Former Los Angeles/St. Louis Rams RB Tre Mason has signed with the Saskatchewan Roughriders of the Canadian Football League.

It’s an intriguing development for Mason, a third-round pick for the Rams in the 2014 NFL Draft, who fell from grace following the Rams’ drafting of RB Todd Gurley in the 2015 NFL Draft.

Mason rushed for 765 yards in his rookie season in 2014 averaging more than 4 yards per rush. But after Gurley was selected with the 10th overall pick, Mason was pushed down the position depth chart for a season for which Gurley earned the AP Offensive Rookie of the Year and, well, did not handle it well.

In March 2016, Mason was arrested for resisting arrest, possession of cannabis, reckless driving and failure to register a motor vehicle, and taken to a hospital. A month later, a warrant for his arrest was issued after he failed to show up in court on those original charges. Then things got...strange. After missing organized team activities, we learned that the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Department was been called to Mason’s mother’s home five times in the four months after the arrest. After not showing up for training camp in the Rams’ first season back in Los Angeles, Mason was reportedly missing for nearly a week before turning up back at his mother’s house and then getting into a scrap for riding an unregistered ATV.

Suffice to say, it was a bunch of unnecessary drama for the young guy, and it was hard not to just want him to get right off the field.

At the time, his mother blamed his outbursts on concussions. In retrospect, it’s tough not to wonder if a culture that nearly pushed QB Nick Foles to retire and motivated S Lamarcus Joyner to talk to then-Head Coach Jeff Fisher about potentially retiring on a memorable scene on Hard Knocks was partly responsible for pushing Mason aside and creating a conduit for his instability in Florida.

So maybe this is the start of something good for Tre. He’s still just 24-years old, less than a year older than Gurley and even younger than backup Rams RB Malcolm Brown. Maybe now that he joins a Roughriders backfield that, perhaps ironically, includes former St. Louis Rams RB Zac Stacy, the running back Mason was drafted to replace, he’ll have a support system in place to help him make the most out of this opportunity.

Maybe this is just what Tre Mason needs.

Here’s hoping that’s exactly what it is.