STEVE MILTON LUKE TASKER:
Hands like adhesive tape, a mental GPS locked on first-down yardage, and courage to venture into the most vicious short zones
With about 12 minutes to go in Toronto last Friday night, Luke Tasker snared his fourth and final pass of the game, leading to an eventual Hamilton Tiger-Cat field goal.
But, despite the three points, that reception was actually an anticlimax. It was the only one that did not go for a touchdown.
Tasker hadn’t had a threetouchdown game since he was a 17-year-old high school senior and isn’t even sure he had one then.
Against the Argos, his first two catches, and majors, came off shortyardage classic-Tasker routes into the end zone.
But it was the third-a 48-yard scoot to put the game out of reach at 31-10, which served to remind us that we’re in serious need of some new nomenclature.
We’ve got to stop describing Luke Tasker as a possession receiver.
Oh, he can possess, all right. Hands like adhesive tape; a mental GPS locked on firstdown yardage, especially when it’s second down; the ethic and courage to venture into the most vicious short zones where injury is part of the postal code.
But “possession receiver” has become too limiting for what Tasker does these days.
The June Jones offence, while still requiring Tasker and others in the receiving crew to make the heavy-traffic catches that he and now-retired Andy Fantuz so often were obliged to, isn’t so restrictive.
“Within our system he gets opportunities to be not just a possession receiver,” Jones was saying Wednesday as the Ticats wrapped up the practice week before heading to Ottawa for the opener of the homeand-home of the year.
“Before, he was that: running the shorter stuff, running the unders and the in and out routes. Now he has a lot of plays where he can take it deep, if they give it to him.”
And that seems to be happening more regularly since the offence has gone less frequently to the tight-end set which was so predominant over the first half of the season. One less blocker, one more receiver with whom the defence has to contend.
Last season, when Tasker set the club record for receptions with 104, he had only one game in which his longest play was over 33 yards. The year before it was two such games. This year, he’s had four — three of those in his last seven starts. He made enormous back-to-back contributions against Edmonton in late August and on Labour Day, with 17 total receptions and 299 yards, more than half of those after he made the catch.
“It has been different, but I don’t know if I can put words on it,” Tasker says. “But my average yards per catch is probably higher than it has been in years past. It seems to be that before, if I scored a touchdown it was on a play designed for me to score. Sometimes this year, it’s worked out so it’s been a drag route or a flat route and it’s turned into a long touchdown.”
Tasker’s intuition is bang-on: his
15.1 yards per catch is the highest of his past five seasons, hovering around
20 per cent above his norm.
Needing just 21 yards to reach 1,000 for the third time in four seasons (he even had 835 yards playing just two-thirds of the 2016 schedule) Tasker is within shouting distance of a spot in the pantheon of all-time Ticat receivers.
It’s been riveting to watch Tasker and Brandon Banks continue to find openings, despite Jeremiah Masoli’s go-to options being reduced after Jalen Saunders first went down in August.
Tasker has scored seven of his career-high nine touchdowns since then. (And Banks has seven of his 10.)
A lot more goes into that than just possession.