CFL.ca
Shawn Lemon might be that guy who hears a drumbeat in his head that is his and his alone.
Not that the Toronto Argonauts’ defensive lineman is anywhere near the pantheon of great eccentrics and oddballs that have pulled on a CFL jersey over the decades. More like the ones who’ve been certain in the moves they’ve made not only on the field but off it as well. I’m not necessarily counting him out as a fascinating flake; I just don’t know the man nearly well enough.
I do recall a blustery practice day at last year’s Grey Cup, in Winnipeg, when Lemon – then a member of the Ottawa REDBLACKS’ ferocious rotation of defensive linemen – told me he was taking note of how the winds swirled inside that stadium just in case it was a factor for him on game day.
“But you’re a lineman,” I responded, thinking only kickers and quarterbacks cared about winds and maybe even receivers. He assured me it was a consideration for linemen and I’m still not sure if he was pulling my leg. In retrospect, I should have asked him about that again when we chatted this week about his football odyssey of the last year or so, one that’s had him stop in Pittsburgh, San Francisco, Ottawa, Regina and now, comfortably, Toronto.
There were other things to ask, however. About those stops and about the toes Lemon stepped on along the way. Whether he felt his own toes got bruised in there, too. You could say there has been a strong perception that some hard feelings were left in both Ottawa and Regina as Lemon made his exits.
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Dan LeFevour will get his first start in nearly two years on Sunday (Argonauts.ca)
“God always has a way of showing you what path he wants you to go down,” Lemon responds after unequivocally stating that he has no massive regrets about how things ended for him in Ottawa, nor how they ended in Saskatchewan. Nor does he have, he says, regret about any of his football moves.
While he originally committed to play for UCONN as his college career was set to begin, he ended up playing for the University of Akron instead. He came to Canada instead of waiting to see if an NFL lockout might provide him with an opportunity after his college days were over. Left the CFL for a tryout with the Pittsburgh Steelers, then the San Francisco 49ers, in 2015, before winding up in Ottawa to finish the season.
Things seem to be purring along nicely for Lemon, who has settled into a rotation on that Argos’ defensive line, happy to come off the field whenever Defensive Coordinator Rich Stubler asks him too, though he’d gladly play every snap if asked.
“Same defence we ran in Calgary,” he says, noting the Argos’ version is not quite the same just yet. “Just a different phase of it. In Calgary we had a more veteran group, like in the back end (secondary), so we were able to do a lot of different other things but it’s basically the same defence for us up front.”
There is happiness for Lemon in Toronto. He raved about the Canadian National Exhibition, and about the view he had from the CN Tower restaurant, where he and his fiancée Brittany, had dinner recently. Talked about the joy he gets in goading teammate Bryan Hall into arguments whenever the linemen get together outside of practice. “Every idea he has, I go against it,” Lemon says, laughing. “I counter everything he says. That gets everybody else into it as well.”
» By the Numbers: Shawn Lemon on track for career year
You could say that Shawn Lemon has gotten everybody else into it a couple of times in 2016. His exits from Ottawa and Saskatchewan made sure of that.
In Regina, Lemon was unhappy, although that had nothing to do with anything other than the business of football, he says. He and the head coach of the Roughriders, Chris Jones, had different ideas on how the five-year vet (six if you count the one game he played in 2011) would fit in.
“I came in with different intentions,” Lemon says, detailing his perspective on how things played out during his short stay with the Roughriders, a team he’d signed with just last winter. “Of playing boundary end like I’ve been playing my whole CFL career. He (Jones) wanted me to play a field side end, that drops in coverage a lot, and I didn’t want to do that. He put me back at boundary but he wanted me to go from the bottom of the depth chart all the way up. Things just didn’t work out. We kept bumping heads.”
That is not an entirely foreign story, by the way. It happens. When I mention to Lemon that Argos’ defensive end Ricky Foley had his disagreements with Jones when the Saskatchewan coach was coordinating defences for the Argos in 2012 (Foley adjusted, however, and went on to have an extraordinary Grey Cup game that year, winning Most Valuable Canadian in the Argos’ win over Calgary), Lemon seems ready to dispense with the topic. “He’s a smart coach,” Lemon says. “He’s won a Grey Cup doing it his way and I won a Grey Cup playing Coach Stubler’s defence this way, so….”
In the end, Lemon believes his parting with Jones and the ‘Riders came without malice.
“It was respectful,” he says, adding that Jones wished him luck. “I told him good luck with everything as well.”
“It was respectful . . . I told him good luck with everything as well.”
Shawn Lemon
Shawn Lemon has made an immediate fit with his new team in Toronto (CFL.ca)
Lemon’s departure from Ottawa came as a surprise to many and in its wake there were bruised feelings. He’d returned to the CFL after trying out with the Steelers and ‘Niners and had enjoyed a terrific half a season in Ottawa, including picking up a sack and four tackles in the REDBLACKS’ Grey Cup loss to Edmonton. When he signed with Saskatchewan during the off-season, it was reported that the REDBLACKS were one of the failed bidders.
Ottawa general manager Marcel Desjardins publicly declared that they were not involved in trying to sign Lemon, adding “by choice.” Lemon responded by tweeting out (since deleted) what he said were text messages from Desjardins, messages that indicated the team wanted Lemon back. Desjardins responded by denying they were his texts.
It was a mess. The two have not yet buried the hatchet but Lemon left the feeling that he might like that.
“I haven’t reached out to him,” he says when asked if he and Desjardins have sorted things out. “Maybe some time this off-season I will or if we see each other after a game or something.”
“I could have handled things better on my end,” Lemon admits. “I’m sure he could have handled things better on his end as well. There’s no bad feelings, or hard feelings, behind it. Just emotions. Two competitive guys. No hard feelings.”
Lemon is free-wheeling it as a quarterback hunter in double blue, grateful to be part of a scheme that he says gives him ample opportunity for one on one match-ups, helping him become one of the league leaders in quarterback pelts with eight in as many games as an Argo. With 12 tackles in those eight games, the 28-year-old native of Charleston, S.C. is on target to eclipse the numbers he put up in his best season, when he totalled 26 tackles and 13 sacks as a Stampeder in 2014.
“He puts me into position to be very productive,” says Lemon of the Stubler defensive scheme. “Puts me in places that’ll help the team, as well.”
While a lot is made of the Stubler influence on Lemon, there is another connection that is an important one to the Argos’ sack leader.
The team’s defensive line coach is Kit Lathrop, who filled the same role with Edmonton back in 2012, the year Lemon was given a roster spot with the Eskimos.
“He was one of the only ones who felt confident in keeping me,” Lemon says, fondly, of Lathrop and those days in Edmonton. “He’s always made me feel great confidence in the stuff that I was doing as far as my moves and just helped me build confidence as a player.”
With Lathrop and Stubler pulling the levers on the Argo defensive line, Lemon is liking the rhythm he feels in Toronto. Seems to be meshing with his own beat and as we’ve already established, that’s an important consideration.
The drummer Lemon hears is one that keeps him marching on, seeking professional fulfillment, no matter how many jerseys it’s had him wear over the course of his career.
Sometimes a quarterback goes down. Sometimes a few toes get stepped on.