Article content continued

A pending free agent this past off-season, the Eskimos ended up releasing Ceresna early following a tryout with the Giants in December that resulted in him signing a reserve/future contract.

“After I had a good season in the CFL, I was expecting to get a few NFL workout invites, but I wasn’t getting any calls,” Ceresna said. “Finally, the Giants reached out to me to work out.

“I went to the facility and gave it everything I had. I told myself, ‘No regrets.’ ”

After all, not a lot of players come out of Div. 3 schools to crack NFL rosters. The 2018 NFL season opened with only a dozen of them, out of the 1,696 players making up the league.

While Ceresna spent his freshman season playing with Southern Connecticut in Div. 2, he transferred to Div. 3 Cortland State, where he earned 14.5 sacks and 142 tackles in his final three seasons, which culminated in a deal with the New York Jets in 2016.

Unfortunately, just two weeks into training camp, a high ankle sprain saw him released ahead of the regular season.

“I think my past experience is going to help me. I have a good idea of how camp goes,” Ceresna said. “I’m just looking forward to getting on the field and start playing again. With camp you can control what you can control, you just have to put your best on the field.”

He’s not only big, but agile. Aside from his first attempt that didn’t go quite so well, the mammoth lineman put his signature on his sack attack by pulling off a celebratory cartwheel.