Arden Zwelling
CFL.ca
EDMONTON — During the hot Louisiana summers in the mid 1990’s Weldon Brown liked to go down to Independence Stadium to watch his hometown Shreveport Pirates play football.
He was just six-years-old at the time and only beginning to play at the pee wee level, but Brown was already beyond fascinated with the game. Captivated by the speed and physicality of the sport, he dreamed of one day playing in a big game at Independence Stadium — a decade later he would — and had he known what he was watching, he may have even dreamed of playing in the Canadian Football League.
But Brown was just a kid, innocently unaware of the fact that not only were the Pirates a professional team, they were based in a league in Canada.
“I was totally unaware that it was a CFL team — I had no clue,” Brown said. “I was just looking at football, just out there as a kid. And now I’m here.”
Here is Edmonton, Alberta, where Brown now plays in the same CFL that the Pirates were once a part of. He’s a key member of the secondary on the surprising Eskimos who have turned the league on its head by opening their season 5-0.
It took the Eskimos 16 weeks to win their fifth game last season as they stumbled to a 7-11 mark and missed the playoffs. But just five weeks into 2011 the team already has the inside track on first place in the CFL’s West Division.
Not that anyone in the Eskimos locker room is all that surprised — things are simply going according to plan.
“Most definitely — we came into this year with it on our mind,” Brown said of getting off to a quick start. “The chemistry of this team is unbelievable. Absolutely unbelievable. By us being tight, that’s what makes us a great team.”
The Pirates, on the other hand, were never even close to great, finishing a combined 8-28 in the team’s brief two-year existence and going winless in the
franchise’s first fourteen games in the CFL. The Pirates’ short history is dotted with embarrassments, including the firing of the franchise’s first head coach, John Huard, during the team’s inaugural training camp and accusations that team-owner Bernard Glieberman had defaulted on debts owed to the Pirates’ lease at Independence Stadium. Huard eventually sued the team — as did quarterback Billy Joe Tolliver and the City of Shreveport — and the Pirates left town.
But the residents of Shreveport at least tried to support the team — drawing an average attendance of 17,871 in 1994 — including Brown, who would grow up to star at Louisiana Tech where he was a four-year letterman playing cornerback, running back and returning kicks. He finished his college career as the MVP of the 2008 Independence Bowl — played at Independence Stadium where he used to watch the Pirates — making 14 tackles and a clutch interception late in the game.
The performance earned Brown a brief tryout with the Jacksonville Jaguars after going undrafted in the 2009 draft. But Brown was released before the season started and landed with the Eskimos a year later where he served as the team’s utility man in 2010, seeing time on virtually every special team and a host of defensive positions as well.
Even though he didn’t earn a starting job until the end of the season, Brown finished the year with 23 tackles, including 13 on special teams as he filled in at every role the Eskimos would give him. That included returning kicks which Brown did 16 times for 362 yards, finishing just outside the top ten in the league with a 22.6 yard kick return average. Brown hadn’t played so many positions since his days of pee wee football back in Louisiana when he rarely left the field, playing linebacker, running back and all special teams.
“I remember those days and I’m basically still doing it. Just playing football and having fun, no matter where they put me,” Brown said. “I’ll go anywhere they need me to play. They saw I can play ball so they had to put me out there somewhere.”
Of course, Brown’s rookie season was not without its hiccups, as he struggled to grasp the nuances of the Canadian game which he hadn’t even realized he was watching as a six-year-old at Independence Stadium in Shreveport.
Brown stayed in Edmonton during the team’s bye week last year — when most players take time off to return home and see their families — in order to put in extra work in the video room and continue to study the intricacies of the CFL.
“I don’t think anybody can just come in and play CFL ball,” Brown admitted. “At first it’s a little uncomfortable, learning the rules and the schemes and different methods on how to play this CFL ball.”
Brown’s hard work off the field and dutiful service on it as the Eskimos utility man in 2010 earned him a more stable job this year starting at halfback in the overhauled Edmonton defence. The 24-year-old is one of the few returnees from last year’s squad, which gave up more points than any other team in the league, averaging 30.3 points allowed per game.
Veteran CFL coach Rich Stubler — who twice served as the Eskimos defensive coordinator in the 1990’s — was brought back to Edmonton during the offseason and tasked with righting the ship. The Eskimos also overturned most of the defensive roster, going with a young, small cast of defenders that even the most ardent CFL fan would have trouble identifying.
Brown — who fits the bill standing just 5-foot-10, 185-pounds — said Stubler has revamped the Eskimos defensive schemes, emphasizing speed and quickness while giving his troops more options in defence. He also gave them a goal in training camp to hold the opposition to less than 20 points per game for the entire season.
So far the strategy has worked as the Eskimos have the second ranked defence in the league, allowing just 19.8 points per game and holding opposition offences to an average of just 8.8 points in the second half.
It’s been a quiet strength of this CFL-best Eskimos team and if you ask Brown he’ll tell you there’s one difference that stands out above all others from last year to this year: communication.
“Our communication was a little sour last year,” Brown said. “This year communication is the biggest thing. We’re communicating big time. Our team is tight. Across the board we get it done.
“It’s just like a marriage, man — you’ve got to have communication. Or it’ll be over with real quick.”
Brown speaks from experience in more ways than one after marrying his college girlfriend Twila Jauch this past May. And he has shown his experience on the field where he is second on the team in tackles with 23. He had a team-high nine takedowns last weekend against the Argonauts and was one of three Eskimos to pull down an interception in the team’s opening weekend victory over the Roughriders.
“It’s just determination,” Brown said. “I want to be that guy that teams look at each and every week like ‘alright we’ve got to bring it because this guy brings it every week.’ Whatever I need to do to get the job done, I’m going to do it.”
Determination will be key this weekend as Stubler, Brown and the rest of the Eskimos face their stiffest challenge to date in the 4-1 Winnipeg Blue Bombers, who are the only team with a higher ranked defence than Edmonton.
And while the Eskimos offence has been certainly doing their part, putting up a CFL West Division best 30.6 points per game, the pressure will be on the Eskimos revamped defence to deliver yet another stellar performance.
“For us to get the job done [this weekend] will say a lot about our team and our character. We’ve got to compete,” Brown said. “Winnipeg is going to compete. We’re going to compete. And we’re going to have to wait until the final second of that clock when the game is over to see who’s got the best game.”
