BC Lions welcome The Breaux Show back to the CFL, with all-star cornerback ready to write new script

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It was 2021, and Delvin Breaux was done with football — at least consciously. He filed his retirement papers with the Canadian Football League and an award-studded, eight-year professional career was over.

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But the game that once lured him back from near-paralysis and near-death, the game he sacrificed so much to play, still had its tendrils in him.

I have kept working out. I have kept getting massages and treatment. He kept watching his former team, the Hamilton Tiger-Cats, and even joined them on the sidelines for their Gray Cup showdown with Winnipeg.

He wrote a book. He built up a clothing brand and started marketing his cannabis-infused muscle balm. He has spent as much quality time with his four-year-old son as he could.

But the game was still there, lingering in the back of his mind.

“(Retirement) was a no-brainer for me. I just wanted to take a mental break. I was mentally going through it,” said the 32-year-old, a two-time CFL all-star with the Ticats.

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“But I never stopped working out. That’s the craziest thing. I always kept up with my routine. I knew football was still here, but… it wasn’t at the forefront of my mind. I knew I never was gonna just be like done with it.

“Then I’m watching TV with my son, watching the games and I’m calling out routes from the couch. I’m like, ‘Oh, I still got it. …You know what? I’m gonna give it a chance.’ ”

NEXT GAME

saturday

Edmonton Elks vs. BC Lions

7 pm, BC Place Stadium. TV: TSN. Radio: AM 730.

Which brings us, and him, to the BC Lions.

On the morning of the first day of free agency in February, the Leos reached out. It was a signing that head coach and co-GM Rick Campbell said “came out of nowhere,” but even if Breaux had been out of football for two years the chance to add a cornerback with his shutdown pedigree was too good to miss.

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Breaux had spent his entire CFL career in Hamilton, with a three-year break in between with his hometown New Orleans Saints, and a move to BC was an unexpected one.

“I didn’t even know the BC Lions were on the radar. Toronto, Hamilton and Edmonton… those three teams wanted me,” said Breaux. “I’d never talked to BC, never heard from BC … opening day of free agency, I get a phone call from my agent: ‘Man, the BC Lions just threw an offer.’ I said, ‘Wait… what?’ It was so beautiful out there. I said yes. Whatever it is, let’s go. Make the right deal, I’m in.

“God showed me this was the year, this was the time, and this is the perfect team to be with.”

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Breaux has already written the book of his life — Unbreauxken: The Story Of Delvin Breaux — but will have to add another chapter to his remarkable tale. For those who aren’t familiar with it, a crib notes version:

• An abusive father had him contemplating suicide at age nine. The trauma and lessons he endured have made him an outspoken advocate for mental health.

• He broke his neck in a high school game, fracturing his C4/5/6 vertebrae. Doctors say he should have died on the field. But after 10 hours of surgery and a few months of rehab, he was walking, then running his way to a state title in track.

• He had a full-ride scholarship to Louisiana State, which they honored, but he was never medically cleared to play. Undaunted, he left school to play with the Louisiana Bayou-Vipers of the semipro Gridiron Developmental Football League, then on to the Arena Football League’s New Orleans Voodoo. The Ticats spotted him there.

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• After being named an all-star in his second year and playing in back-to-back Gray Cups, Breaux had 20 workouts lined up with National Football League teams before the Saints signed him to a three-year deal. He came back to the CFL in 2018.

When Campbell broke the news to defensive coordinator Ryan Phillips that they had signed Breaux, the former BC Lions corner immediately called up his one-time contemporary and long-time friend to talk.

“When I called him just to see where he was at mentally, he was definitely ready to go and he wanted to assure me that this was the right move to make,” said Phillips. “I trust him in his decision about him; he’s never led me astray. He assured me that he was gonna come in, in shape and ready to go.

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“I thought about it, and when I started putting the pieces together, he was too intriguing not to take the chance. It only made sense. To be able to have two premier corners, between him and Garry Peters, I felt like … he’s gonna put us in position to do some extravagant things that most teams won’t be able to, because they don’t have to guys like that .

“To me, he was the icing on the cake. We had the flour, we had the oven but were missing the sugar. Now he put that on there.”

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