CFL to take a look at rash of injuries to receivers this season
It’s the kind of cluster formation that nobody in the Canadian Football League would ever hope to see:
Chris Williams. Emmanuel Arceneaux. Kamar Jorden. Derel Walker. Jalen Saunders. DaVaris Daniels. Marken Michel. Reggie Begelton. Terrence Toliver. Naaman Roosevelt. And most recently, Brandon Banks.
All are big-time receivers. All are on the injured lists of their respective teams. Several of them are done for the season.
The aforementioned corps has combined for 7,627 yards and 47 touchdowns on 488 catches. That’s 15.6 yards per reception and a touchdown every 10 catches or so. Impactful, to say the least.
Weston Dressler spent time on that list, too, so did Eric Rogers and Bryant Mitchell, though all are available to play today.
According to Steve Daniel, CFL director of game information and statistics, 19 regular starting receivers across the league have spent multiple games on the injured list. Calgary leads that unfortunate category with six.
The injury cluster is so significant and so peculiar to the position of receiver that it has attracted the attention of the CFL head office.
“Our team will look into this following the season,” league spokesperson Lucas Barrett said.
If there is a common thread, they will presumably find it by scouring game video. If there is a reason to tweak a rule to protect receivers, if that’s even possible, perhaps it’ll get some traction with general managers who have had to scour the landscape for replacements.
But it is far more likely to be determined that all those injuries, from Begelton’s broken arm suffered on a punt return, to Banks’s broken clavicle suffered while laying out for a catch with a defender on his back, are merely the unwanted byproduct of a combat sport.
The Calgary Stampeders and Hamilton Tiger-Cats were hit worst by this particular strain of injury, but the Eskimos haven’t been the same competitive squad since Walker went down in the Labour Day Classic, so you could make a case for their lasting wounds.
The receiver cluster appears at odds with the broader issue of man-games lost to injury across the league. Daniel reports the injured list games total is 1,546 through 72 games this year, for an average of 21 players per game. That’s down from the same point in 2017, when it was 26 players per game.
Pundits called last year the year of the catch. That wouldn’t be the case this season. This cluster of receivers can’t seem to catch a break.