Chris O’Leary
Edmonton Journal
Simoni Lawrence has a full football career in front of him, loaded with potential. He’s likely already made his most infamous play, though.
Before the 23-year-old latched on with the Edmonton Eskimos this year, he spent the 2010 season playing in the United Football League with the Hartford Colonials. That’s where he had a headfirst brush with fame. Lawrence tried to stop an end zone-bound Sacramento Mountain Lions running back named John David Washington – the son of actor Denzel Washington. Lawrence brought down a Washington on the play, but it wasn’t the right one.
John David slipped past him and Lawrence went full-speed out of the play and into the path of Pauletta Washington: John David’s mother and Denzel’s wife. The excited mom was running along the sideline, cheering on her son. She wasn’t hurt in the collision with the six-foot-one, 228-pound Lawrence.
The Oscar-winning father appeared on David Letterman a week later and joked about the play.
“She jumped up faster than the guy did,” he said. “She loves her son so much, all she saw, she didn’t see this guy coming. All she saw was her baby.”
He then said he wished his wife had taunted Lawrence.
“I said, ‘You should have stood over him and taunted him, like, “You little punk!” ‘ ”
Two years later, Lawrence laughs about what happened. His reaction to plowing into the wife of one of the biggest names in Hollywood was understandable.
I was like, ‘Oh (expletive) my bad,'” he said, laughing. “That was pretty embarrassing though.”
Playing the opportunist, Lawrence said that to him, a payday isn’t out of order.
“I think Denzel needs to cut the cheque. I saved his wife, actually, I took a little bit off. I could have got her good, but I was like, ‘Nah, my momma wouldn’t have liked that.'”
The hits he’s making in the CFL aren’t going to land him on late-night TV, but they do have some meaning. Lawrence has worked his way into the active roster the last three weeks and has made a total of six tackles, with four coming on special teams.
“He’s a football player. He’s that kid that he has defensive back speed, linebacker strength,” Eskimo head coach Kavis Reed said. “He’s just a guy that can play football.
“It’s hard to get him off of the roster. It’s very difficult because of the way he plays.”
Lawrence showed that last week in the Eskimo 23-22 loss to Winnipeg. He opened the game with a brutal hit on Alex Brink when the quarterback broke free from the pocket and started running up field. Lawrence saw what was happening and bolted to the sideline and flattened Brink.
“When you’re playing with the defence, everyone just loves flying around the ball,” Lawrence said of the hit.
“It’s crazy, it’s like a bunch of frickin’ pit bulls trying to get to the ball. There are times where Rod (Williams) has a tackle and I’m sprinting over there just to get a piece. It’s fun, I love hitting. Especially being considered undersized, it’s fun showing that you can blow people up.”
Lawrence first got to show people what he could do in his debut on July 13 against Winnipeg. When defensive ends Marcus Howard and Julius Williams were ejected for fighting, Lawrence fared well as an undersized replacement.
“He can do a lot of things,” Reed said. “He’s a guy that if we lined him up on the edge, he would not disappoint. It’s not his mainstay and that just attests to his versatility as a player.”
ESKIMO NOTES: Marcus Howard won’t be a part of the equation next week, but Kavis Reed is optimistic about the return of three of his other players.
The Edmonton Eskimo head coach said on Friday that Howard’s hamstring injury would keep him out of the team’s Aug. 10 match up with the Saskatchewan Roughriders. Howard was one of a handful of veteran players who weren’t yet back from the team’s bye week.
“We have a chance at having a lot of them back,” he said of some key players who have been out of action. “Weldon Brown, there’s a chance, Greg Wojt there’s a chance. Greg Carr more than likely will be available to us.”
Brown, who plays halfback, has missed the last two games with a groin injury. Wojt, who plays guard on the offensive line, is on the nine-game injured list with a knee injury. A team is allowed to take one player off of its nine-game list early each season.
Carr, who missed the last two games with an ankle injury, would be a welcome addition to a receiver corps that’s missing Adarius Bowman. After leaving Winnipeg to sign with Edmonton in the off-season, Carr missed his return-game at CanadInns Stadium last week.
“It’s hard sitting out any game,” Carr said. “I don’t care if we were going to the moon, I want to play.”
coleary@edmontonjournal.com
Twitter.com/olearychris
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