Bright spot in a dismal season
ROUGHRIDERS: Roosevelt on a path to set receiving records
REGINA — Naaman Roosevelt is holding up his end of the bargain.
The Saskatchewan Roughriders second-year receiver has caught 62 passes for 877 yards and one touchdown through the CFL team’s first nine games this season.
That puts him on pace for a pair of franchise records — but neither one is the record that most concerns Roosevelt.
“It’d feel better if we could get the win,” the 28-year-old product of Buffalo said after Saskatchewan fell to 1-8-0 with Friday’s 33-25 loss to the Edmonton Eskimos. “I’m just trying to do anything I can for my team.”
If Roosevelt keeps up his current pace, he’ll finish the season with 124 receptions and 1,754 receiving yards. Both would be franchise single-season records.
The current mark for catches in a season by a Roughrider is 123 (set by Don Narcisse in 1995), while the team record for receiving yards is 1,715 (set by Joey Walters in 16 games in 1981).
“Anytime you can break a record, especially with a franchise like this, it’d be awesome,” said Roosevelt, whose team plays host to the Winnipeg Blue Bombers on Sunday. “But I haven’t even been thinking about (records). I’m just trying to get wins.”
Roosevelt was targeted a teamhigh 14 times in Edmonton and finished with 11 receptions for 175 yards.
He now leads the league in targets (92, three more than Edmonton’s Adarius Bowman and five more than the Eskimos’ Derel Walker) and is second in receptions (one behind Bowman, one more than Walker).
Roosevelt is fourth in the league in receiving yards, trailing Bowman (956), Chris Williams of the Ottawa Redblacks (900) and Walker (887).
Unfortunately for the Roughriders, the numbers suggest Roosevelt is the team’s only dangerous — and consistent — receiving threat.
Rob Bagg is second on the team in targets (45) and receptions (28), while Ricky Collins Jr., is second in receiving yards (399).
Roosevelt leads the Roughriders (and is tied for second in the league) with four 100-yard receiving games. Bagg and Collins are tied for second on the team with one 100-yard game.
Bagg has a team-leading three touchdown catches, one more than the recently departed John Chiles. Roosevelt is part of a four-way tie for third with one major.
Roosevelt also leads Saskatchewan in second-down receptions that produce first downs (18, nine more than Bagg) and in receptions of at least 30 yards (six, one more than Bagg).
“He’s a special player,” Roughriders quarterback Darian Durant said of Roosevelt. “We saw that coming out of camp last year. We always talked that, if we got an opportunity to play together, we could do big things. He’s a guy that I can lean on. He’s a bright spot for us.”
Roosevelt may have impressed Durant in training camp in 2015, but the Roughriders’ coaches at the time didn’t share the quarterback’s enthusiasm.
Roosevelt spent the first eight weeks of the season on Saskatchewan’s practice roster before being activated for the ninth game of the regular season on Aug. 30.
In the subsequent 10 games, he had 25 receptions for 488 yards — for a league-best 19.5-yard average — and five touchdowns.