CFL.ca Staff
Most quarterbacks spend their offseason improving their conditioning or working on their throwing.
The objective was to teach Lulay how to protect his right throwing shoulder. The training also helped the BC Lions’ quarterback heal the mental scars from an injury that threatened to derail his CFL career.Part of Lulay’s training regime was learning how to fall when he was being tackled and the best way to tuck the ball away. He also practiced sliding and diving head first.Travis Lulay spent a lot of time falling down. Then getting back up again.
“Part of coming back from injury is re-learning some of the things you maybe take for granted, teaching the body not to be scared to 
fall,” said Lulay.
“A lot of what I was doing in the offseason was not just working on a physical level but working on a psychological level.”
This isn’t the first time Lions’ coach Jeff Tedford has shown quarterbacks the best way to hit the ground.
“This was a little bit more in depth as far as what he was getting done,” said the former CFL quarterback. “Just to make it second nature to him, where he could take the field knowing no matter what, he’s going to be fine.”
A lot of questions will swirl around Lulay when he leads the Lions against the Ottawa REDBLACKS Saturday at TD Place. Has the shoulder healed completely? How much punishment can it stand? Can Lulay return to being the player who was named MOP and Grey Cup MVP in 2011?
All good questions. And ones Lulay has quietly asked himself.
Physically Lulay “feels good.” The biggest test for the 31-year-old might be how mentally prepared he is to take the pounding necessary.
“There is a mental component that plays a part of that, no question,” he said. “I feel like I’m in a position where I have become very mentally strong because of some of the stuff I have been through.”
Lulay suffered a partial dislocation of his shoulder in a Sept. 15, 2013 win over Montreal. He missed the final seven weeks of the season but returned to play in a playoff loss to Saskatchewan.
That November Lulay underwent surgery to strengthen ligaments in the shoulder. He came to training camp last spring but started the season on the six-game injured list.
Lulay got his first taste of playing again in an Aug. 17 game against Toronto, then started Sept. 5 in Ottawa. Late in that game — played in rain and delayed by lightning — Lulay scrambled to recover a fumble and re-injured his shoulder, ending his season and putting his career at a cross roads.
“I wouldn’t say there were doubts, but there were concerns,” Lulay said. “Right after it happened, it was an emotional time.”
“Any time those thoughts would creep in (about his career being over) I would be proactive about fighting them away.”
During his first three seasons in Vancouver Lulay showed he could put a light touch on a pass and lay a heavy hit when he scrambled. Big and strong, he wasn’t afraid to pull the ball down and run.
“There is a mental component that plays a part of that, no question. I feel like I’m in a position where I have become very mentally strong because of some of the stuff I have been through.”
Travis Lulay
That combination made Lulay dangerous to defend but also put him at risk to be injured. It was a gamble Lulay was willing to take, until he played the wrong card. The injury in the Montreal game came when he lowered his shoulder and tried to run over a player instead of simply stepping out of bounds.”
“People have asked me if I could go back would I lower my shoulder,” said Lulay. “I had taken a lot of worse hits before. That just happened to be the wrong one.”
Improving Lulay’s survival instincts go beyond simply teaching him how to fall down better. Tedford doesn’t want Lulay to lose the aggressive nature that made him one of the league’s best quarterbacks, just harness it some.
“You don’t run over somebody,” Tedford said. “You slide instead of running over somebody.
“That’s not a huge transition from what a quarterback typically does. He may have done that in his younger days but he can’t afford to do that anymore.”
Some players are hardwired to play a certain way. Start messing with that wiring and you can cause a short circuit.
Khari Jones, the B.C.’s receivers coach and a former quarterback, said smart players evolve.
“There’s always tinkering with a quarterback,” said Jones. “If it goes too far from who you are and what got you there, I think it can be an issue.”
“I think the things Coach Tedford is giving to Travis are only going to help him and prolong his career and hopefully make him a more effective quarterback.”
Mobility is one of Lulay’s strengths. The threat of running is one of his biggest weapons.
“That part of the game can’t disappear,” Lulay said. “I do understand I have to be smart, I have to be in control.”
“I think I can be an effective runner without being reckless. That’s been one of my strengths. If it’s the fourth quarter of a playoff game, and I have to make a play, I’m going to make a play.”
If the Lions hope to make the playoffs they need Lulay to stay healthy. That mean’s getting through the first game of the season, then the next one and the one after that.
Lulay laughs at the irony that his first game back will be in the same stadium where his season ended last year.
“Hopefully it has a different feeling walking out of Ottawa than it did a year ago,” he said. “I kind of chuckled when I saw that was going to be our first game.
“It a chance to kind of overcome some demons, of what felt like a bad dream that game.”
This season has already been a nightmare for quarterbacks. Lulay was one of the people who tweeted his best wishes to Darian Durant when the Saskatchewan quarterback was lost for the year with a ruptured Achilles.
Other quarterbacks injured in the first week of play included Edmonton’s Mike Reilly and Montreal’s Jonathan Crompton and Dan LeFevour.
Lulay has learned from experience what it’s like to be knocked down. He also understands what it means to get back on his feet again.
“Nothing is guaranteed about this game,” he said. “For me to have another opportunity, I just want to take advantage of it every way I can.”