Reigning Most Outstanding Offensive Lineman Jermarcus Hardrick helped his Saskatchewan Roughriders sign former NFL running back Darrell Henderson Jr.
Hardrick and Henderson Jr. hail from Batesville, MS which has a population around 7,300 and both men went to South Panola High School.
“We had a connection through Jermarcus Hardrick. He mentioned that he was still wanting to play and was interested in coming up in Canada. That’s how the conversation got started. From there, it was communicating with him and seeing if we could work out a deal with him,” general manager Jeremy O’Day said.
The 28-year-old Henderson was selected in the third round, 70th overall in the 2019 NFL Draft by the Los Angeles Rams. He spent five years over two stints with the team, running the ball 442 times for 1,852 yards, 4.2 per carry and scored 15 touchdowns on the ground, plus added 76 receptions for 577 yards with four touchdowns through the air over 54 games.
The five-foot-eight, 208-pound ball carrier won Super Bowl LVI with the Rams in February 2022 as LA beat Cincinnati 23-20 at SoFi Stadium. He earned approximately $4.7 million USD in the NFL and wants to continue his professional career after being a free agent for over two years. Head coach Corey Mace spoke to Henderson “quite a few times” prior to him signing his contract with Saskatchewan.
“Really good kid. When you do get guys in those situations, which is kind of unique, with the amounts that they’ve made in a different league, you don’t know what that accumulates as and how they’ve used it,” Mace said.
“But one thing that I got from Darrell: he just wants to play ball. He understands a lot about what we do in Saskatchewan. He followed with Jermarcus and his journey with us. He’s got a pretty solid idea of what it is in Saskatchewan and what it looks like to be a Rider. And then it fit.”
O’Day has heard different stories and seen some things over his years in the Roughriders front office. Saskatchewan signed Vince Young in 2017, later that same year Trent Richardson came up to the prairies. In 2021, former first-round NFL Draft pick, Paxton Lynch dressed in eight games with the Green and White. Most recently, KeeSean Johnson came from the NFL and proved himself in the three-down league.
“I think a lot of times it is guys that just love playing football, want to continue to play football, money isn’t the driving factor by any means for those guys. Then there’s other ones that are saying, ‘Hey, I don’t have any opportunities in the NFL, let me try to play a year in the CFL and see if I can get back into the NFL,'” O’Day said.
“Sometimes they’ve been out for a year or two, they had an injury or something to that effect. But still says a lot about a guy that wants to come up and continue playing football when you know they had made that much money.”
Former Rams running backs Zac Stacy and Tre Mason had stints with the Riders in 2018. Stacy was released after training camp, while Mason ran 160 times for 809 yards with three touchdowns in 18 regular season games. Don’t call them the Regina Rams, but the Roughriders hope Henderson is the best Rams transplant yet.
