Canada has slowly but surely become a hotbed for NFL talent in recent years.
Players like Chase Claypool, Neville Gallimore and N’Keal Harry have all seen success at the collegiate level and gone on to become early-round draft picks in just the last two years alone.
The 2021 NFL draft has its fair share of Canadian-born prospects, and perhaps none are as enticing as Minnesota cornerback Benjamin St-Juste.
A physically gifted defensive back with all the athletic and mental tools needed to succeed at the next level, St-Juste looks to use an impressive 2020 season and a red-hot performance at the Senior Bowl to propel himself into the top tier of cornerbacks in this year’s class.
Draft Wire had the chance to speak exclusively with St-Juste about his draft preparations, his unusual high school recruiting process, his role as a social and racial justice activist, and much more.
JI: You recently had the opportunity to compete at the Senior Bowl. What were you able to get out of that experience?
BSJ: A lot, to be honest. I’m super grateful to get the invite. I got it pretty late compared to the other guys, and I came in with the mindset that I wanted to get better throughout the whole week, working on my technique, working on details, compete with other guys. I knew that some of the best players in this class, in this draft were going to be there, so I had to compete every day to showcase my talent and come out on top as the best DB, so that was my mindset. I was able to gain a lot of knowledge from the Miami Dolphins’ staff and the Carolina Panthers’ staff. Just overall, it was a great event set up by Jim Nagy. I had a lot of fun at the same time as competing with other guys.
JI: You had a really good Senior Bowl performance. Is it a bit tougher for a defensive back to succeed with a lot of those 1-on-1 drills they had you running?
BSJ: Always. 1-on-1 is an offensive drill; it’s made for the quarterback and the wide receiver and tight ends. It’s not made for us to win, so if you win in 1-on-1s and you got a positive percentage in 1-on-1s, you’re a really good player, because that’s not how it’s going to look in the scrimmage or in the real-life game.
JI: Growing up and playing high school ball in Montreal, how is the recruiting different for Canadian players coming out of high school?
BSJ: We don’t get recruited at all, so if you want to get recruited, it’s way harder. You have to drive down to camps and prove yourself against American players. We don’t have [247Sports], Rivals, stars, all that stuff, so you have to come down here and prove to the coaches and the players. It’s way harder.
JI: Was there any adjustment from a rules standpoint for you once you made it to the States?
BSJ: No, not really. Maybe at quarterback, because in Canada, we have one more player – we have 12 players, and we have motions from receivers – maybe that will be a little bit harder at quarterback, but at my position, I was fine,
JI: There has been a decent uptick in Canadian prospects in recent years, right?
BSJ: Yeah, definitely, and that’s good because that’s representation for the younger generation. Back in my time, there weren’t too many Canadians playing D1, NCAA ball and going to the NFL. You see guys like me, Chase [Claypool], Chuba [Hubbard], and all those other guys going to the league or going D1, that creates some motivation for the younger generation. If they can make it, I can make it, too. That’s great.
JI: You appeared on CNN a few months ago lobbying for improved COVID protocols throughout the NCAA. What motivated you to play as big of a role in that movement as you did?
BSJ: It ended up with COVID, but we started that group organization based on the social and racial injustice that happened with Breonna Taylor and George Floyd, so we wanted to speak about that as student-athletes. We felt like we had a great platform. We can talk about football and sports all day, but we have a platform to talk about other things, like social and racial injustice.
It started with that, and we created some sort of movement so we could keep the conversation going and end it on student-athlete protection for the 2020 season. We wanted to make sure that we were going to be safe and make sure we were going to have a season. You saw how hard it was to play a season this year; so many games got cancelled, and teams didn’t show up because of COVID. We wanted to make sure that there was at least some sort of good protocol in place so we could have a decent season, and that was our goal.
JI: You’ve been vocal about racial injustice on social media, and now that you’re getting to the NFL, you’ll have an even bigger platform to speak up, right?
BSJ: Yeah, definitely. Football is one part of your life, but what you can do with football is what defines you. I wanted to use my platform as a football player, the same thing as going to the league, to create some positive change so they can remember me as Benjamin, the football player, but also, I did something great for the community, something great for my people, my culture. That’s why I wanted to do it: to do bigger than just sports.
JI: A big asset of your game is your long frame, at 6-3 with 80 1/4-inch arms. How does that help you when you’re out on the field?
BSJ: [It helps] a lot. I’m a very different corner from different corners in the draft class. With my wingspan and my height, there are certain plays that I can make that other corners can’t make. It’s a precision game – it’s super accurate between the receivers and the quarterback, so some of the throws can be coming in on a dime. If you don’t have arms [that are] long enough to make the play or bat down the ball, make the interception, those are the types of plays I make: red-zone, jump-balls, stuff like that. Those are the type of plays I can make that maybe a shorter corner who doesn’t have longer arms, they can’t make that play. It’s a little bit harder to connect on certain routes between a quarterback and a receiver when you have a corner who’s 6-3 with long arms like me.
JI: With that size advantage in mind, do you like play press more, or do you prefer dropping into off coverage?
BSJ: To be honest, I’m comfortable in both. A lot of people, they’d be surprised because they’re like, “Let’s attack him while he’s playing off”, and then they’re like, “Okay, he’s really quick, and he can play off coverage”. That’s the great thing about my game style is I’m versatile. Obviously, I’m more comfortable in press, and I feel like a lot of teams want to use me in press, but when it comes to off or zone coverage, I’m comfortable doing both.
JI: With your size and fluidity, I can imagine that’s hard to game-plan for if you’re an opposing coach.
BSJ: Yeah, definitely. A lot of teams, they’re like, “Let’s test his speed and see if we can get him on some double moves”, and it just doesn’t work. I react way too quickly, and I have all the skill-set to counter whatever they’ve got.
JI: Who’s the toughest receiver you’d ever had to guard?
BSJ: In high school, I remember when I went to the Nike Opening tournament in Oregon, I had to guard Jerry Jeudy. That was a tough task. He was a pretty good receiver, so we had some good battles. I would say in college, in 2019, K.J. Hamler was a pretty solid receiver I went up against, and then just my day-to-day competition with Rashod Bateman. Rashod’s a first-rounder, Big Ten receiver of the year in 2019. Iron sharpens iron, you know? He made me better, I made him better, and we went at it every day in practice.
JI: How do you like to spend your time outside of football?
BSJ: [I’m a] pretty chill guy. If I’m not working on the NCAA college athlete unity stuff, outside of doing community work, I’m just traveling, going back home, spending time with my girlfriend – she runs track at Georgia, so I’m trying to spend as much time with her – and trying to spend as much time with my family. I don’t see them often; they’re back home in Canada, and with the COVID restrictions, I haven’t seen them in a while.
JI: I was just about to ask if the travel restrictions have made it tougher to see them.
BSJ: Yeah, they haven’t been able to come see me since last March.
JI: Have you been able to come see them at all since then, or has it been completely shut down?
BSJ: Nah, it’s completely shut down. They got a curfew and everything. There was a little gap before Christmas this year that I could come home, so I was able to come home and see them, but I don’t know right now when’s the next time I’m going to see them.
JI: Let’s say I’m an NFL general manager. What would I be getting if I drafted you to my team?
BSJ: An extreme versatile player who’s a competitor that you can put anywhere on the field and get a great leader. I was the captain of my team for two years as soon as I transferred there. I can play – like I said earlier – off, I can play press, I played safety at the Senior Bowl, I can play on special teams. You get a full package. You can move me around the field, and [I’ll] just make plays all over the field.
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