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Edmonton Eskimos maximizing new D-line coach's strengths

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As different as things look on the Edmonton Eskimos defensive line this year, new unit coach Demetrious Maxie is at least feeling back in familiar territory.

Following a 13-year career patrolling Canadian Football League D-lines from 1995-2007, the six-foot-three, 270-pound native of Shreveport, LA spent the past two seasons in Edmonton where he joined the coaching ranks and was put in charge of linebackers.

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But with Casey Creehan vacating his duties as defensive line coach over the off-season in order to become head coach at Arkansas’ Lyon College, Maxie moved up to the line of scrimmage.

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“He knows the spot and he’s a guy that played in the league for over 10 years,” Eskimos defensive co-ordinator Mike Benevides said. “You ask a lot of coaches that had him, they’d tell you that he was one of the best interior players they’ve ever coached. So he’s got a large curve that way that he can offer players.”

And it is being offered to a batch of fresh faces in training camp, following the off-season departures of Odell Willis, Marcus Howard, Phillip Hunt, John Chick, Da’Quan Bowers and the troubled Euclid Cummings – all of whom started games for the Eskimos last year.

In fact, perennial CFL all-star defensive tackle Almondo Sewell and second-year Canadian defensive end Kwaku Boateng are the only ones left over, so it’s kind of fitting to have a new coach for a new crew.

“Coach Maxie, he actually played the position on D-line,” Sewell said. “He’s showing me things right now I never used to look at and giving us a lot of freedom to make us play to our strengths and our abilities.

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“So I’m excited about that.”

Sunday’s pre-season opener against the Saskatchewan Roughriders at Commonwealth Stadium (3 p.m., TSN, 630 CHED) will mark the new group’s first test against opponents wearing different colours.

“When all those guys that you mentioned were here, the younger guys that we have played underneath them,” Maxie said. “Those things that they learned from those veteran players, and also me being an ex-CFL player, I understand what they have to go through in order to continue the tradition that we had over here the past two seasons.

“So the new, young guys that we have and the old veteran guys we have now, I think they work well as a group.”

Entering his eighth CFL season, Sewell is the most veteran of the bunch at 31, which just so happens to be the average age of all the other outgoing starters from last year.

All the D-linemen currently in camp average 24.5 years old.

“I think right now, they’re actually a little bit swifter and quicker because they are younger and they can move a little bit more, a lot of them,” Maxie said. “So we’re going to have fun with them.”

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Not that Maxie wasn’t enjoying his time with the linebacking corps, that is.

“I was fine with whatever position I was coaching as long as I was coaching with the Eskimos, whatever’s best for the program,” Maxie said. “It was Jason’s (Maas, head coach) decision to move me back down and work with the defensive line. He felt that I was the best fit to coach the group that we have.

“On the defensive line, every single play they’re always bumping heads, so it’s a more physical game playing up front than on the back end, as far as the secondary or the linebackers.”

There was a method to the madness, after all.

“Obviously, when we hired him two years ago and I brought him in as a linebackers coach, part of it was to help his growth as a coach overall because he was forced into the pass-coverage point of view and it helped him grow,” said Benevides, who had previously worked with Maxie with the B.C. Lions organization. “When I was a head coach, he came in as a guest coach for me, so I know Demetrius and I know what he’s going to bring to that.

“Guys are going to love him, he’s going to push them and keep them accountable and you’ll hear his bark on the field, which is important. I think it’s a good fit for him.”

Email: gmoddejonge@postmedia.com

On Twitter: @GerryModdejonge

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