It’s not uncommon for rookie American receivers to have to wait for their turn when they arrive in the CFL.
Tre Odoms-Dukes’ journey after signing with the Calgary Stampeders had one particularly difficult twist, though.
While he was on the practice roster earlier this season, Odoms-Dukes came down with pneumonia. That’s no joke, and disrupted not only his preparations to one day break into the Stamps lineup, but just about everything else, too.
“For a little bit, it scared me,” Odoms-Dukes said Thursday from McMahon Stadium. “For probably the first week that I was sick, but the second week, once they got medicine in me and some fluids, some food, it started to (come) back.
“I went from 218 lbs. to … 198 lbs. Now, I’m back to 212, so now I’m feeling confident and feeling like myself again.”
Losing all that weight in such a short amount of time would obviously be a tough break for a professional athlete, but Odoms-Dukes has steadily been making practice since returning to the practice field earlier in the summer.
Now, it looks like he may finally get a chance to show off his skills in game action when the Stamps take on the Elks in the Labour Day Rematch in Edmonton on Saturday. (6 p.m., TSN/770 CHQR)
Kamar Jorden is dealing with a muscle injury that looks likely to keep him out of the lineup, so it’s Odoms-Dukes’ turn.
“He’s chomping at the bit, he’s a young guy who wants to come out here and play,” said Stamps receiver Reggie Begelton. “We have faith in him, he’s shown us multiple times that he can get the job done. I believe he has a future in this league or any other league, he’s a really good player.
“He’s an all-round ball player. It’s not just his height, he’s an excellent route runner and can catch the ball. I’m excited to see what he can do.”
The fact that Odoms-Dukes was locked to the bench for every game this season so far should not be seen as an indictment of his skill set. He was just behind a couple of veterans on the depth chart and it’s also worth noting that in general, it takes most American receivers in their first year time to adjust to the intricacies of the Canadian game.
“Everybody wants that opportunity but when you get it you want to feel like you’re confident, that you’ve been here long enough and you know what to expect,” said Stamps head coach Dave Dickenson. “He’s ready, whether he gets the opportunity or not, we’ll see. He’s a guy we liked in camp, he makes contested catches. He cares.”
The Stamps have had lots of success with American receivers who start making their mark around Labour Day in years past. DaVaris Daniels, for example, didn’t make his debut until Week 9 back in 2016 and he wound up being the league’s Most Outstanding Rookie that season.
It’s not necessarily fair to place similar expectations on Odoms-Dukes, who played his collegiate ball at South Florida from 2017-20 and spent time with the NFL’s Denver Broncos last year. But those of us who are at practice every day have seen him come down with some awfully impressive catches. At 6-foot-3, he has the height to cause CFL defensive backs trouble, too.
And after a couple months in the system, he’s ready to go.
“I feel 100% confident in myself and what I’ve been doing the last few weeks,” Odoms-Dukes said. “The coaches have confidence in me to go out there and do what I have to do. That right there, that’s enough for me. If the coaches believe in me and I believe in myself, that’s all I need.”
FIGURING IT OUT
The Stampeders are still awaiting word on what’s going on with Jorden.
The veteran receiver is dealing with some sort of muscle issue, but the team wasn’t scheduled to receive the results of the medical testing he’d gotten done until after Thursday’s practice.
“We had to send him for some imaging, it’s just a muscle but he had a little bit of bruising and they wanted to rule some things out,” Dickenson said. “Unfortunately, that’s something that puts his status in doubt now. We’ll see. If he can play, we’ll play him obviously because he knows the system, he knows what we’re gonna do and what we’re going to try to accomplish, but I’ve got to make sure he can run.”
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