Dalton Schoen holds an engineering degree and a master’s in data analytics, so he can certainly crunch the probability numbers on his own injury nightmares over the last couple of seasons.

And they’re horrific.

The Winnipeg Blue Bombers announced Friday — on the eve of today’s Banjo Bowl — that the veteran receiver will be lost for the remainder of the season due to an ACL injury he suffered in Calgary on July 3rd. Schoen returned to the lineup for last week’s loss to the Saskatchewan Roughriders in the Labour Day Classic after spending a month and a half rehabbing it. And while he finished with five catches for 58 yards and a touchdown, the knee will now need surgery for a second straight year.

“The decision he made is one other guys make — they just want to play for their teammates, and they want to lay it on the line for them,” said head coach Mike O’Shea in opening his pre-game press conference with an update on the veteran receiver. “He worked his ass off to get back in position to try and do that. It just didn’t work out.

“… It just goes to show you the sacrifices these guys make for their teammates and the desire for them to do everything they can to help their team win, and then sometimes it just doesn’t work out. So, from a human side, it stinks. His teammates understand what he was trying to do and who he was trying to do it for and it’s just not going to work out.

“The effort he put in for this not to be the outcome was second to none,” O’Shea added. “I’ve said up here and talked about this on a personal level — it can crush guys. But he’s a strong, strong person, otherwise this conversation might have happened after Week 4. Just the type of person he is, you know he’s going to bust his ass to get back and play good football again.”

Schoen was arguably the CFL’s most dangerous receiver in 2022-23, earning the league’s Most Outstanding Rookie award in ’22 and twice being named a CFL All-Star while pulling in 141 passes for 2,663 yards and a whopping 26 touchdowns in 34 games. Yet, over the last two years he has appeared in just eight games, now twice suffering the ACL injury.

Schoen opted to attempt to rehab the injury to get back on the field rather than immediately have surgery and that sacrifice certainly wasn’t lost on his teammates.

“As always, I can’t say enough good things about Dalton,” said Collaros on Friday. “Selfless… for with what happened with his knee in Week 4 and to try to rehab it as much as he possibly could to be out there for the team and his teammates. His love of the game and his love of this organization I don’t think should be discounted. He could have had surgery however many weeks ago but, again, he put the team first. I don’t know if there’s an example of a receiver playing through an injury like that trying to play through it, and then as well as he played last game — I think he won every single rep that he took.

“Love the guy. Just love the guy. He’s just so tough and cares so much about this sport and his teammates and cares so much about the people in this building. That’s why he laid his body on the line.

“I’m sure he would say the same thing — it’s part of the sport. He’s not the first person this has happened to. But as an onlooker and somebody that’s not going through it, it’s tough. It’s tough to watch, especially knowing the kind of person that Dalton is and how much he cares about this game.”

There is a potential silver lining here for the offence, though, with the return of Pokey Wilson from the New York Jets. He’ll be immediately inserted into the lineup at slotback.

“I’m just excited to be back with my teammates and be on the field, try to make some plays to help my team,” said Wilson. “It’s probably going to feel like back to normal and when I was here before.

“(The transition back) has been pretty smooth. Everybody’s helping me out. I’m getting pretty polished on the playbook and trying to learn new names and new plays but I’m pretty good on it.”

Schoen, before the injury, was both a deep threat for the club and a chain mover as an intelligent route-runner who had 48.4 percent of his receptions heading into this season be second-down conversions.

Wilson has his own dynamic skillset, too.

“Things will look different,” Collaros said. “You’ll have to play a different way and plan a different way but bringing a guy like Pokey back certainly helps and like I’ve been telling you guys all year, I think we have a good room. Obviously, Dalton is a major piece of who we are and what we wanted to be this season and moving forward but you’ve got to attack things differently now.

“Excellent route runner,” added Collaros of Wilson. “Excellent acceleration. I’m not surprised, but I forgot just how smart of a football player he is with respect to just learning what we’re doing because it is a different playbook, it is different terminology than what he had here last season.

“He’s a guy who can make some pretty incredible plays with the ball in the air and with the ball in his hands. It’s awesome to have him back, for sure.”

Collaros has long praised Schoen as one of the smartest dudes on the team and was asked Friday if the receiver might still be available to help as an offensive consultant of sorts.

“I’m sure he’d love that. I’d love that,” Collaros said with a grin. “… There’s a reason he laid his body on the line and his future, his career — it was to play. And it wasn’t just because it was the Labour Day Classic, it was just the next game and the next opportunity to play for the organization. He wants to be here.

“That being said, I’m not sure what’s going to happen with the surgery or whatever has to happen. But I was talking to him on the field, and I was like, ‘Hey man, on Day Zero (before practice resumes) can you watch some of this for me and give me your thoughts? And Day 1.’ I know he’ll still want to be involved. I know I’ll be calling him and picking his brain and texting him — ‘Hey, what do you like here? What are you seeing?’”

ICYMI: here is our Game Preview from Friday:

Game Preview | Banjo Bowl — Sask at Wpg

And follow along here as we present a collection of notes/quotes/anecdotes to help get Blue Bombers fans up to speed for today’s Banjo Bowl in this week’s GAME DAY HQ…

GONE BUT NOT FORGOTTEN

The Blue Bombers will officially add Tyrone Jones to the club’s Ring of Honour during Saturday’s Banjo Bowl with the late, great rush end becoming the 17th member of the franchise’s most-prestigious collection of men. We wrote a story on Jones’ addition to the Ring of Honour in early July. Check that piece out here, if you wish:

“He had so much joy on the football field.” | Tyrone Jones added to Ring of Honour

THE CHESS MATCH AROUND THE SEQUEL

Today’s Banjo Bowl will be the second of three meetings between the CFL’s two Prairie rivals — they meet again on Friday, October 17th back here in Winnipeg — and with these two games six days apart there are some compelling side stories to keep an eye on in terms of the punch/counterpunch.

The Blue Bombers defensive charges, for what it’s worth, were satisfied in limiting Most Outstanding Player candidate Trevor Harris to 219 yards passing and one TD last week but also know he’s one of the most-intelligent QBs in the league and will have some answers today.

“It’s the balance between maximizing the things you did well and getting as much utility as you can out of those calls and then mixing up some things that looked like the things you did,” said Blue Bombers defensive coordinator Jordan Younger. “That’s the challenge — what do we take out, what do we add to… you never know how they’re going to attack, how they’re going to respond. We have some blind spots we’ll find out about.”

“If the game was the same every time it wouldn’t be much fun,” added defensive back Evan Holm. “If you’re not challenged every game this wouldn’t be fun. I love the, ‘OK, they did this, now they did this. What’s my response? Are we going to play it differently?’ That’s the most fun. They’re going to have plays for us — especially Trevor because he likes to study and he studies body language so they’re going to have answers. Their offensive coordinator is going to have answers. At the same time, we think we know where they might go because we self-scout as well. That’s the fun part of these matchups back-to-back.”

NOTABLE

A Saskatchewan victory would secure the season series win against the Blue Bombers – their first since 2018.
Winnipeg leads the Banjo Bowl series 13-7 all time, with eight wins in the past nine meetings. Saskatchewan’s last win was in 2018 with Zach Collaros at the helm.
Saskatchewan is looking for its tenth win of the season; the last time they reached double digits was in 2019 (13-5).
Last week, Trevor Harris had his lowest completion percentage of the season: 17-of-27 (63 per cent).
Winnipeg has led by 10+ points in each of its last five games but lost two of them in the final minute.
Zach Collaros will start his sixth Banjo Bowl. He is a perfect 5-0 in the matchup (four wins with Winnipeg, one with Saskatchewan).