REGINA \u2014 With the way things have gone for Saskatchewan Roughriders’ offensive lineman Jacob Brammer in his short Canadian Football League career, it would stand to reason he was a highly sought after recruit courted by powerhouse schools when he came out of high school.<\/p>\n
But as incredible as it may seem, the six-foot-four, 301-pound right guard didn\u2019t get a lot of national interest coming out of Foster High School in Richmond, Texas. And as it turns out, that situation played a large role in turning Brammer into the player he is today.<\/p>\n
The All-CFL\u00a0blocker\u00a0joined The SportsCage\u00a0to talk about his first season with the Riders and being a part of the Grey Cup tour currently working its way through Saskatchewan. One of the topics of discussion was his path to the CFL, which saw Brammer spend\u00a0five years at the University of North Texas before playing his final season with the Vanderbilt Commodores.<\/p>\n
After taking on the likes of Alabama, Georgia and the rest of the SEC in the 2022 campaign, the NFL came calling as Brammer attended rookie mini-camps with the Miami Dolphins and New York Giants. After failing to catch on there, he went through \u2018some of the toughest times of my career\u2019 in the ensuing months before signing with the Roughriders on December\u00a022, 2023.<\/p>\n
Brammer often talks about his post NFL struggles during his Grey Cup tour presentations, and that comes with advice on how to work through difficult times.<\/p>\n
\u201cI always had this dream of playing in the NFL, and it was tough when it didn\u2019t happen,\u201d Brammer said. \u201cI tell them to rely on their support system, everyone is going to go through tough times, it\u2019s a matter of being able to pick yourself up, knock off the dust and keep going.\u201d<\/p>\n
That feeling, combined with getting overlooked by major schools after high school, played a big role in turning Brammer into the kind of player he is today.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve had that chip on my shoulder and kept it with me going through my career,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
That\u00a0attitude fit the Saskatchewan Roughriders to a tee, something Brammer got a feel for right from the first meetings with head coach Corey Mace after signing with the team.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u00a0starts with Mace and our whole coaching staff,\u201d he said. \u201cThey\u00a0instill that chip on our shoulder attitude about everyone. It was talked about to me when I got there, about how we came from all these different places,\u00a0different backgrounds and stuff like that, but we\u2019re all here with one goal in mind.”<\/p>\n
\u201cPlaying next to our offensive line and our whole team, we had a bunch of guys who push everyone to be better every day. Playing next to Logan Ferland and Jermarcus Hardrick, they show up to work every day and it\u2019s like a brotherhood on our offensive line. Everyone is pushing everyone else to be better and they make it easy to show up to work every day.\u201d<\/p>\n
All that work and effort among like-minded individuals fosters another feeling important for a championship winning team \u2014 camaraderie. And\u00a0talk to any member of the 2025 Grey Cup champs, that\u2019s something that quickly comes to the forefront,\u00a0how close the Roughriders were as individuals last season.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese past two seasons have felt like a college team,\u201d Brammer said. \u201cWe\u2019re always looking to hang with each other, whether it\u2019s post practice or days off. I lived with Logan during the season, and not only for the offensive line, he had a free invite for anyone to come over. He\u2019d put together a couple briskets on the smoker, get some ribs and wings going as well, then it\u2019s\u00a0a potluck. It\u2019s been a great experience for me and that was a big thing when I did re-sign. I love the guys, the team we have, the coaches we have, everything feels like a brotherhood from the top down.\u201d<\/p>\n
That\u2019s also part of the message Brammer has been delivering on his tour stops. Two of those saw him make the trip to James Smith Cree Nation and then Prince Albert, and having a chance to interact with the fans helped solidify how important the Riders are to the province.<\/p>\n
\u201cI get to tell my story, but it\u2019s cool\u00a0you get to hear everyone else\u2019s background. All the teachers, even family members and everything that showed up for it, to see how much it means to the province itself,\u201d Brammer said. \u201cBeing around P.A., we were in a Co-op and I probably heard from 20 to 25 different people about what it meant to them.”<\/p>\n
“Hearing their story and what the Riders mean, what the Grey Cup means to this province, it\u00a0shines a light in my eye on how special this is.\u201d<\/p>\n
In fact, it all reminds him more than a little about back home.<\/p>\n
\u201cComing from the States, I didn\u2019t know a lot about the Grey Cup, but in my two seasons up here I\u2019ve learned a lot about it. I grew up in Texas and people love football up here as much as they love it in Texas,\u201d Brammer said. \u201cIt\u2019s\u00a0a home away from home feeling for me and I know how much people like football back home.\u201d<\/p>\n
Before long it\u2019ll be time to get things going for the 2026 campaign and defending the\u00a0title. There are more than a few new faces around the team, and the message to them will be the same as it was when Brammer first set foot in Mosaic Stadium.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not about thinking so far ahead, we\u2019re trying to go 1-0 every week,\u201d he said, echoing the season-long mantra from 2025. \u201cOur leaders do a really good job about us as a whole team not thinking too far ahead. We do a pretty good job staying just focused on the week at hand and\u00a0taking it one step at a time.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"REGINA \u2014 With the way things have gone for Saskatchewan Roughriders’ offensive lineman Jacob Brammer in his short…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":507984,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[437],"tags":[3878,49,48,521,522,520,3290,4398,27684,27683,1893,4401,27682,4400,4399,82],"class_list":["post-510259","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cfl","tag-agriculture","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-canadian-football-league","tag-canadianfootballleague","tag-cfl","tag-contests","tag-country-music","tag-gx94","tag-manitoba-news","tag-radio","tag-rider-radio","tag-saskatchewan-news","tag-saskatchewan-roughriders","tag-saskatchewan-sports","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/510259","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=510259"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/510259\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/507984"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=510259"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=510259"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=510259"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}