‘Dream come true’ for Riders’ Newsome to be in video game

Growing up everyone has a dream they hope will turn into reality.

For Roughriders’ defensive end Jonathan Newsome, that was to play professional football. One of his greatest “I made it” moments was making the popular football video game Madden NFL.

Newsome had successful college careers at Ohio State and Ball State, which led him to be selected by the Colts in in the 2014 NFL entry draft.

He impressed early. In Newsome’s rookie year he led the team in sacks with 6.5 – also good enough for second in the entire NFL amongst rookies and he even stripped the legendary Peyton Manning of the ball.

He was released by the Colts after a bit of a sophomore slump and some legal troubles after being caught with marijuana. The charges were eventually dropped, which was when the Roughriders gave him a shot.

But it was his great NFL start that got him in Madden to begin with. The surprising part for Newsome was when his friends sent him videos showing he was still in the recently released 2017 game.

“I think I’ll go get it now,” he said with a laugh. “I wasn’t going to play it this year, but I’m going to go get it now since I’m still on there.”

Newsome said to see himself in the game is a “dream come true.”

“When I was a little kid all we used to do is create your own player and then take him into a season and live out his little fantasy like it was really you,” the 25-year-old defensive end said. “Then one day you’re really on the game, you don’t (have) to go create yourself, they already did it for you. It’s surreal.”

As for if the real Newsome or video game version was better, Newsome had to think about it for a minute before responding.

“That’s a good question,” he smiled. “Guys are coming with me with some crazy stats off the video game. “

“But nah, I mean, me in real life of course.”