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“And you also notice more than anything when you don’t have it. And I don’t think our locker-room was nearly as close last year at any point as it is right now, so that should tell you something. I think that’s more what Whytey was talking about more than just an individual here or there.”

The Eskimos went 6-3 in the first half of 2018, following up with a 1-5 stretch on the way to a 9-9 finish to finish last in the West Division and miss the playoffs.

“I’ll tell you this, it may have been a guy here one week and another guy the next week,” Maas said. “It never stayed and it was always someone had an issue with something, it seemed like. Something wasn’t quite right.

“We really talked a lot this off-season about how do we get our team closer? How do we get them to think about one goal, one purpose, one direction, one force moving forward, always thinking about each other, playing for one another? And I just think this year, it’s already been started and it’s better than it’s been since I’ve been here, to be quite honest with you.”

Throughout training camp, how a player fit in was evaluated as their physical attributes.

“We’ve put a lot into that in two weeks, with a whole bunch of new guys, so obviously we’re harping on it, we’re expecting it out of them,” Maas said. “But I think it’s because we’ve brought a lot of really good guys into camp and those are the guys that we selected based on that, and how they played, to ultimately make up our roster.

“So I think that’s what you’re seeing, a team that gets it, that knows team chemistry is a real, viable thing. The Eskimo Way is a real viable thing and it’s more noticed when it’s not there than when it is, but I’m noticing right now because it is there.”