In the past 24 hours, Matt Betts was named Canada’s male student-athlete of the year, was drafted No. 3 overall by the Edmonton Eskimos in the CFL Draft and had his first practice as a Bear at rookie minicamp.
It’s unlikely any of the other Bears rookies knew about the accolades Betts received back home.
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Betts sat in meetings Thursday night during the CFL Draft. He got on the bus back to the hotel and saw text messages about the pick, but his focus is on the Bears.
“It’s a weird feeling because you worked so hard to get there and you don’t get to appreciate it, but for me I’m right where my feet are is to be the best Bear I can and to be able to do well in this camp,” he said.
It’s a rare and challenging transition from college ball in Canada to the NFL, but Betts has played the sport since he was 7 years old, so it’s not new to him. His dad brought him to a high school state championship game when he was young to introduce him to the sport, and then he played for the LaSalle Warriors in his hometown, working his way up to Laval University in Quebec City, where he starred.
Betts was the defensive player of the year in high school when Glen Constantin, Laval’s head coach, spoke at a banquet and met his future defensive end.
“Obviously this guy’s been the poster child. He’s always the best player whatever league he played,” Constantin told The Athletic. “… At the University, he comes here, it was supposed to be harder for him, and then he became rookie of the year in the country and he won lineman of the year the next three years.”
In his college career, Betts had 33.5 sacks, the most ever in his conference. He helped lead Laval to a national championship, then prepped for the East-West Shrine game and his Pro Day, and still put up a perfect 4.33 GPA.
“He’s a superstar at our level in Canada,” Constantin said. “He’s as good as it gets as we’ve seen at our level. But what impresses me as a person is he’s a very humble person. He’s a very classy, humble guy. He’s a great individual.”
For Laval, Betts played strong-side defensive end, where he “saw every type of protection imaginable,” Constantin said, as opponents would use tight ends, extra tackles and fullbacks to try and slow him down. With the Bears, he’ll have to adjust to being a 3-4 outside linebacker. Constantin said they started moving Betts around to the second level a bit, both inside and outside, but they didn’t want to “waste” him in coverage too often considering the impact he made rushing the passer.
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“He’s got tremendous pass-rush skills. He’s got a very good take-off. He’s very explosive,” Constantin said. “But what sets him apart more than anything else is that he’s relentless. When you see him run around, it’s not an act. From the first play to the last play, this guy’s playing. You watch film, you’d think there are two different speeds, showing the rest of the guys and then there’s him. It goes from the first play to the last play. It was like that for his whole career. He’s just a dominant, relentless player.”
Granted, the competition is well below what most draftable players face, but the highlight tape for Betts is pretty ridiculous.
From a rules perspective, the big change for Betts will be no longer needing to line up a yard off the ball, which he called a plus.
“I think he can take advantage of it. It can help him speed-wise,” Constantin said. “His pursuit to the football will be that much easier because he won’t have to go as far. Canadian football, we have a yard between the ball and the defenders. I would like to think him being closer to the ball makes him that much more dangerous as a pass rusher.”
Betts also won’t have to worry about double-teams for a while.
“I got that a lot back in college, so hopefully it won’t be as much up here,” he said. “It may free me up a little bit.”
After the season, Betts was focused on the NFL, not the CFL. He got into the Shrine Game, where he made a positive impression. Five teams, including the Bears, showed up in Quebec City for Betts’ Pro Day, where put up a time of 6.77 seconds in the three-cone drill, which would have ranked second among all edge players at the combine.
Constantin said that when players approach him with NFL ambitions, he sometimes has to “cut those conversations short because it just takes another level.” But Betts is “another type of kid.”
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“He’s got that skill set where I think he’s dominated in everything he did here,” Constantin said. “When we had the Under-19 world championship in Kuwait, he was measuring against those guys were going to the NCAA and all those Division I and he held his own very well. At the East-West Shrine Game, he can play with those guys.”
Betts had offers to play college football at Purdue, Buffalo, Nevada and Temple.
“He wasn’t just a Canadian kid,” Constantin said. “He was highly-recruited.”
“It was a really serious option,” Betts said about playing college football in the states. “I went through the recruiting process and Laval was the team that had the most attractive things for me. The coaching staff, the facilities, obviously my teammates that were there. I just think it was a good fit and for me to be able to be here right now is just in some ways it shows me that I made the right decision.”
Betts is hoping to follow in the footsteps of Antony Auclair, another Laval product who has been a tight end for the Buccaneers the past two seasons. That has led to a bunch of Bucs jerseys in the Montreal area, but Constantin said he already saw some Bears gear when taking a recruiting trip last weekend after Betts signed.
Multiple teams were interested in Betts after the draft, and he chose the Bears over the Cardinals, signing a contract with a $10,000 signing bonus. The depth chart at outside linebacker for the Bears offers opportunities to make the roster after the top three (Khalil Mack, Leonard Floyd, Aaron Lynch). Betts will have to work his way up to compete with Isaiah Irving and Kylie Fitts, along with fellow UDFA Chuck Harris (Buffalo). Special teams will be key, as Betts can show off the pursuit that made him a terror for opposing quarterbacks in Canada.
The Eskimos knew the risk when they drafted Betts on Thursday evening. They retain his rights if he returns to Canada.
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“There’s a lot of special qualities about him,” Edmonton’s head coach Jason Maas said, per the Edmonton Sun. “I don’t think there’s anything not to like about the guy.”
Betts’ first interview at rookie minicamp came in French with a reporter from Le Journal de Québec, before transitioning flawlessly to English to talk to a group of Chicago reporters. The transition from dominating college football in Canada to making an NFL roster will be a little more difficult than alternating languages, as Betts goes up against significantly better competition, but he was the best in Canada and the next step is to show he can compete here.
“Well (the NFL is) the best league. Until anyone else proves it any other way, that’s where I want to be,” he said. “The tradition here is second to none, so obviously the whole plan is to bring a championship back to Chicago. That’s the end goal.”
(Top photo: AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh)
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