Chris O’Leary
Edmonton Journal
When he talks about the roster that he’s building, Ed Hervey always mentions that it’s a slow process.
Truth be told, the Edmonton Eskimo general manager has been feverishly crafting that list to his liking, in his still-new role. Day 57 on the job was a busy one.
Hervey made his big splash Tuesday around noon, when he traded Canadian running back Jerome Messam to Montreal in exchange for the Alouettes’ sixth-round pick (45th overall) in next month’s Canadian Football League draft.
The trade freed up some salary cap room for Edmonton and solidified Hugh Charles as the team’s primary option when running the ball this year.
Hervey followed up that move late in the afternoon with a five-player deal with the Hamilton Tiger-Cats. The Eskimos picked up a pair of Canadian players in linebacker Nathan Kanya and offensive lineman Carson Rockhill. To get them, Hervey traded quarterback Jeremiah Masoli, linebacker Simoni Lawrence and offensive lineman Greg Wojt.
“In my opinion, they kind of work hand in hand with one another,” Hervey said of the trades.
Messam’s success in 2011 with the Eskimos – he was named the CFL’s Outstanding Canadian and broke the 1,000-yard rushing mark – landed him a tryout with the Miami Dolphins in the NFL. In leaving Edmonton last spring for Miami, he opened the door for Charles to have his breakthrough season.
While Messam was auditioning in Miami, Charles emerged as a versatile, consistent option in the Eskimo offence.
Cut from the Dolphins, Messam returned to Edmonton and signed a new contract, but couldn’t wrestle the ball away from Charles, or Cory Boyd, for that matter. Charles finished the year with 887 yards on 170 carries and six touchdowns. He caught 32 passes for 522 yards and two more touchdowns.
To continue paying Messam the salary he was getting (estimated to be between $95,000 and $135,000 with all of the incentives checked off: being named outstanding Canadian again, making the all-star team and rushing for 1,200 yards or more, as the Montreal Gazette’s Herb Zurkowsky reported on Tuesday), Hervey said he wanted Messam to be either the starting tailback or a special teams contributor.
“With the emergence of Hugh Charles, realistically, Jerome’s salary wouldn’t allow us to have him as a backup tailback,” Hervey said. “So what I saw us filling that special teams role with was Kanya from Hamilton.”
In two seasons with the Ticats, Kanya, 25, had 23 tackles on special teams and a fumble recovery.
“We’ve always had problems blocking Nathan and we’ve always thought he was special,” Hervey said. “We’re trying to ensure we have young Canadian depth. That’s how you give yourself a chance to win and we’re trying to put together some guys and hopefully develop them into players that can be productive in this league.”
Rockhill is a six-foot-six, 284-pounder from the University of Calgary that Hamilton took 13th overall in last year’s CFL draft. He chose to go back to school in 2012, play out his final year of Canadian Interuniversity Sport eligibility and weigh NFL options. Hervey was confident that the 22-year-old would be playing him this season.
“We were very high on him last year in the draft and we liked his size,” he said. “We want to get bigger on the offensive line and become more physical on the offensive front.”
The allure of landing two Canadians in the Hamilton deal made it an easy one for Hervey to jump at, he said, despite the talent that he parted with.
Wojt, 27, was Edmonton’s outstanding lineman and a West all-star in 2011; Lawrence (15 tackles, 11 special teams tackles, one fumble recovery in 15 games) showed promise as a rookie; Masoli came to the CFL last year with an impressive NCAA resume from the University of Oregon and Ole Miss, finishing his college career with 5,390 yards, 42 touchdowns and rushed for 1,930 yards and scored 29 TDs on the ground.
“Hamilton was really high on (Lawrence),” Hervey said. “We feel that we can get a linebacker and that’s no knock on Simoni and his potential in his career, but again when you’re talking about getting two non-imports that can impact your team right now … if we can’t find ourselves a non-import linebacker, we’re in the wrong business.”
As for Masoli, Hervey said the 24-year-old wouldn’t get a shot with Matt Nichols and the recently acquired Mike Reilly competing for spots No. 1 and 2 in the quarterback depth chart.
“Basically, he wasn’t going to get that opportunity here,” Hervey said.
Messam, with his padded resume and hulking six-foot-three, 245-pound frame, had oddly ended up in the same boat.
“It worked out for both sides,” Hervey said of the trade. “I think Jerome is a good kid and he’s got a lot of football left in him. We felt that we owed it to him to put him in a situation where he has a chance to play and be a featured ‘back and that just wasn’t going to be here in Edmonton.”
“This trade has lit a fire under my ass,” Messam told Zurkowsky on Tuesday. “I can’t wait to get back into camp.
“The league doesn’t know what they’re in for.”
coleary@edmontonjournal.com
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