lot of people that have jumped on board and now are big believers in me.
“I’m looking to do the same thing going down there: turn some heads and become a contributing factor for the 2017 Saints.”
