The Saskatchewan Roughriders\u2019 KeeSean Johnson is hard to catch in terms of receptions.<\/p>\n
With 66 catches, the second-year CFLer is tied with the B.C. Lions\u2019 Keon Hatcher for the league lead.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a blessing, obviously,\u201d Johnson said on Wednesday, \u201cbut I\u2019m just here to do whatever I can to help my team win games.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mission accomplished.<\/p>\n
Saskatchewan carries a 10-2 record into Saturday\u2019s game against the Montreal Alouettes (5 p.m., Mosaic Stadium). A victory would clinch a playoff spot for the Corey Mace-coached Roughriders.<\/p>\n
\u201cBeing able to fight through the games against another opponent each week with your brothers, that\u2019s always the main goal,\u201d Johnson said.<\/p>\n
Last season, Johnson caught 56 passes for 746 yards and five touchdowns in 13 games as a newcomer to Canadian professional football.<\/p>\n
He has ascended to an even higher tier this year, needing just 92 yards to reach the 1,000 milestone for the first time since he was routinely eclipsing Davante Adams\u2019 records at Fresno State.<\/p>\n
The numbers continue to impress \u2014 especially Johnson\u2019s league-leading 33 receptions on second down. Montreal\u2019s Tyler Snead is next in line at 25.<\/p>\n
\u201cHaving the trust for the coaches to call the plays and for the quarterbacks to throw you the ball in those situations, as a player it\u2019s something you\u2019ve got to take pride in and go out there and make tough plays for your team,\u201d said Johnson, who has made half his receptions on second down.<\/p>\n
He appreciated the warm reception in Saskatchewan from the start.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen I first talked to Coach Mace, before I even got here, I kind of got a feel for him and a feel for what type of culture he was going to bring and what type of players he was going to bring in,\u201d Johnson recalled. \u201cIt just all made sense.<\/p>\n
\u201cSince then, it has been a blessing. I\u2019m having fun with it and we\u2019re having fun as a team.\u201d<\/p>\n
CLEAN SLATE<\/p>\n
As mentioned earlier, the Roughriders are 10-2 \u2026 right?<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re 0-and-0,\u201d stated quarterback Trevor Harris, whose sole focus is the upcoming game against Montreal.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf I would tell you that on our goal sheet it was to win 10 games, I\u2019d be lying to you. It\u2019s great that we\u2019re where we are right now, but it only means that we\u2019ve given ourselves the right to be 10-and-2 right now and be in a position where we have this small lead in the West.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut we know that what we\u2019ve done to this point doesn\u2019t matter. What it comes down to is how we approach the rest of the season. If we don\u2019t come at it with a killer instinct, then we\u2019ll really regret it.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo we\u2019re 0-and-0. We\u2019ve got to come away with a win this week.\u201d<\/p>\n
That approach has paid off 10 times this season \u2026 and counting.<\/p>\n
\u201cI haven\u2019t really thought about being 10-and-2, to be honest with you,\u201d Harris said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have a unique challenge in front of us with Montreal and their defence and the co-ordinator (Noel Thorpe) and the personnel that they have. If we don\u2019t bring it this week, we\u2019ll be humbled real quick and everybody goes from talking about how awesome 10-and-2 is to \u2018is the sky falling?\u2019<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve got a one-week sprint. That\u2019s what we\u2019re going to do this week \u2014 prepare as best we can and get ready to play a team that we know will give us different looks. They\u2019ll blitz us and they\u2019ll play coverage.<\/p>\n
\u201cThorpie has always done such a great job as a co-ordinator. I\u2019ve got a lot of respect for him.\u201d<\/p>\n
INJURY UPDATE<\/p>\n
Both starting cornerbacks \u2014\u00a0Tevaughn Campbell and DaMarcus Fields \u2014\u00a0did not practise on Wednesday.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s still day-to-day with those two,\u201d Mace said. \u201cPotentially, we get both of them (in the lineup for Saturday), but one of them might be a little bit of a game-time decision,\u201d Mace said. \u201cThe other one, I expect out (at practice) tomorrow.\u201d<\/p>\n
Asked which player might be the game-time decision, Mace joked: \u201cThe one that plays corner.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Saskatchewan Roughriders\u2019 KeeSean Johnson is hard to catch in terms of receptions. With 66 catches, the second-year…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":135396,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[437],"tags":[49,48,521,522,520,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-135395","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cfl","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-canadian-football-league","11":"tag-canadianfootballleague","12":"tag-cfl","13":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135395","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=135395"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135395\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/135396"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=135395"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=135395"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=135395"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}