O’Leary: Recently-traded Bowman offers outsider perspective of Als

Adarius Bowman’s first few days in Montreal were spent soul searching.

The 33-year-old was the CFL’s leading receiver in 2011, 2014 and 2016, but his 2018 season had spun in a direction that he never saw coming. After seven years in Edmonton, the Eskimos released him in the winter. He signed quickly after with Winnipeg, but six games into his stay there, the Bombers traded him to the Als on July 23.

Suddenly in a hotel in downtown Montreal, waiting on his wife and four-month-old daughter to join him, Bowman had a new reality to quickly wrap his head around.

“I’ve always been in the prairies, but I caught myself walking for about four hours my first few days here,” Bowman said on Friday, shortly after the Alouettes arrived in Ottawa for their game against the REDBLACKS.

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In going from the Grey Cup-hosting team to a Grey Cup contender to a move out East with the 1-6 Als, Bowman has seen a massive amount of change in terms of the types of teams he’s played on. Those long walks through the city and spending time with his new teammates over the last couple of weeks have helped put things in perspective.

“I’m definitely in an unfamiliar number (he’s wearing No. 19 for the first time in his career), with an unfamiliar team, but rather than that I look at what it is,” he said.

“It’s still ball. It’s players that I’ve been watching from the other side, so it’s good to be around them. B.J. Cunningham, Ernest Jackson, just to name a few. It’s good to get around those guys. Chip Cox, for years, you know he kind of had been a headache to me.

“But you get on a team with him and you see why he’s been on the team for so long. He’s a down to earth guy that works real hard. All these guys, John Bowman, Steph Logan. Super vets, that’s what I call them. I’m enjoying the process. It’s not as bad as it looks.”

Then of course, there’s the team’s new starting quarterback, Johnny Manziel. Bowman has spent his career around great quarterbacks. He played with Darian Durant when the two were kids at the University of North Carolina, then reunited with him in Saskatchewan in 2008. There was Kevin Glenn in Winnipeg. There was Ricky Ray and Mike Reilly in Edmonton, then Matt Nichols when he went back to Winnipeg this year. Manziel isn’t in that conversation, but Bowman wants to do what he can to try to get his name close to that list.

He grapples with where to put Manziel. He’s a rookie in the CFL, but his experience from the States, on the field and in dealing with a spotlight that’s not like anything a CFL player has dealt with since at least Ricky Williams in 2006.

Bowman has long talked about how hard the quarterback position is and the pressure that comes with it.

“That’s one position I don’t want no part of,” he said.

“After being around two weeks, (Manziel’s) just a normal guy. I couldn’t be in his shoes. I thought I got a lot of attention. This guy gets a lot of hype.

“He’s a very down to earth, chill dude and I see why he had his success in college. He critiques himself, he shows up to work every day. Whatever the mistakes are, the success he has, he shows up ready to work. I’ve been enjoying his company. In terms of ability I think he has all the tools.”

The situation in Montreal is a little familiar to Bowman. A QB trying to find his footing as a starter in the league, an offensive line that gives up a lot, a team that’s trying to pull it together and be competitive; it’s similar to where the Esks were in 2013 when Reilly had just arrived in Edmonton.

“It’s actually a good team here but it’s just about getting over the hump, believing in yourself and believing in the organization and getting the city back into it,” Bowman said.

Just two weeks into his time in Montreal, Bowman is trying to make it feel like home. His family has joined him and they’re hoping to have a place to live in the next week. He’s still exploring the city, but he’s not doing it solo anymore. He’s got Manziel with him sometimes. He knows that chemistry is important and that if they help each other, they can both get their careers back on track.

“That’s 100 per cent part of the puzzle. I was given an opportunity to play with Mike and that was my spark,” he said.

“In my experience, when I was able to get to know the guy it’s a comfort thing, a trust thing. Those kind of things help.”

He’s seen the Als from the outside and now, after a couple of weeks around the team, sees it a little differently. He’s on a 1-6 team, but is in an East division that’s still fairly wide open. He knows that East teams have won the last two Grey Cups.

“You can look at it one way but I’d rather look at it as an opportunity to come in and make a change,” he said. “Life got me here for a reason and I’m about to make it great and just be Adarius.”