Lions sign Harris County grad, NFL vet Derrius Brooks

The Columbus Lions are stuffing their stockings with players to prepare them for their 11th professional season and the inaugural one in the new National Arena League.

One of the most notable was signed in a press conference Wednesday afternoon.

Derrius Brooks, a local product who graduated from Harris County High School and has experience in both the National Football League and Canadian Football League, has been signed to the Lions’ 2017 roster.

Columbus begins play in the new National Arena League this year, their eleventh season as a franchise, coming off two consecutive league championships in the Professional Indoor Football League in 2015 and American Indoor Football last season.

Brooks, an elite defensive back, played at Western Kentucky prior to professional stints with Cincinnati, New Orleans, and Tampa Bay in the NFL, as well as Calgary, Saskatchewan, and Hamilton (Ont.) in the CFL.

“He just became available,” said Lions head coach Jason Gibson. “He reached out to me. I didn’t even know he was in town; I thought he was still in Canada. He just wants to play football.”

Brooks, who ran a 4.29 second 40-yard dash time at NFL Pro Day in 2012, will attempt to fill the void left by Damian Daniels, who retired as the all-time indoor football leader in interceptions.

“Nobody will be the caliber of Damian Daniels,” Gibson said. “But it’ll be good to get a player out there on the field who can physically match up with the receiver on the other side of the ball. We can teach him arena ball rules…but when you run a 4.2 (40-yard dash), no one’s running by him.

“We’re going to face one or two teams who have some fast guys. The good thing about that is we can stick him with those guys and eliminate them. It works in our favor because I didn’t expect to get him, and now I’ll have different personnel on the field that can adjust to what (other teams) have. For example, if you’re playing Columbus, you better have big DBs, because I’ll have big receivers. If you’re playing High Country, they have a bunch of burners at receiver, so you’ll need fast DBs.”

The Lions also brought back a key cog in their past two championship teams las week with the announcement of wide receiver Jarmon Fortson’s re-signing. Fortson, who was part of Carver High’s undefeated 2007 state championship team and played collegiately at Florida State and North Alabama, is currently second all-time in Lions franchise history in touchdown receptions with 62.

“Jarmon is an NFL receiver, not because I said so, but because people who played with him and against him have all said it,” Gibson said. “He’s the guy who should be in the NFL beside Jarvis Jones, and everyone knows it. He’s competitive. Jarmon competes in practice. All the teams in the (NAL) have superb athletes because the level of play is so much higher (than the AIF). The difference is going to be guys who love to play on top of that. Guys like Tom Brady, Brett Favre, they play at a high level because they love the game. Whether they’re getting $200 or $200 million, they want to play and compete. When you find guys like that, you’ll have a pretty good football team.”

A little over two months separate the Lions from the beginning of training camp. Their first game is at the Civic Center on March 17 when they host former perennial AFL power Jacksonville.

For Gibson, it’s business as usual heading into camp despite the anticipated higher level of play in the NAL.

“It doesn’t matter what league it is,” Gibson said. “Just like New England has the ‘Patriots Way,’ we have a system here in Columbus, how we run training camp, how we bring players in, what we do. I’ve got it down to a science. I know how many practices we need to have before the first game. I work off that same system. I may veer off it a little bit.

“We’ve never gone to camp saying we’re competing in the AIF or the PIFL or the SIFL. We’ve competed against us. We say that, the players buy into it, and the games are the easy part. We’re the Columbus Lions. We’ve been around 11 years for a reason.”

This story was originally published December 22, 2016 at 10:03 PM with the headline "Lions sign Harris County grad, NFL vet Derrius Brooks."