The Dolphins' Canada Connection
July 1 not only is Bobby Bonilla Day, that day when he gets his annual check from the New York Mets in the amount of $1.193 million (despite not having played baseball since 1999), but it's also Canada Day.
To mark the occasion, we thought it would be worthwhile to tie it to the Miami Dolphins with a look at those players who contributed to the team after making their way south from the Canadian Football League.
Of course, any such list would have to start with one Cameron Wake, who merely was the Dolphins' best player of the 2010s (by far) after a two-year stint with the British Columbia Lions.
Wake's story is well known by now, how we went to the CFL after going undrafted out of Penn State, where he was a linebacker going by the name of Derek Wake.
Well, the B.C. Lions made Wake a defensive end in the CFL and he recorded 38 sacks in two seasons, setting the stage for his brilliant NFL career.
Another big name who had a stint in the CFL and made an impact with the Dolphins is Ricky Williams, though his situation clearly was different.
Williams played the 2006 season with the Toronto Argonauts, but that came about because he was serving an NFL suspension in the middle of his nine-year career with the Dolphins.
Here are some others:
• Offensive lineman Mark Dixon — After playing for the Montreal Alouettes, Dixon was brought to Miami by Jimmy Johnson and he became the team's best offensive lineman of the late 1990s and early 2000s. Dixon started 60 of the 62 games he played from 1998-2002, and lined up at left tackle in 2002 when Williams led the NFL with 1,853 rushing yards.
• Kick returner Marcus Thigpen — After two failed attempts in the NFL at the start of his career, Thigpen went to play for the Saskatchewan Roughriders and the Hamilton Tiger-Cats and then joined the Dolphins. In his very first regular season game with the Dolphins in 2012, Thigpen returned a punt for a touchdown against the Houston Texans. Later that season, he added a kickoff return for another score. Thigpen ended up staying two seasons with the Dolphins and he bounced around several other NFL teams before returning to play in Canada in 2017. This past February, he signed to join the Toronto Argonauts.
• Linebacker Brendan Ayanbadejo — Like Thigpen, Ayanbadejo couldn't stick in the NFL at the start of his career, so he went to Canada and he played for the B.C. Lions before joining the Dolphins in 2003. He was mostly a special teams player in Miami, but had a big interception in the stunning Monday night victory against the New England Patriots in 2004. Ayanbadejo went on to earn three Pro Bowl invitations as a special-teamer with the Bears and Ravens, and was on Baltimore's Super Bowl championship team in his final NFL season in 2012.
• Safety Jake Scott — Scott left the University of Georgia after his junior year to go play professionally in the CFL in 1969, and the Dolphins selected him in the seventh round of the 1970 draft. Scott went on to become a Pro Bowl safety for the Dolphins, as well as the MVP of Super Bowl VII.
• Nose tackle Chuck Klingbeil — Like Thigpen, Klingbeil played for Saskatchewan before landing a job in the NFL and he started 65 games in five seasons with the Dolphins. His career highlight came in 1991 when he scored a touchdown on a fumble recovery against Green Bay to help Don Shula get his 300th career victory.
• Linebacker O.J. Brigance — Brigance played five seasons in the CFL, three with B.C. and two with the Baltimore Stallions experimented with having a couple of American franchises, before joining the Dolphins in 1995. Brigance was a two-time team captain as a special teamer for the Dolphins before he moved on to join the Baltimore Ravens, with whom he won the Super Bowl in 2000. Brigance has become well known in recent years for his battle with Lou Gehrig's Disease (ALS), for which he was diagnosed in 2007.
• Linebacker Sam Eguavoen — And we get to the present and Eguavoen, who came over to South Florida last year after three season with Saskatchewan. Eguavoen started six games for the Dolphins last year and finished second on the team in sacks with 3.5. We discussed his potential role for 2020 in a recent story.
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Alain Poupart (who was born in Montreal, Canada) has covered the Miami on a full-time basis since 1989. You can follow him on Twitter at @apoupartFins.
