Play of Willis speaks volumes
Loud defensive end has 5 sacks in last 5 games
For a moment in Wednesday’s practice, Odell Willis got wrapped up in his own shenanigans.
The Edmonton Eskimos defensive end was lured by the creative charms of hanging mesh near the sidelines at the Commonwealth Stadium field house. He went in hands first and started turning around and around. A few seconds later, wrapped in the mesh, he started making groaning noises at his teammates.
When defensive line coach Leroy Blugh caught a glimpse of his mummified player, he smirked and told him to get back to work. Willis tried to escape, but his handiwork proved to be a little too effective.
“I’ve tangled myself up here, for real,” Willis said to himself, before he eventually pulled the netting over his head to break free.
Fifteen weeks into the Canadian Football League season, Willis’s teammates are immune to his endless energy and dialed-up volume. On cold or rainy days when the Eskimos shift indoors to the field house to practise, every single out-loud thought of the 28-year-old booms off of the walls.
After a slow start, Willis’s play has begun to match his daily acoustics. He’s got five quarterback sacks in his last five games, giving him seven on the season and tying him for sixth place in the league. At 47 career sacks, Willis is nonchalant about closing in on a milestone.
“I mean, if you’ve got no championships with it, it’s more of a personal goal,” said Willis. “I kind of tease Leroy about that. The other day, I said, ‘Hey coach, I’m catching you,’ and he said, ‘You’ve got about 30 more to go.’
“It’s something you look at after the season, just to see where you’re at. It’s nothing I’m striving for in general.”
Marcus Howard, who leads the Eskimos with nine sacks, goes about his business at the other end of the D-line as differently from Willis as possible. He grins when he’s asked what Willis is like as a teammate.
“It’s funny, you know? I’m a pretty quiet guy, he’s totally opposite,” Howard said. “He’s loud, he likes to have fun. It’s cool, that’s just his character. We have different characters, but on the field, we gel together.”
Eskimos defensive tackle Ted Laurent is as reserved as Howard, but he got a kick out of Willis’s sideline mummy act. “I’m relaxed,” Laurent said. “I’m laid back and, when the light shines, I perform. We’ve got different ways to get ready for the game. Ain’t nothing wrong with that.”
Willis has always been the loudest player in the room through seven CFL seasons, but there’s more to him than the show. When the Eskimos held a players-only meeting before hosting the Winnipeg Blue Bombers on Sept. 14, Willis stepped up in the scrum.
“He’s a very high-energy guy,” Eskimos quarterback Kerry Joseph said. “He jokes around a lot, but Odell, when you can really sit down and talk to him, he’s a man with a lot of sense. People lose that. People see the negatives of Odell and they don’t see the positives, never hear about the positives. He’s a guy that guys look up to because of his energy. Even though he jokes around ... he comes to practice and puts the work in and it shows on the field. To me, that’s the sign of a true leader.”
When Willis signed as a free agent in February, head coach Kavis Reed knew what he was getting. He worked with him at Winnipeg in 2010.
“Now he’s comfortable. You can’t question the intangible things that he brings. They’re tremendous.”