BlueBombers.com
WINNIPEG — Just over six months after tearing his Achilles tendon, Maurice Leggett is about to get back on a Canadian football field.
The Winnipeg Blue Bombers start their spring mini-camp on Tuesday and Leggett is expected to attend and participate in what TSN 1290’s Darrin Bauming is calling ‘light workouts’ with the team.
The 31-year-old defensive back suffered his injury back in October in a contest against the BC Lions. He was enjoying an excellent season with the Bombers before things came to a screeching halt in Week 17, amassing 50 tackles, three sacks, three interceptions, one touchdown and three forced fumbles in the 13 games he played in.
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Leggett is almost in playing shape after rehabbing a torn Achilles this off-season (Jason Halstead/CFL.ca)
Sitting on the sidelines at the end of the season while he watched his team lose in the Western Final to the Calgary Stampeders was heart breaking for the four-year CFL vet.
“It hurt so much,” Leggett told CFL.ca at Mark’s CFL Week. “I wanted them to just screw some cleats at the bottom of my boot and let me play. I can’t get mad at it because I left everything I had on that field. I’m not mad about it but it did hurt because I wanted to play so bad.”
Back in March, during the league’s biggest off-season event in Winnipeg, Leggett confirmed that he would be good to go once the season got under way. He said he was right on schedule with his rehab and was even ‘dunking basketballs and running around.’
“I’m ready to go right now,” he smiled. “It was a tough process in the beginning because we had to start off slow. But now that I actually can walk around and run, it’s like nothing happened.”
The Bombers will be hoping to build on their 12-6 2017 campaign, where they finished second in the West and hosted a playoff game for the first time since 2011. One more win and the team would have been in Ottawa to play in the 105th Grey Cup. Leggett says this year, he wants to get there.
“I’m not worried about my health,” he said, explaining how he’s going to approach the 2018 season. “I know it’s going to be there. I want to play in a Grey Cup. I want to win a Grey Cup. I want defensive player of the year and I want to actually be one of those, on that short list, of winning MOP as a defensive player. Those are the goals.”
