‘Violent runner’ Shannon Brooks joins Kevin Brown in Edmonton Elks backfield

Running backs Kevin Brown and Shannon Brooks, the last men standing in the Edmonton Elks backfield, are the yin and yang of ball carriers.

Brown will make you miss, Brooks might make you wish you had.

“Well, he’s a violent runner,” head coach and GM Chris Jones said Monday, referring to Brooks. “I mean, it’s exactly what we saw on film. He’s not one of these track guys that’s going to go out there and run a 4.3 (40-yard dash), but when you hand him the football he’s playing as fast or faster than anybody on the field.

“He doesn’t mind contact. He can run through arm tackles and put you in second and manageable or second and short.”

He might actually put you in a cast.

“He’s more of a head-down bulldozer,” Brown said of his teammate. “A violent runner (who says) whoever is in my way is going to get it. Whether it’s a D lineman or safety, whatever, they are going to get the worst end of it.”

Brooks is a 26-year-old Canadian Football League rookie who played college ball in Minnesota and was most recently in the Indoor Football League. He grew up idolizing former National Football League back LaDainian Tomlinson, a dynamic, open-field runner.

“Then I heard of the dude named Marshawn Lynch. I studied his game,” Brooks said. “I love just running physical like that. And it’s been an instinct for me. I see someone in front of me, I’d rather run through him. I do want to add that I can make people miss, as well.”

With 144 rushing yards in the Elks’ two pre-season losses, Brooks made sure he didn’t miss out on an opportunity to join the incumbent Brown, who made a fabulous first impression. In just seven games last year, he racked up 486 yards on 74 carries. Though Brown didn’t play in the pre-season loss to Calgary, he re-staked his claim on the starter’s spot with 55 yards on just four carries against Winnipeg, in case anybody was of a mind to forget about him.

Following that game, the coaching staff cut four other running backs, so for now at least, the backfield and the ball belongs to Brown and Brooks — in that order.

“You’ve got to have a guy that you know is going to be there from week to week, but then you’ve got to have a close-out guy,” Jones said when asked how he likes to split up the backfield duties. “It’s just like baseball. You’ve got to have your starter, then you’ve got to have a guy that comes in when that guy is a little bit tired in the fourth, that’s got fresh legs, that is dying to get in there and touch the ball and that can secure the ball and get you the extra yard. So it’s a pretty good combination between those two.”

Brown and Brooks might be a tough combination for CFL defences to handle, given their divergent styles. Brown said his preferred approach is to run around an opponent.

“It’s like water. You just go with the flow. I feel that’s my style of running. It’s hard to break water. Water flows. It’s fluid.”

Both are happy to share the backfield and the ball this season.

“I’m a team player,” Brown said. “It’s not about me, it’s about the unity of the team. Having a guy like him, we will not miss a beat if I am in or out. We are all good on that side.”

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Said Brooks: “That is something I have always had in my heart. I love to see my teammates making great plays and when I get my opportunity, I do the best I can with it.”

The Elks’ season doesn’t start for another two weeks — Edmonton hosts Saskatchewan on June 11 at Commonwealth Stadium — and there will be plenty of time spent before that on fine-tuning the red zone offence, which sputtered yet again in the loss to Winnipeg. They marched the ball up and down the field, then settled for field goal attempts for much of the afternoon.

“That’s something that has kind of plagued us for awhile,” Jones said. “I mean, it’s 900 things, it’s not one thing. It’s not the quarterback. That’ll be the first thing everybody says. It’s not the quarterback. We played four of them (in two pre-season games). It’s taking a penalty, or having a drop, or we can’t line up and we have to rush the play.”

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