Eskimos receivers finding their way
EDMONTON — Like many fans of the Edmonton Eskimos, Shamawd Chambers looks back at this season and wonders about what might have been.
“I think if you look at the last seven games, if you saw this Shamawd Chambers in the first nine, I’d be close to 800, 900 yards,” the secondyear receiver said Monday. “That would have been nice, to be effective for the first nine weeks, but I really wasn’t.
“I might as well have been on the nine-game (injured list). I had, like, 100 yards in nine games,” he said, using his eyelids to fidget with the thickness of his new monthlong contact lenses.
Through the first half of the Canadian Football League season, Chambers personified the notion of the sophomore slump. The Markham, Ont., product’s first catch of the season came in Week 5 against the Montreal Alouettes. He didn’t break the 100-yard mark — on the season — until the Labour Day rematch when he had a three-catch, 23-yard game against the Calgary Stampeders.
While Chambers was waiting for his fortunes to turn, Nate Coehoorn was piecing together a career year at wide receiver.
In his third year with the Eskimos, Coehoorn burst out of the gates and established himself within the team’s offence as it gelled with new quarterback Mike Reilly and under the direction of offensive coordinator Doug Sams. Born in Medicine Hat, Alta., and schooled with the University of Calgary Dinos, Coehoorn had 362 yards through Aug. 18. He signed a contract extension with the team on Aug. 20, but saw his numbers dip in the weeks that followed. Still, he’s had his best statistical season of his three in the CFL, with 48 catches for 617 yards.
The ups and downs will help both players in their careers, Eskimos head coach Kavis Reed said.
“Tremendous growth,” Reed said of what he’s seen in them this year. “They had a spike in terms of Shamawd started very slow and Nate started hot. (Later) Nate got into a little bit of a valley, but then picked himself back up. Shamawd picked himself back up and has continued to climb.
“That’s part of being a professional, finding a way to work yourself through successful things and also through difficult times and both have gone through difficult times and both have experienced good times and handled it very well. I think those guys professionally and personally have grown tremendously this year.”
Chambers has picked it up in the second half of the season, where he’s pulled in three of his four touchdowns and added 313 yards to his slow first half to bump his numbers up to 453 yards through 17 games, giving him 63 more yards than he got in his rookie season.
“It’s tough,” Chambers said. “It’s not about everyone else, it’s about your own expectations and I think any of my coaches can tell you that I take things very hard sometimes and that I’m my biggest critic.
“It’s important to be your own biggest critic, but it’s important to be able to bounce back from situations that don’t go the way that you want them to. Things sometimes don’t go the way that you want, but that’s why we have 70 plays (per game) and that’s why we have 18 games, to get them right.”