Johany Jutras/CFL.ca
Darvin Adams isn’t a complicated man. He loves family, football and fishing – not sure if that’s the proper order – and seems more than content with life right now.
And talking to the Winnipeg Blue Bombers receiver during Mark’s CFL Week, it instantly becomes clear as to why.
Adams, now 28, has found a professional home in Winnipeg after bouncing around pro football’s map. He’s a CFL All-Star and a popular man in the locker room. The rest of his life is good, too, with three daughters with his fiancée – Ariel, Kaylen and Darri – and surrounded by friends and family at his off-season home in Canton, MS.
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Darvin Adams had the best campaign of his CFL career in 2017 (Johany Jutras/CFL.ca)
“Family is big to me. It’s why I love to come home during the off-season because I just love to be around everyone,” began Adams in a chat with BlueBombers.com. “I’m happy. I’m lucky.”
“Sometimes I think about this journey that I’ve been on. It’s been a weird roller-coaster. But I’m thankful for it. I’m thankful for being in Winnipeg because I feel that, on a personal level, this is the first team that really gave me a shot and the chance to just be me and not make me change who I am.”
Adams was a big-time star at Auburn; the MVP of the 2010 Outback Bowl and a man who broke the SEC Championship Game record for receiving yards later that same year. He skipped his senior year to turn pro, but went undrafted before signing as a free agent with the Carolina Panthers. He spend 2012 with the Virginia Destroyers of the United Football League before coming to Canada, first with the Toronto Argonauts before signing with the Bombers in 2015 as a free agent.
It’s here in Winnipeg that Adams has morphed into a CFL star. He had 61 catches for 839 yards and six scores in his first year as a Bomber and was limited to eight games in 2016 because of a shoulder injury, but still finished with 51 receptions for 690 yards and six TDs.
His 2017 campaign overflowed with highlight-of-the-night type plays as he finished with 76 receptions for 1,120 yards and seven TDs in 15 games – before another shoulder injury cut short his All-Star season.
Naturally, Adams and his trainer have spent the off-season working on strengthening his shoulders and upper body and doing everything to help him stay healthy in 2018.
But there’s also a philosophical side to Adams. He understands injuries are random and out of his control, no matter how much work he puts in before, during and after the season.
That’s why he hasn’t even looked at the film of his injury or how it occurred. And has no plans to do so, either.
For Darvin Adams, the key in 2018 will be staying positive after an injury ended his previous season (The Canadian Press)
“If you look at it in a negative way, then negative things come out. I’m just trying to stay positive and work on staying healthy,” he said. “For me… I don’t like to look in the past. Why? I’m just really focused on getting back there with my group of guys. It was tough watching not just your teammates, but your friends, out there battling down the stretch and into the playoffs and you can’t help. That’s all I’m focused on now: staying healthy.
“You have to look at it that way. So I’m thankful. That injury could have happened at the beginning of the year and wiped out everything. Everything happens for a reason. I just play the cards I’m dealt, roll with it.”
Adams might just be the most unassuming star player on the Bombers roster. He isn’t gregarious, nor the type that seeks out attention. He’s big on the things that some athletes often take for granted until their careers are finito: the process, the friendships and the moments that come with being in a good locker room.
And if that sounds cornball, so be it.
“I have been on teams where you had guys focused on themselves, on individual stats, individual awards, individual this, individual that,” Adams explained. “It was always ‘I want the ball, give it to me…’ This team, we have guys that just want to win. A few of us have been together a good period of time now and we’re not playing for those individual things, but for each other. I believe that’s why we’ve won so many games. You don’t want to go into the film room and have one of your friends looking at you and seeing you giving a poor effort while they’re out there busting their tails. That has an impact on you.
“You know, I tell everyone that we have good people on this team, good people outside of the game,” he added. “I always explain this about someone like Matt (Nichols). They see him as a good quarterback, but what they don’t see is him being a good father and husband. They don’t see him coming in at five o’clock in the morning for extra film or staying after. They don’t see him doing the small things like asking a guy if he needs a ride home, or offering to take a guy to get food, or offering to borrow him money.
“I’ll tell you this: it makes it easier for you to play harder for a person that cares for you. That’s why we’re all so excited for this year; because management has brought in more guys like that. The future will tell, but there’s a good vibe with all of us right now.”
