When he’s working, Dedrick Mills is the workhorse out of the backfield for the Calgary Stampeders.
After signing an extension Monday to stick with the team, he’ll be working for the Red and White through at least the 2025 CFL season.
And hopefully, Mills continues to put up similar results — and then some.
“We look forward to seeing Dedrick take the next step in his development as a premier back in our league,” said Stampeders GM/head coach Dave Dickenson, after re-signing Mills, who was set to become a free agent next month.
“I’m excited to re-sign with the Stamps and to be back in Calgary because of the relationships I’ve built and the continuous support from the coaches and my teammates which has pushed me as a player,” Mills said. “I’m excited about the opportunity to contribute to the team success as I feel like it’s going to be a great year.
“I look forward to my continued growth as a person and a player.”
Forward-thinking is definitely in the M.O. of the Stamps these days.
They have demanded improvement of themselves after back-to-back seasons amounting to just a combined 11 wins.
But Mills, now 28, has been among the bright spots of those campaigns.
He was especially solid for the Stamps when he was in the lineup in 2024 — his first as the team’s starter, after star Ka’Deem Carey was released in the previous off-season.
“Don’t force it,” said Dickenson, when asking Mills to be the club’s workhorse last spring. “Just keep being yourself and keep improving and keep running downhill on people.”
He did just that.
In his third season with the Stampeders, the 5-foot-10, 227-lb. Mills had 163 carries for 923 yards, as well as 31 catches for 327 yards. His ground efforts ranked second in the league with an average of 71.0 rushing yards per game — and Mills’ totals in rushing and receiving yards were both career highs.
But they could’ve amounted to bigger highs, since he played in just 13 of the team’s 18 games.
A personal matter took him away from the team in the summer, and Mills wasn’t in the lineup for all of the August games.
While his absence was never explained, Mills did suffer through a traumatic event in the weeks leading up to the 2024 campaign, when his best friend, Ronnie Adams, and cousin, RJ Merritt, died tragically in a car crash back home in Georgia.
“It tore me up,” said Mills, not long after the tragedy. “I couldn’t believe it at first until I got home. And when I flew back home and got around the family and stuff, it hit home.
“That kind of broke me down and tore me up for a little bit,” continued Mills. “But as long as I’ve got football, it always distracts from a lot of that stuff. So I kind of ignore it now, but I still think about it.”
In 33 career games since joining the Stampeders in 2022, the former NCAA Nebraska Cornhuskers star has rushed for 2,184 yards and seven touchdowns and made 65 receptions for 327 yards.
Only league-leader Brady Oliveira, with 1,353 for the Winnipeg Blue Bombers; BC Lions standout William Stanback, with 1,178; and Carey for the Toronto Argonauts, with 1,060, had more rushing yards than Mills last season — and each of them was in for at least 17 games.
It was thought Stanback might be among new recruits for the Stampeders with former teammate — and QB — Vernon Adams Jr. now in the Red and White fold.
But Mills fit the bill quite well in the Stamps backfield and has the much-deserved confidence of the coaching staff.
So it’s his job again for 2025.
And he’ll intend again to make the most of it — and then some — for the Stampeders.
“Most definitely,” Mills told Postmedia, during his best stretch last spring. “Once I get started and I get going, looking at the way the offensive line is blocking for me and knowing that every play is going to be like that, the momentum came and the momentum kept going.
“Just don’t stop until the end of the game.”
Stamps’ free agents-to-be
— *denotes national player
— ^denotes global player