Adam Bighill isn’t the type to make rash or ill-informed decisions. He doesn’t do ad-lib or off-the-cuff, especially as it relates to his football career.
And so when the veteran middle linebacker decided to put his name on a new three-year contract with the Winnipeg Blue Bombers today – we’ll allow for a moment here as fans finish up with their ‘Hallelujahs!’ – it concluded what had been a deliberate process.
There were the financial particulars to consider, as always. And of course, there was the pull of the West Coast, where he and his wife Kristina grew up and where he first established himself as a ferocious defensive force with the B.C. Lions. But Bighill’s first season with the Bombers in 2018 left such a lasting impression on him that the importance of ‘fit’ became a powerful pull when he put pen to paper on a new deal.
“Winnipeg’s been a great fit,” Bighill said in a conversation with bluebombers.com. “I come from a small town in Washington – Montesano. It’s about farming and logging and the economic landscape is very much blue collar. I found Winnipeg to be very much the same. There are a lot of people there who take pride in working extremely hard.
“As for the team itself… a team led by Coach O’Shea is, to me, the foundation you want for your team. The locker room we had last year, I know it’s not going to be the same this year, but it was so much fun. The amount of work guys put in was awesome. I really cherished last season. The people in Winnipeg were so welcoming to me and my family. We want to get more involved and keep building our life there.”
That’s an important take, not just because it should make Winnipeggers, and by extension Bomber fans, feel good about the impression they made on the Bighills in 2018. Let’s remember, Bighill didn’t come aboard until May, parachuted in not long after his release from the New Orleans Saints and just days before the opening of training camp. His arrival had a marriage-of-convenience feel to it back then – the Bombers filling a massive hole on their defensive depth chart; Bighill simply needing a place to play at a time when CFL teams were already tight to the salary cap.
What happened over the next six months is well documented by now. Bighill brought a presence to the Bombers defence en route to being named the Canadian Football League’s Most Outstanding Defensive Player. But while his addition might have felt temporary even at season’s end – he hinted after the season that the pull of the West coast would be a factor in his decision – it’s certainly permanent now.
Just to further hammer that home: Bighill will be living in Winnipeg year-round now, working with Wellington-Altus Private Wealth.
“You know, coming from the NFL to a new team I wasn’t sure what to expect,” said Bighill. “Of course, there were some known variables… I had some experience playing with guys like Andrew Harris, Chandler Fenner, Jermarcus Hardrick, Anthony Gaitor, Craig Roh. I was able to talk to them and get a feel for what the club was all about.
“Plus, my relationship with Coach O’Shea goes back to my rookie year in the CFL. I’ve always had a lot of respect for him and had heard great things about how he coached and handled his team. And when I was in B.C. Winnipeg was starting to trend and you could tell the culture had changed. Add that in with the fan base in Winnipeg and it was an easy and a good decision for me to make.”
“Taking that into Year 2 now,” Bighill continued, “we had a lot of success last year as a team, I had a lot of fun. Sometimes you want to gauge what kind of interest might be out there (in free agency), but at the same time you also know what you have. I was comfortable with Winnipeg. Our family loved Winnipeg. We loved our experience. We loved the fan base. We just had such a great time. For all those reasons it made it easier to want to come back.”
Bighill said contract discussions between his camp and the club started to crank up once the calendar turned to 2019, and that once Bombers GM Kyle Walters made his initial offer it “ended up being pretty easy negotiating.”
As for the uncertainty regarding the expiration of the collective-bargaining agreement and the notion star CFL players would wait until a new deal is ratified, Bighill offered this:
“I have faith we’re going to get a deal done. I don’t think waiting necessarily until a deal is done to sign is going to change my contract drastically. So, I just felt like there was no real need to go through the waiting process.”
Finally, there’s also another factor at play here for Bighill – his legacy. It’s a word the 30-year-old, five-time CFL all-star mentions occasionally, and it’s a topic of conversation the future hall of famer has had with another hall of famer for which he has so much respect – O’Shea.
“There’s just so much more for me to accomplish,” said Bighill. “I was talking to Coach O’Shea about legacy because he’s heard me mention it before. We had a conversation about that, and at the end of the day, legacy is about a consistency of what you are willing to do today. That’s what creates your legacy. It happens over a long time frame. I’m willing to put in that work every single day. That’s why I’m still playing the game and why I’m excited to be back with the Bombers to continue this with my next chapter.
“I don’t have eight-nine more years to play football. I’m trying to win a championship now and this team is obviously very, very close. We’ve done a lot of special things, but it’s time to build on last year and bring the Cup home to Winnipeg. That’s all that matters, that’s all that we focus on and with what we did last year, I know we can build on that in a hurry from Game 1 all the way through the season.”
