The Eskimos hope they’ve caught lightning in a bottle with their recent trade acquisition of international running back/kick-returner Martese Jackson.
For that to happen, Jackson will have to be as elusive as an oncilla, pink hippo or right whale – three creatures rarely seen in the world.
The Esks are the only CFL team without a kick-return touchdown this season and rank last in the league with an average punt return of 6.9 yards and third-last in kickoff returns at 20.7 yards.
The dry spell actually runs a lot deeper – Edmonton’s last kick return for a major score came on Aug. 28, 2015, when Kendial Lawrence ran 64 yards with a punt return against the Toronto Argonauts. Lawrence also had the team’s last kickoff-return TD with a 96-yard runback against the Saskatchewan Roughriders on Oct. 19, 2014.
Jackson, 26, proved to be a natural when he ran two punts, and a missed field goal attempt back for touchdowns as a CFL rookie last year with the Argos. He’s only five-foot-five and 171 pounds, but the Eskimos greatest returner ever – Henry (Gizmo) Williams – was only five-foot-six.
“He’s electric,” Eskimos Head Coach Jason Maas said about Jackson. “He’s definitely got speed to burn. He’s a returner. He looks like a returner. He looks like the guys who’ve had success up here.
“He’s had a lot of success in a short amount of time,” Maas continued. “I just know when he touches the ball, good things generally happen.”
Offsetting Jackson’s exciting potential is his limited experience. He basically only became a kick-returner in the CFL last season.
After handling just 22 kickoff returns and zero punt returns during 17 games over a three-year college career at Florida Atlantic University (FAU), Jackson returned 108 punts, 89 kickoffs and four missed field goals during 27 games with Toronto over the last two seasons. He hasn’t taken a kick back to the house this year, but he did have a 70-yard punt return and a 47-yard kickoff return with the Argos.
He doesn’t have a preference between punt and kickoff returns.
“Both of them are the same, but it’s two different types of kicks,” said Jackson, whose strengths as a returner include “being patient, being able to stop and then explode” when he finds a gap. “A punt and kickoff are two different kicks, so you have to judge them and how it’s dropping is different.”
Jackson will make his Eskimos debut in Saturday’s 2 p.m. MDT contest against the RedBlacks at Ottawa’s TD Place Stadium. Both teams have 7-5 records. The Official Coors Light Watch Party is at On The Rocks.
“When we’ve played against him, he’s made us pay,” Maas said, recalling a 125-yard missed field goal return Jackson had against the Eskimos last fall. “I watch him play against every other team, and he seems to turn the field quite often. We’re excited to have him.”
Jackson, who said his big play against the Eskimos was his first time returning a missed field goal, has been mostly a running back since he started playing football at the age of five or six in Asheville, N.C. He rushed for more than 2,000 yards in high school, 1,000 yards during his only season at a community college and was the season-opening tailback in his first game at FAU in 2012, but never got another start with the Owls.
He was actually sitting at home on his couch in 2015, waiting for the phone to ring with another opportunity to play football, when the Eskimos scored their last kick-return TD.
Originally signed by the Winnipeg Blue Bombers in 2016, he was released long before training camp and then caught on with the Montreal Alouettes and spent that entire season on the Als’ practice roster. Released after a three-day mini-camp prior to training camp in 2017, he joined the Argos and played 15 games, finishing third in the CFL in total kick-return yards (2,214), including 52 kickoffs for 1,133 yards, 70 punts for 824 yards and four missed field goal returns for 257 yards.
His breakout performance of 339 total yards (148 punt-return yards and 191 kickoff-return yards) in his second CFL game ranks fourth all-time in league history.
“It was a great experience, a learning experience in my first time playing professional football,” Jackson said. “You’ve just got to persevere and keep working hard. That was my main thing.
“It was all worth it,” he added of his journey to the CFL. “I wouldn’t trade it for anything.”
Jackson, who was acquired by the Eskimos along with a conditional sixth-round draft pick in the 2020 CFL Draft for Edmonton’s third-round selection in 2019, also had 18 catches for 145 yards and a touchdown and had nine carries for 40 rushing yards last season and another five receptions for 29 yards and 14 rushes for 63 yards in limited opportunities on offence this year.
“He’s going to be a great addition to our team,” said Esks quarterback Mike Reilly. “He’s an athletic, dynamic guy who gives us a lot of opportunities on special teams, of course. As we’ve done in the past, we try to fit guys like that into the offence here and there and utilize them.”
Of course, a pessimist would ask why the Argos would give up on such a useful player?
“In professional sports, there’s a lot of times where you feel like you have the ability to play, but for whatever reason the situation with the team that you’re on is either not working for you, or it’s not working for them, or it’s just a combination of different factors,” Reilly explained. “It doesn’t mean that you’re not a good enough player to play.
“I think that was the situation with Toronto. They knew he was a really good player but just didn’t have the right situation to have him out on the field. They wanted to give him an opportunity to play, but also get something in return so (the trade) was good for both teams.”
Roster changes
Besides adding Jackson to the roster for the Ottawa game, the Eskimos also activated fullback Pascal Lochard, defensive back Monshadrik (Money) Hunter and linebacker Blair Smith. Backup running backs Jordan Robinson and Shaquille Cooper along with backup defensive lineman Nick Usher were all shifted to the practice roster while backup safety Jordan Beaulieu was added to the one-game injured list.
The Eskimos, who are coming off their first wire-to-wire win over the Calgary Stampeders in 13 years – a thrilling 48-42 victory over the league-leaders – are also well-rested after enjoying a bye week as they start to gear up for a playoff run during their last six regular-season games.
“These are basically like playoff games,” said nickel back/strong-side linebacker Chris Edwards. “I want to win out. I want to go 6-0 these last six games because I know we can. We’ve got a talented team. We’ve got great coaches.”
“It’s a bit of a logjam in the West (Division standings), which is kind of how it always is, so these games are going to be extremely important,” Reilly said, “not just for playoff seeding, but first trying to get into the playoffs. Nobody is guaranteed anything. After that, it’s for seeding and to be playing your best football and carry that momentum into the post-season.
“It’s still a long way away, but each game you’re trying to build off, and each game is very important.”
Of course, the Eskimos would love to be able to catch the 10-2 Stampeders for first place, but they can’t worry about Calgary is doing.
“As long as we win out and we do our job, whatever they do, let the chips fall where they may,” Edwards said.
Eskimos coach honoured by Hall of Fame induction
Eskimos defensive backs coach Barron Miles said it was “a surreal feeling” to hear his name called during his induction into the Canadian Football Hall of Fame last week and to see his bust.
“I’ve very fortunate, and I’m happy for it,” said Miles, who blocked a CFL-record 13 kicks and tied former Eskimos defensive back Larry Highbaugh with 66 interceptions (second on the CFL’s all-time list) during his 12-year career with the Alouettes (1998-2004) and B.C. Lions (2005-09).
A six-time all-star and two-time Grey Cup champion as a player, Miles recorded his induction speech live on FaceTime on his iPhone for his brother Tony, who was listening in a hospital in New Jersey.
“It was live, and he got to see it,” Miles said. “It was a special moment for me. He listened to the whole speech until he tried to call me back. I told him he couldn’t talk, and he just had to listen.
“My brother was diagnosed with cancer,” Miles explained. “Right now, he’s just waiting for a bone marrow transplant. I knew he wanted to be there because he told me as soon as I got announced; I called him. He’s at most of the places that I’m playing football or have anything to do with football, so I know he would have been front row. He couldn’t make it, so I figured what’s the best thing I could do for him.”
Miles said his brother, the third-oldest sibling in his family, also played football.
“He was a big guy. He was like, ‘You’ve got to be biiiig to play football.’ So he always lifted weights. He took all my food and stuff like that. I was small. He played linebacker, but he was never in shape. He always got tired and got kicked out of the game, so I’m like, ‘You’ve got to continue to play if you want to dominate the game.’ He was a very good player, good athlete, but he lived his dream through me.”
Miles said he always did whatever he could to stay on the field and be productive and passes that attitude on to his players.
“Like I tell the guys now, make sure you’re doing enough so in the off-season when they start talking in those meetings, you make sure your name is not coming up because you did your job and you did what you’re supposed to do,” he said. “Every year, I’d play for that.”
The players were teasing Miles about his bust, but he wasn’t about to complain.
“I’m going to be happy with it,” he said. “But my fellow DBs gave me a hard time. It was like, ‘Coach, that doesn’t really look like you.’ They did good, and they did good with the goatee, I’m all right.”
This ‘n’ that
- The Eskimos have swept their season series with the RedBlacks in three of the last four years. Ottawa won both games in 2016.
- There’s been only eight kick-return touchdowns (six on punt returns) in the CFL this season, but four of them occurred last Saturday – the most ever recorded on one day in CFL history.
- Reilly has 11 rushing touchdowns this season – only three shy of Doug Flutie’s CFL record of 14 for a quarterback (1991, BC Lions). At his current pace, Reilly could also threaten Flutie’s combined pass/rush TD record by a QB of 56 (48 passing, eight rushing) set in 1994. Reilly has 37 TDs, including 26 passing touchdowns.
- Eskimos receiver D’haquille (Duke) Williams has caught a touchdown pass in four straight games and had 100-yard receiving performances each of the last three games and eight times overall this year.
- The 48 points the Eskimos scored against Calgary in the Labour Day Rematch contest is the most points they’ve scored in any game in 14 years. The 42 points they allowed is also the most they’ve surrendered in a game the Esks won in 18 years.