Rams’ Canadian Super Bowl champ Hoecht looking to turn late-season surge into third-year dominance

The story of Canadian Michael Hoecht, his road to a Super Bowl LVI championship with the Los Angeles Rams, and his late-season surge in 2022 is one that’s attributed to a handful of towns and two countries.

Hoecht was born in Oakville, Ont., a quiet suburb located outside on the outskirts of Toronto, where he spent the early years of his life before moving to one of the United States’ football-crazed hotbeds: Ohio.

"We moved down to a little town called Oakwood, Ohio, in 2001," recalled Hoecht in an interview with TSN. "Oakwood was one of those places where Friday night the entire town lights up for the high school varsity football team...Every Friday night, seeing those guys out there on the football field with the big lights, the band and cheerleaders, concession stand, season tickets – all for high school football. It was the coolest thing in the world."

While he adored the pageantry of American high school football then, the now 25-year-old outside linebacker’s history with football dates back to way before that.

"(I) fell in love with the game growing up playing elementary school and then junior high and then eventually getting into high school and that's where some of the movement took place," said Hoecht referencing what would be one of the many moves he would endure.

"My freshman year of high school, we moved to Ottawa and then my sophomore year we moved to Toronto. And then by the time we get to junior year, I'm back to Ohio and that's when I really get the experience of the Friday Night Lights Football... Through all the moves, I think the one thing that was always really consistent for me was the love for this game and a love for the sport of football. It didn't matter if I was in Southwest Ohio; if I was in Ottawa in the cold; or this big giant city of Toronto – it didn't really matter. Football was that consistent piece for me and I always really loved it."

Having spent time playing football on both sides of the border, Hoecht finds himself uniquely qualified to draw parallels and differences between the football cultures of the United States and his native Canada.

"It's fairly night and day," said Hoecht.  "When you play ball in the U.S., especially in high school, you grow up where games are Friday at seven o'clock and you're playing Friday Night Lights Football... The towns in the U.S. –

a lot of them – are built on this culture of the town comes out and supports everybody on Friday night. Whereas in Canada, it was a little different."

"If you play for your high school, maybe you play in some of the afternoons. It's still like good competitive football and it's still a good time. It was a different philosophy of like when you play and it's not necessarily built around Friday Night Lights." 

Following his highly decorated high school career where Hoecht starred as a two-sport athlete (basketball, football), serving as a captain in both sports and earning South Western Buckeye League Offensive Player of the Year in football and the SWBL Player of the Year in basketball, he attended Brown University – an Ivy League school in Providence, Rhode Island.

Hoecht played four seasons for the Bears (2016-19), serving as a team captain in the '18 and '19 seasons. He tallied 174 career tackles and 16.5 sacks over that time. Hoecht earned Second-Team All-Ivy League honours in his senior year for his team-leading four sacks. His 69 tackles were third on the team and 10th in the Ivy League.

While Ivy League schools are not seen as a traditional power in college football (SEC, ACC, BIG 12, BIG 10, PAC 12), Hoecht still believed that there was a path to the NFL for him.

"I don't think that there's ever a worry," said Hoecht on if he feared that an NFL team wouldn't find him at Brown. "If you go pretty much anywhere in the country for school, if you're good enough, NFL scouts will find you."

However, the NFL wasn't on Hoecht's radar since he believed that even playing college football was such a long shot to begin with. But the work he put in – on and off the football field – was starting to pay dividends, and as he details, that resulted in opportunities to play at the next level.

"I was starting to hear from potential agents or people that were kind of in my close circles that you know, 'You've got a shot at the NFL here if you really want it.' But you’ve kind of got to decide and put your eggs in that basket and go give it a shot and that's exactly what happened."

Hoecht was not selected in the 2020 NFL Draft. It was a draft class highlighted by LSU quarterback Joe Burrow and Ohio State edge rusher Chase Young, who were selected with the respective first and second overall picks.

Hoecht signed with the Rams as an undrafted free agent but was also selected by the Ottawa Redbacks with the 10th overall pick in the 2020 Canadian Football League Draft.

"I think it was," said Hoecht on if the CFL was ever in the cards for him. "I knew by that late junior, early senior year that football was going to be a part of my future and I wanted to keep playing for as long as I possibly could. Or until somebody told me that I couldn't anymore. I was hopeful that the NFL would work out but, you never really know what path is going to take you. What shots are available. So if the NFL hadn't worked out, there's a world where I'd be in Ottawa playing for the Redblacks. Thankfully, the Rams gave me an opportunity and they believed in me."

Hoecht was waived by the Rams in early September of 2020 during the Rams' final roster cuts. He was subsequently signed to the team's practice squad one day later. Hoecht later signed a reserve/futures contract with the Rams in January of 2021 and made the team's 53-man roster.

Hoecht played in all 17 regular season games for the Rams that season, starting three of them and recording seven tackles. He also made appearances for the Rams in all four of their postseason games, including the Super Bowl against the Cincinnati Bengals.

"Leading up to that game, I kind of got two different types of texts," Hoecht said with a chuckle. "I either got people from my hometown saying, 'Hey, man, rootin' for you. Good luck. So proud of you.' Or I got the, 'I've been a Bengals fan my entire life. Who Dey!'...I think it's one of those things that you know, when it when it's happening, it happens so quickly. And all of a sudden you blink and there's confetti flying and you got your family around. It happened so quickly and that's why I was sure to take lots of pictures and really try and remember as much as I could."

 As for the Super Bowl ring? It rarely sees the light of day.

“No, that thing is in a very safe place. Occasionally it comes out for special occasions, but for the most part, you kind of want to keep it safe."

While certainly not alone, Hoecht is one of the few Canadians playing in the NFL. He shares a passport and a connection to the same country of origin with Chicago Bears wide receiver Chase Claypool, Los Angeles Chargers wide receiver Joshua Palmer, Miami Dolphins safety Jevon Holland and even Rams teammate Alaric Jackson who hails from Windsor, Ont. And while an imaginary line in the ground separates his nationality from his American teammates', Hoecht says he is treated no differently.

"The NFL is really the truest meritocracy that there is. Where (if) you put out good film, you play well, that'll solve pretty much all the issues... I think there's very little stigma [around Canadian players]. I mean, the NFL –

because it's such a national sport, guys come from everywhere. We have guys from all parts of the country, all different levels of college football. We've got kids from overseas and from Canada. And I'm not even the only Canadian on the team...It's less about where you come from and more about where are we as a group going to go."

That's not to say that Hoecht doesn't play every snap with a sense of pride in his roots every Sunday.

"I'm obviously honoured to go out there every Sunday and if there's even one person who feels a little pride in the nation of Canada, that a kid from Oakville is playing on Sundays and running around out there. That obviously makes me feel pretty cool."

Standing 6-foot-4 and 310 pounds, Hoecht began the 2022 season as a defensive lineman but later transitioned to an outside linebacker. He played in 17 games during the 2022 campaign, starting six of them. He still remembers how he felt when he was told he would start for the first time.

"I think that I was more excited for my opportunity. And to be perfectly honest, I think there was so much to learn and so much work to do that I didn't even really have time to think about it too much. It was just kind of like, 'Hey, we need you to start and we need to like get you up to speed as fast as possible.'...They didn't really give me enough time to really overthink it and they just said, 'Go out there and do everything that you can do.'"

Fortunately for Hoecht, he shares a locker room with perennial Pro-Bowler and All-Pro defensive lineman Aaron Donald, who Hoecht has learned a thing or two from.

"He's the most athletic football player [to] ever play the game," said Hoecht of Donald. "There is no one who is that strong, that fast, that dominant. He sets the tempo for the defence, meaning he brings that mentality into every workout, every meeting, every practice. He's just like, the epitome of a lead-by-example guy."

Fresh off a Super Bowl win over the Bengals, Hoecht and the Rams endured a Super Bowl hangover. They finished second last in the NFC West with a record of 5-12 and were not able to make it back to the playoffs.

Though the team did not have the season they hoped for, Hoecht had a career year. He finished the season with career-highs in every statistical category. Looking forward to next season, the goal is finding his comfort level.

"I just want to be more comfortable running through the different patterns and movements that the outside linebacker position plays versus interior defensive line. Making sure that I really have as much time as possible to prepare for different looks and dropping into coverage is obviously something that is very new for me, so getting more comfortable with that. And even you know: individual goals, I think I'm less concerned with that and more concerned with like, what are we able to do as a defence?"

"I think we're all excited to be back out there, to be able to go try and win another championship because all of us, at the end of the day, we're competition junkies."