EDMONTON – Back for a vengeance.
The 2025 campaign wasn’t the season one Elks linebacker Nick Anderson envisioned it would be. Coming off a year in which the 26-year-old recorded one of the best rookie seasons in recent memory — leading the CFL in total tackles (116), finishing tied for first for defensive tackles (111), while being named All-CFL and the league’s Most Outstanding Rookie — its safe to say the expectations were high for the follow up.
Unfortunately for Anderson, the sophomore slump reared its head in the form of the injury bug. Anderson would only play in seven games last year, recording 41 tackles and a sack. Now healthy, the Vicksburg, Mississippi product is ready to show he can get back to being one of the elite players in the Canadian Football League. Anderson will be given every opportunity to earn the middle linebacker spot and show off the type of player he is on the field.
Off the field, Anderson stayed in Edmonton for the majority of the offseason, taking up a key coaching role with the EE Selects program and really cementing himself as a fixture in the Edmonton community.
GoElks.com sat down with Nick Anderson to discuss how his time in Edmonton has been for the first of many 2026 editions of Elks in the Offseason.
First of all, how’s your offseason going?
“The offseason has been great, man. It’s been a little adjustment, but it’s been great. It has definitely been an opportunity for me to have new experiences, an opportunity for me to be in a different environment at a different time of the year, but I definitely feel like it was a great decision for me to stay up here during off season.”
How did you handle the weather?
“The weather, honestly, I don’t feel like it has been as bad. Granted, while I was at home in November, I took the time to Chat GPT everything that I thought I would need. I ordered myself a nice winter coat, gloves and all the whole nine yards while I was at home. December had its cold days. January was pretty pleasant actually. It warmed up a little bit right now. The snowfall came back again in February, but it hasn’t been anything unbearable. It definitely makes me look at myself crazy for not staying last year, but it’s something to wear. As long as I’m a part of Double E, I don’t mind sticking around.”
For people who don’t know, you spent most of your time in Edmonton. Where is home for you and roughly how much time did you spend between the two places?
“Home for me is Vicksburg, Mississippi. Really a mix between Vicksburg, Mississippi and New Orleans, Louisiana. I was born and raised in Vicksburg and then spent my collegiate years and my first year as a pro in New Orleans. And so I call both cities home. When I’m not here, I’m at one of those cities. Whether I’m in New Orleans visiting extended family and friends, or at home visiting my intimate family and friends in Vicksburg.”
What does the day in the life of Nick Anderson look like right now?
“So right now I would say I wake up, alarm goes off at around 7:30 and then I’m out the bed taking whatever health supplements I need as far as any vitamins, pre-workout, creatine, all the good stuff for me to have a great workout. I eat breakfast and then transport myself to the Commonwealth for workouts. Workouts start at 9:00 am and any of the guys in town that jump in, we start with Danelle (Elks Strength and Conditioning Specialist) and she does a phenomenal job. She’s been doing a great job this offseason and so I work out with her for a couple hours and then after working out with her, I shower, get any rehab or post lift and training treatment that I need, then after that I go upstairs to the coach’s office and sit in on their meetings. I feel like that’s one of the great things about being here in the offseason. I’m able to see the other side of just being a player and an athlete. I’m able to see the way that the coaches game plan, the way that they are preparing for the season, the way that they’re scheming everything up that’s different from last year so that we can be even better this year. I thought that’s something that’s really going to help my game for this upcoming season. Then after that I finish with that, I go back home and relax for the rest of the day unless I have a community event or something else that I have to do.”
What do you like doing away from the training and the football side? How do you decompress in the offseason?
“My mind is always going. I’m spending time with friends or calling and checking up on my loved ones. A lot of my decompression has gone into reading. I picked up reading this offseason, just reading different books about life, about manhood, about finances, doing a lot of research on different things that could help my career, different companies that I could try to work with, different opportunities for myself outside of just football. I feel like that’s really what my life is. Always trying to find ways to make it better, to grow my opportunities, grow my experiences. And when I’m away from the X’s and O’s, I’m just looking at different avenues in my life and really trying to set up what’s to come after these next great years of my career.”
You’ve spent the bulk of your offseason Edmonton. How’s it been getting familiar with the city and the community and have you found any go to places in Edmonton?
“It’s been amazing, man. From the school visits to going and helping out during the holidays with the stocking stuffers, it’s just been great to really see how much of a community based organization we really are. It’s one of the things that you hear when you first come up here, but until you spend time doing those type of things, you don’t really have that pride for it and that full understanding of how much the community thrives off Edmonton Elks players being out there and being involved. So that’s just been one of the things that’s been a real blessing for myself, simply because that’s something that I’ve tried to do my entire career, going back all the way to high school, is just making myself available to always lend a helping hand or always distribute some kind of service to people outside of my sport. I feel being up here and having these opportunities to go out in the community, to go to schools and different things has been very positive for me. It’s something that I’m very passionate about, something that I enjoy doing. Every time my phone rings with another opportunity, I jump at it because it’s something that I genuinely love and get gratification from. I just love being able to go out and just be a positive force in the community and just be somebody greater than just a guy that’s out there making tackles and having a helmet on. Being able to show just how personable I am, how approachable I am, and just showing that my character speaks volumes rather than any statistic I can have on the football field.”
You were on the coaching staff for the EE selects this year. How was your first foray into coaching and what was that experience like?
“This was my first full experience when it came to coaching a group where I was able to set standards and really direct and lead. I enjoyed it. I’m going to miss the kids. They were part of the reason why I wanted to come back up here in the offseason, just to get that time to kind of internship in one of the avenues that I want to jump into after my playing career. To have that experience and be able to look at things from the coaching standpoint, I feel like it’s really going to help me as a player this upcoming season. Having that relationship with my own coaches, understanding that a lot goes into game planning, and how important it is as a player to retain the information that you’re being taught. I feel like the kids showed up each and every weekend ready to grow, ready to learn. They say that I did a lot for them, but they don’t know how much they did for me just having this experience to help with those guys this EE Selects season.”
Does that kind of experience kind of maybe help you appreciate your relationship with your defense coordinator JC Sherritt , who you got to work with very closely this year while you were recovering from injury?
Man, JC Is a great mentor. He’s one of those guys that is very humble, doesn’t really talk about his own career, regardless of how great it was. In fact, last night I was sitting there at the house and I got bored and I went on YouTube and just looked at some videos. JC was a baller. He has never shown us any clips. He has never really brought up his own playing career, but I just went and watched some of his interviews and just watched about how he talked about the impact that his coaches had on him as a professional athlete. I can see that it shows in how he approaches the workspace each and every day, trying to give us as much as he can, because he knows that he wouldn’t have gotten to the heights of his career without his defensive coordinator. He takes that same pride and that same attitude to him being a coach, to where his door is always open and he’s available and willing and ready to help me and the other linebackers and anybody in our defense reach the heights that we want to reach in our playing career.
Spending that time with him during the season kind of helped our relationship because it gave me the opportunity to understand more about him as a person and understand more about his resiliency — he had an injury during his career that he had to come back from. So, he’s done a lot for me. Just being able to watch him in the way that he approaches everything, and then even my experience being able to go do the EE Selects program and being in situations where I’m play calling and I’m making decisions based on the way that I watched him make decisions during the weeks that I was injured last season. I feel like this whole situation has given me a great opportunity myself to just be prepared for this year and everything to come. He’s a great guy, a great person, a great coach, and I’m excited to see what we both can do this season.”
The defense finished off last year pretty strong, and you’re looking like you’re ready to go. What’s the level of excitement going into next year? What do you think the ceiling is for this defense?
“I feel like the ceiling for this defense is winning a Grey Cup down the road in Calgary. I feel like that is the point of emphasis for this year. You look at the things that the front office has done as far as bringing guys like Cody back, bringing in offensive line help to make sure that he’s protected, and bringing him targets to make sure that he’s able to be successful this year. Even just talking to Cody, that’s one of his biggest inspirations and passions for this year, is being the quarterback that really gets Edmonton over the hump and back to the success that we’ve had for so many years. To just know that that’s being done on that side of the ball and to know that we have a defense coming back where so many guys are experienced, so many guys have been able to play last year and get the young jitters out of their system, and then just looking at the opportunity that’s ahead for myself.”
I was telling the guys yesterday in the group chat that we’re the vets now. We’re not the young guys anymore. And so, wherever this journey is about to go with the Edmonton Elks, we have the keys. We’re the older guys in the room and we’ve got to take that responsibility as an opportunity for us to write everything on the walls that we want it to be. Because it’s our legacy that we have to protect now. Not just the legacy of what’s been, but the legacy of what we’re trying to accomplish, the legacy of what we’re trying to do here with the Elks. That’s something that you just take pride in. You just take pride in it but it’s a hell of a responsibility because you have the opportunity to cement your future and become one of the greats that have worn the Green and Gold. And that’s one of the things that I’m really just challenging myself to do. I’m grateful for the opportunity that the organization has given me to just come in and really be Nick Anderson, not just the player, but the leader for this team and this organization and this city, and it’s something that I’m very excited for. I always say that team success brings individual success. So us winning a Grey Cup this year will trump any individual accolades that I’m able to get at any point in my career. If we can go out and we can accomplish that, especially with it being played down the road, then what else can you really ask for?”
Last question for you. Is anything that you have on your checklist you feel you have to get done before training camp?
“I feel like one of the things that I I have to do is my baby sister, she’s graduating in May. She’s not the last of the bunch, I have a baby brother that’s five, so he won’t be graduating for a long time. But I do want to go and spend some time with her, take her to dinner or just celebrate her a little bit, because that’s a great accomplishment. She’s such a hard worker, diligent, strong, and passionate individual. I just want to take a little time to really just show her how proud I am of her before the season starts, because I will miss her graduation because we start Training Camp before she graduates. I always try to take that time to give to my family. They come first after God and football, and so I try to take that time to spend with them. So that’s definitely on my to do list. Other than that, man, it’s been pretty cold up here, so I may go somewhere warm. For the most part I’m locked and loaded and ready to have this great redemption year, not only for myself, but for this organization. We can really show that last year was the building year, but now the cement has been laid, and now the foundation has been laid, and we’re ready to get this whole operation and organization back to the heights that it’s supposed and make sure that it stays there.”