Replacing the league’s top receiver from the previous season is tough enough.
Replacing the league’s top receiver from each of the past two years at the same time should be even more difficult.
“You can’t replace those two in a sense,” veteran receiver Kenny Stafford said about the absence of slotbacks Brandon Zylstra, the CFL’s top receiver in 2017 who left for a tryout with the NFL’s Minnesota Vikings, and Adarius Bowman, who was released during the off-season after leading all CFL receivers in 2016.
“You can’t replace them because they are very good players, but we’re going to fill in the holes,” Stafford continued. “We have a group where you can’t just rely upon one person. We’re going to have to rely on everybody.”
Despite the losses of Zylstra and Bowman, the Eskimos’ receiving crew could be just as good – and maybe even better – than the one that put up almost 6,000 yards last year because returning wide receivers Derel Walker and Vidal Hazelton is joined by Edmonton’s supporting cast of international receivers like Duke Williams, Bryant Mitchell and Stafford.
“A lot of us are young,” Stafford said. “A lot of us have experience, too. You’ve got young guys who have experience, who played in playoff games, who played in big-time games and made big-time plays.”
“There’s a lot of great talent out here,” Walker agreed. “Hazelton was up for rookie-of-the-year with me (in 2015); we were going toe-to-toe that year. Kenny Stafford won a Grey Cup with me in ’15, and Duke Williams should have won rookie-of-the-year last year. He came out of nowhere and had a great season. Bryant Mitchell came into the league with me in ’15. Things didn’t work out for him that year, but he came back the next year and has been slowly building and being patient and continuing to work his craft.
“I’ve got a lot of respect for every one of my receivers out there because we’re coming to make a statement. We’ve got a lot of guys coming back in the same system, so I believe we’re going to be a lot more efficient this year – not to knock anything from last year, but you get guys with a little more experience into this playbook, and everything is just clicking a lot better than the year prior. It’s going to be a great year.”
The first chance to assess this year’s receivers is 3 p.m. Sunday when the Eskimos play a pre-season game against the Saskatchewan Roughriders at The Brick Field at Commonwealth Stadium.
The Eskimos have been in training camp for only one week, but they’ve been busy installing as much of their offensive and defensive schemes as they could in preparation for the game.
Head coach Jason Maas said he’s thankful for the depth the team has at receiver.
“The guys who have been here in the past are stepping up right now and taking more of a role in our offence, and that’s comforting,” he said.
Maas also pointed out that six-foot-three newcomer Juron Criner has played in this offence previously (15 games, including playoffs, with the Ottawa Redblacks over the past two seasons) and “some of the new guys are going to add another element once they learn the offence.”
“What’s gone on with our team over the last few years makes me not concerned at all simply because it’s felt like this every year,” Eskimos quarterback Mike Reilly said. “It just seems like every year when you think, ‘Man, that situation last year couldn’t possibly be any better,’ somehow it is better.”
Reilly recalled being worried when his first go-to receiver – former all-star Fred Stamps – didn’t fit into the plans of a new coaching staff in 2014, but Bowman stepped up and led the league with 112 catches and 1,456 yards.
Walker arrived in 2015 to form a dangerous tandem with Bowman on the boundary (short side of the field), with both players passing the 1,000-yard mark in 2015 and improving upon those numbers in ‘16, ranking 1-2 in the CFL.
“Then Derel left and went down to the NFL, and it was like, ‘Aw, man, how are you going to replace Derel?’ ” Reilly recalled thinking. “Then Zylstra came along, and it’s like, ‘OK, that’s how you do it! Zylstra’s amazing.’ ”
Zylstra’s performance last season offset an off-year from Bowman, who missed six games with injuries, while Walker spent the first half of the CFL season trying out for the NFL’s Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
“Then you realize what a talent you have with Vidal Hazleton and Duke,” Reilly pointed out. “Duke comes in, and it’s like, ‘Well, this is another rookie coming out of the blue making amazing plays.’ And then we had a time where Bryant Mitchell had to step in and play a lot, and he was playing incredibly well. And Kenny was back. He had played with us in 2015, so I already knew I had good chemistry with him and he was going to step in and play.”
Williams ran 50 yards after the catch for a 90-yard pass-and-run touchdown to tie the score in the fourth quarter of last year’s first pre-season game against the Calgary Stampeders.
“That was something I really needed to do,” Williams said. “I caught (the coaches’) eye a couple of times in practice. To catch their eye in a game really helped me separate from others for my position.”
The 25-year-old six-foot-three, 225-pound receiver finished the season with 46 catches for 715 yards (second-most on the team) and four TDs, but he approached this year’s training camp the same as he did last season.
“I’m fighting for a job and doing whatever I have to do to earn myself that spot,” Williams said. “Nothing has changed. Even though it’s Year 2 for me, I still treat it as if I don’t have a spot. I’m still competing for a job.”
Williams was bumped from the active roster late in the 2017 season after Walker rejoined the team and Bowman and Hazelton returned from injuries.
“I was a rookie,” he said. “I was mad at first, but at the end of the day, I still had a job. I was thankful for that, so I just took that to the chest. I don’t want that feeling anymore, so I’ve got to make the best of it and just enjoy this process and help us get to where we want to be.”
That would be the Grey Cup, which will be played in Edmonton on November 25th.
Walker also made a splash in his first pre-season game in 2015, making two catches for 99 yards, including the game-winning touchdown.
“It was a lot of learning,” he recalled about that first CFL training camp, “but I made a lot of great plays in that camp to get my name more known and to show them I could play some ball a little bit.”
He still had to wait six games before the Eskimos gave him a chance to play in the regular season.
“Sometimes, you’ve just got to be patient because other guys have been here putting in time,” said Walker. “Sometimes, things just fall in your favour. That year, things fell in my favour, and I got the opportunity to play my first game against Montreal, and everything has been going uphill since then.”
Bryant, 25, who caught 32 passes for 482 yards and three touchdowns over seven games in mid-season last year, has been waiting for his chance for three years. All he’s done during that time is catch almost every ball thrown his way.
Stafford, 28, has familiarity with Reilly after catching 47 passes for 732 yards and nine TDs during the 2015 season, but he believes that this Eskimos coaching staff doesn’t really know him yet, even though he caught 20 passes for 265 yards and two majors in five games last year.
“This coaching staff hasn’t seen me in training camp (before), so this is an opportunity for me to prove to them what type of player I am,” Stafford said. “Last year, I was in Winnipeg for training camp. The year before that, I was in Montreal. In 2015, some of these coaches were in Ottawa, so (the Eskimos coaches) haven’t even seen me up close.”