A.J. Coney has got his nose firmly planted in his playbook. He’s chasing a dream, after all, and doesn’t want to leave anything to chance or have any regrets.

That doesn’t make him unique among the few dozen players at Winnipeg Blue Bombers training camp where grizzled veterans and fresh-faced rookies are all grinding to ensure they are both on the payroll and on the roster for opening night.

Still, every player has a story to tell and here is Coney’s…

Just a few months ago, not long after Coney had finished up his degree in sports management at the University of Akron, he got a phone call from the Bombers offering him a professional shot. A team captain with the Zips and their offensive MVP, Coney jumped at the chance, perhaps knowing that even with his skills as a receiver and kick returner, his size – 5-8, 180 pounds – might work against him in the National Football League.

And then, just a few days before he was to head to Canada for the first time and to Bombers mini-camp, the telephone rang again with another job offer: the chance to return to Akron as a coach.

“I told them I was heading to Winnipeg,” began Coney after another solid day’s work at Bombers training camp. “They told me to go and pursue my dreams because you can’t play forever. But you can coach for a very long time.

“And so, here I am.”

Coney has been one of the most consistent stories during Bombers camp. The club’s scouting staff added a handful of prospects with juicy NFL credentials – all of them physically big targets, too – but Coney continues to make plays and has remained durable.

“He’s smart, he moves extremely well, he’s very, very fast and he catches the ball and seems to get open,” said Bombers head coach Mike O’Shea. “There’s a lot to like about him. We’ve got a lot of those guys. It’s going to be a good battle.”

Born in Orlando, Fla., Coney considers himself a Jacksonville Jaguars fan, as he is friends with QB Blake Bortles – both of whom attended Oviedo High School. Two men have also been influential in offering him advice before he came to Winnipeg: Michael Coe and Brian Witherspoon, both of whom played in the NFL.

“They told me that whatever I do, do it fast,” Coney explained. “They said, ‘Even if you mess up because you’re young and you’re learning, go hard, go as fast as you can and just hit it’. I’ve also heard, ‘Don’t make the same mistake twice.’ I consider myself a fast learner and that’s something I pride myself on: I might mess up once, but I’m not going to keep messing up on it.

“That’s one of the biggest adjustments… Back at Akron it would be like, ‘Oh, we’ve got some new plays? I don’t need to write anything down. I’ll help everybody else in the room and help the younger kids.’ Now I’m the younger kid. I’m looking up to some of these older guys who have been around the league forever and they are super cool and have helped us a lot.

“I know this is a job now,” Coney added. “Guys aren’t here on scholarship. You can get paid doing this and so you’ve got to take it as seriously as you can. This is what you do. I mean, this is fun and I love it. But it’s real now.”

Coney’s next chance to make an impression will be Friday’s preseason game against the Edmonton Eskimos. Newcomers don’t traditionally get a ton of opportunity in the preseason and Coney is among a collection of import receivers behind returnees Darvin Adams, Adarius Bowman, Weston Dressler and Ryan Lankford that includes Myles White, Corey Washington, Kenbrell Thompkins, Donteea Dye, Charles Nelson and Rueben Randle.

That’s a lot of bodies and very few opportunities.

Worrying about that is beyond Coney’s control. And so again, he’ll just keep studying his playbook and punch the clock again tomorrow, Wednesday and Thursday and then cross his fingers he does something to stand out Friday night.

“I’m having a great time out here running around, having fun and competing,” he said. “Everybody wants to go pro. You hear the game is faster… but getting up here and still being able to make plays, that’s a great feeling. It makes me want to go harder. You want to get in the playbook more and know where you’ve got to be.

“This whole experience has been absolutely a blast. My first time in Canada was for mini-camp and I’ve been loving every minute of it since then.”

BOMBERS TRAINING CAMP | DAY 9

FYI:

The Bombers scaled back the pace in the second half of Monday’s practice session, turning their attention to a special teams walk-through. Head coach Mike O’Shea indicated that was part of the plan leading up to Friday’s game, but the decision was also made after a conversation with head athletic therapist Al Couture and the players.

The coaching staff, after all, wants to ensure the players are fresh and relatively injury-free before Friday’s evaluation under the bright lights.

LISTEN UP:

O’Shea was asked Monday to comment on the ‘Jekyll and Hyde’ secondary from a year ago, a unit that forced a lot of turnovers, but was also occasionally vulnerable to busts. His answer reconfirmed that the entire defence was under the microscope over the winter, not just the defensive backfield.

“In the offseason, we tried to look at every aspect instead of just saying, ‘This is the reason why it happened,’” said O’Shea. “We did spend time analyzing the season as we do in all three phases. But we didn’t spend a lot of time dwelling on, ‘This is THE reason why…’ We looked at some of the reasons, but we also looked at the entirety of the defence. We validated everything we do and you run through it to make it better. We didn’t stand pat on anything.”

STANDING OUT:

WR Corey Washington, QB Alex Ross, DB Anthony Gaitor, DB Brian Walker, LB Jovan Santos-Knox, S Derek Jones, WR Ryan Lankford, DB Jacob Firlotte, OL Jermarcus Hardrick.

PRACTICE VS. PERFORMANCE:

O’Shea offered this when asked to measure the work a player does in practice against what he might – or might not – do on game night.

“It’s all part of it. I could never give a percentage of where it lies, but it’s all part of the evaluation. There are certainly ways to stand out in games. There are guys making plays in practice and if they can make them in a game it’s going to solidify the picture we have of them.

“I would put more stock in a game and guys making plays… the physicality comes out better. Obviously, we can’t show them the physicality needed in a training-camp setting, so that’s really one of the things I’m going to look for come game time.”

NEXT: Tuesday, May 29: Practice: 8:30 a.m.-12:15 p.m.