MESSAGE RECEIVED
Redblacks need to catch a lot better
Nine of 15 receivers on the Ottawa Redblacks’ training-camp roster weren’t with the team when last season ended.
As for the other six, those who lived through the few highs and many lows of the 2014 campaign, while it’s true that they’ve always been headed for a fight to retain their roster spots, they should also realize that they and the counterparts who haven’t returned, are taking the brunt of criticism for the team’s poor offensive production during their inaugural season.
“It’s part of the game. Somebody has to take the blame,” said Khalil Paden, who finished fifth among Redblacks with 305 receiving yards and the team’s only game-winning touchdown catch.
“Some of it may be unjustified, but criticism is part of the business and part of being a football player, so I don’t really have a problem with it.
“I wasn’t there for the entire season and I feel like, when I got in, I did my job. I didn’t have any drops, I did what I needed to do, and I caught a touchdown. I just take care of handling my business.”
The other returning receivers include Marcus Henry, who ranked first in receptions (67) and receiving yards (824), Matt Carter (third with 41 catches for 551 yards), Scott Macdonell (13 for 181), receiver/returner Jamill Smith (seven for 77) and L.J. Castile, who spent the latter part of the 2014 campaign on the practice roster.
“It’s just management trying to make our team better,” said Henry, who landed with the Redblacks after being released by the Edmonton Eskimos a year ago. “It’s exciting to have (the new fleet of receivers), seeing how good they work their craft, too.
“At the end of the day, it’s competing for a job, so we’re going to go out there and do what we do.”
All true, but Redblacks management didn’t trade for Maurice Price and sign Greg Ellingson, Ernest Jackson and Chris Williams as free agents without thinking that those U.S.-born receivers would provide consistency, speed or playmaking ability that the team didn’t already have. Newcomer Michael Campbell has also looked good, presenting another challenge to Henry’s chances of continued employment in Ottawa.
On the plus side, Henry and Macdonnell both stand 6-foot-5, ranking them as the tallest receivers in camp, and that can’t be disregarded.
While Henry, 29, is trying to earn a spot for his fifth CFL season, the 24-year-old Macdonell is heading into what could be his second. He was the Redblacks’ second-round pick in the 2014 college draft, 13th overall, which was three spots after they claimed receiver Jake Harty in this year’s draft.
“The bullets fly a lot slower than they used to,” Macdonell said Tuesday. “Year 1, you’re trying to get aligned, you’re in awe of the speed of the game and the size of the guys. You’re trying to get everything together. “Now Year 2, you have had a chance to breathe, spend a whole year on the team, get to know the guys.”
The Redblacks have 84 players under contract, but that includes nearly a dozen who, as Canadian rookies, don’t count against the league limit of 75.
Head coach Rick Campbell said decisions would be made within a few days on which players would suit up for the first preseason game against the host Hamilton Tiger-Cats next Monday.
The roster must be trimmed to 65 plus “non-counters” by the evening of June 14, one day after the Redblacks’ second and final preseason contest against the Montreal Alouettes at Quebec City. The final roster of 46 must be named by the evening of June 20.
All practices are videotaped, so players already know they must be in the right places at the right times and handle their assigned duties, Paden said, “but a preseason game is where we find out who’s ready to play and, when the lights come on, who’s ready to perform. That’s when you earn your spot.
“So it’s critical that you perform well in those games and that’s probably going to be the deciding factor. You make the roster or you don’t.”