http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/09/06/2392076/new-fame-wont-stall-wakes-drive.html Cam Wake is a freaking beast and a humble, driven guy.. What a recipe for success.. He is going to have an amazing career here with the Phins..
Easily one of my favorite players on this team. I remember evaluating him before we signed him and telling people here that he would address our need for a pass rusher/young OLB. Many here did the standard, "he hasn't proven anything yet" or "I'll wait until he does it in the NFL". But to me he was as near as you could get to a sure thing.
As I recall, the forum was about 50/50 on how good he would be for us when we signed him. I was always pretty positive, and you can bet your bottom dollar DJ was, and since Wake played in the CFL, the Padre was giddy as a school girl trying on her first training bra.
There's a reason sharks have dominated the seas for millions of years, and not the dry land Wake inhabits.
He was an easy projection, once he played 2 preseason games I made a thread that if he were to enter the draft that year with the tape that he had from those 2 preseason games for the GM's, where would he go?..I said top 15 first round draft pick..basically all you needed was 1 or 2 preseason games to know he belonged in a very big way..His canadian film was just outstanding from an athletic and measurables standpoint.. I think he is one of the most facinating stories the league has to offer..How did this incredibly talented football player get twisted up in his mind in college and become so unfocused?, how he fixed it with total dedication?, and the results once he did, its movie script sh%$.. I still don't think some folks get how good he is..I hear them taking shots at his run defense..which I think is very good.
He was one of a few players in the CFL that was so far ahead of all the competition it was hard not to think he would have good success in the transition to the NFL. People want to talk about Beastmode this and that with certain players, you should have seen Wake in the CFL, he re-wrote what Beastmode meant. Good on him, he talked about being humble, grateful, hardworking when he got here, it's awesome to see he is still like that. He's hungry for success on the field, not off the field.
I agree that Wake was an easy projection. That was why it irked me when people would do that standard, "I have to see it in the regular season" b.s. When people say stuff like that it's gotten to the point where I just hear, "I have no ability to evaluate players or know much about football, so I wait until after the fact to say anything".
Nothing so kind Rafi, more like "he is a CFL scrub!!" or "if he was good enough to play in the NFL he would have already been playing in the NFL not the CFL!" Weird dude, I suspect Cam is really tight with the dollars as a couple of years ago it was also brought up he still has the first pair of Michael Jordan's that he ever bought way back when, he won't be one of those dudes who retires and 2 yrs later is bankrupt.
The one thing I've learned about CFL to NFL players is, the guy has to be DOMINANT in the CFL to really have an impact in the NFL, not just make a roster, but to play well enough to make NFL fans say "year he can play", the guy to watch in 2012 is Solomin Elimimian, or Sole-E, he is a sort of Ray Lewis of the CFL, does everything you can ask of a linebacker at a really high level. Really good dude as well.
