Even at receiver, this guy is still Speedy B

June Jones doesn’t believe Brandon Banks will have to change his nickname any time soon.

“Usually you think guys will hit the wall but he looks as fast to me as he always has,” the Ticat head coach says of his 30-year-old leading receiver.

Ergo, keep calling him Speedy B.

Banks, who made his name in this town and this league mainly on his prodigious, and visually evocative, return game, has had a career correction under Jones, and has become the impact receiver he always wanted to be.

He did return punts last game, through a chain reaction to Richard Leonard’s injuries which put new returner Frankie Williams into the field-side halfback role and forced the Ticats to give him some breathers by spot-returning Banks.

Leonard will be back for Thursday’s rematch against Saskatchewan at Tim Hortons Field, so Banks will likely play only receiver. And it’s not fair to say ‘only’ about a guy who’s been targeted an average of 11 times per game, the CFL’s second-busiest rate, with most of those targets downfield about as far as the eye can see. And he also goes for significant runs on plays where Jeremiah Masoli doesn’t throw him the ball.

Jones says he doesn’t want to use Banks as a returner until the post-season, assuming the Ticats get there, because he thinks Williams can do the job and, likely more importantly, he doesn’t want to wear Banks out before the season’s payoff stretch.

“That’s cool. I’m perfectly fine with that,” Banks says. “I didn’t plan on doing returns at all this year.”

Banks had never had more than the 42 receptions and 529 yards he recorded in his second of four CFL seasons before Jones took over at the Labour Day game last year. It had become clear Banks wasn’t happy through most of the first half of last year.

But Jones looked at Banks and didn’t see five-foot-seven, he saw Dangerous Deep Threat; triple capitals.

From Labour Day through Game 18, Jeremiah Masoli hit him for 960 yards, and he’s got another 360 yards in four games this year.

“I’ve got big goals this year,” he says unabashedly. “I want to finish every game healthy. I haven’t got so many years left in me (five, he figures), and I’m trying to maximize my opportunity. The big goal is I just want to win. The only numbers-type goal I have is to be 2,000-yard receiver. It’s possible, very possible. A lot of guys can actually get it.”

But hardly anyone ever has ... or even come close.

The 2K mark has been reached just three times by CFL receivers (Allen Pitts, Terry Greer and Derrell Mitchell) and each time just barely. The last time it happened was Mitchell’s even 2,000 yards, exactly 20 years ago.

If he maintains his early-season pace, Banks would tally 1,620 yards receiving this year. Tony Champion’s club record of 1,656, set 29 years ago, is the only 1,600yard season in Ticat history.

And should Banks eat yards for the rest of the year at the same per-game average he’s had in the 14 games since Jones made him an everyday starter, he’d break Champion’s mark with 1,697 yards.

Impressive as it would be, that’s still well short of 2,000.

And last year’s other 1,000yarders (Jalen Saunders and Luke Tasker) are still consistent targets, and Terrence Toliver, a 1,000-yarder two years ago, is back in the lineup. That’s a lot of big-time alternatives for Masoli to consider.

But Jones loves the long ball. No Ticat group in recent memory has run as many deep routes during games and, most noticeably, individual-skill drills at practice as this 2018 bunch. Plus, as Banks readily acknowledges, there have been a few passes he might have caught and didn’t.

“You can’t dwell on that one snap,” he says of missed catch opportunities. “I have to be ready to catch the next pass and be there for my team. I know No. 8 trusts me and is going to come back my way.”

That has become quite obvious.

NOTES: Luke Tasker didn’t practise Sunday. He had a medical procedure this week and Jones isn’t sure if he’ll play Thursday. DB Richard Leonard, who missed two games, will likely start. He figures DE Adrian

Tracy will be ready . ... Ticats’ sixth-year long-snapper Aaron

Crawford, hurt last October, has been restored to the practice roster.