Riders again displace a legendary kicker
The Saskatchewan Roughriders have phased out a future Hall of Famer who, once upon a time, was at the other end of that process.
In October of 1995, the Roughriders concluded that 36-year-old Dave Ridgway was in decline and promptly, controversially, installed Paul McCallum as the placekicker.
Twenty years and 3,000-plus points later, McCallum — the second-leading scorer in CFL history — has himself been displaced by a younger specialist.
The Roughriders announced Monday that McCallum, a mere lad of 45, has been deactivated in favour of 23-year-old Tyler Crapigna, whose rights were acquired from the Calgary Stampeders in last week’s Jerome Messam deal.
The decision to sit down McCallum was another fullcircle move by the Roughriders, who had deactivated Chris Milo after his shaky performance in the regularseason opener.
Milo had made one of two field-goal attempts on June 27, when the Roughriders lost 30-26 to the visiting Winnipeg Blue Bombers, and then-head coach Corey Chamblin had seen enough.
Chamblin made it clear that he wanted more reliability at the place-kicking position, whereupon Brendan Taman — who at the time was the Roughriders’ general manager and vice-president of football operations — arranged for McCallum to return to Saskatchewan for the first time since he joined the B.C. Lions as a free agent in 2006. McCallum had been released in June after a superlative nine-season run in Vancouver.
Hindsight, which is infallible, tells us that more patience should have been exercised with the 28-yearold Milo.
Since landing on his feet with the Ottawa Redblacks, Milo has made 24 of 27 fieldgoal attempts — an 88.9-percent accuracy rate — for a second-year franchise that is destined for the playoffs. Milo’s percentage is comparable to his 88.5 figure of 2013, when he connected on 46 of 52 attempts during Saskatchewan’s most-recent championship season.
The decision to summon McCallum was made with another championship in mind. With a veteran-laden roster, the Roughriders were in win-now mode, so McCallum’s age was not a deterrent.
If anything, McCallum exceeded expectations.
When he rejoined the Roughriders, he had not hit a field goal of 50 yards or more since 2011. Yet, he hit two 50-yarders this season, and had a 52-yarder negated by a penalty. He also connected from 49 yards away on two occasions.
Overall, McCallum made 29 of 36 field-goal attempts, connecting 80.6 per cent of the time.
And he did this in his mid40s, despite not practising full-time with the team.
You get the feeling that McCallum could roll out of bed and nail a 40-yard field goal.
Who knows? He may get that opportunity again. Suppose that a CFL team is in dire need of a placekicker and requires someone who can stabilize the kicking game. Why not place a call to someone who has a career field-goal percentage of 80.4 and a lifetime points total of 3,124?
The Roughriders announced such a move on Canada Day, fully anticipating that they would be a factor in October.
Instead, they are saddled with the CFL’s worst record (2-13), with three meaningless games remaining. All realistic playoff hopes evaporated before Labour Day. By then, Chamblin and Taman had been fired and succeeded on an interim basis by Bob Dyce (head coach) and Jeremy O’Day (general manager).
The new regime stuck with a number of veteran players until the Roughriders were formally eliminated from the playoffs. The decision was subsequently made to trade veterans such as Messam and quarterback Kevin Glenn.
The 36-year-old Glenn joined the Montreal Alouettes and Messam, 30, was shipped to Calgary in the Crapigna deal.
Coincidentally, the trades were made on Oct. 14 — the 20th anniversary of Ridgway’s final game with the Green and White.
In another lost season, McCallum replaced the legendary Robokicker for the final two games, hitting eight of nine field-goal attempts. McCallum remained Roughriders property for another decade before signing with B.C. as a free agent and, improbably, elevating his game in his mid-30s.
McCallum progressed to the point where any missed field goal was an event.
At the tender age of 41, he went 50-for-53 on field-goal attempts — posting a careerbest percentage of 94.3 — and was named the CFL’s outstanding special-teams player.
During that season, McCallum made 30 consecutive field goals, eclipsing a league record of 28 that Ridgway had established in 1993. (Calgary’s Rene Paredes set the current mark of 31 in 2013.)
Back in the 1990s, it was difficult to imagine anyone rivalling Ridgway in terms of accuracy. As it turned out, his successor would be mentioned in the same breath.
And now it has reached the point where, once again, the Roughriders are turning the page on someone whose name is all over the record book.