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WESTJET THANKSGIVING WEEKEND\u00bb\u00a0112th Grey Cup Playoff Scenarios: Riders, Ticats eye division titles<\/a>
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Hatcher\u2019s gratitude comes with good reason. Through 16 games this season, he leads the CFL in receptions (90) and receiving yards (1,516).\u00a0<\/p>\n
He\u2019s on pace for 1,705 receiving yards, which would be the league\u2019s highest total since\u00a02016 when\u00a0Edmonton slotback Adarius Bowman<\/a> reeled in 120 catches for 1,761 receiving yards<\/p>\n For Hatcher Sr., those numbers are beyond impressive considering the torn Achilles, a known career killer for so many in football, basketball and other sports.<\/p>\n \u201cI wouldn\u2019t say it\u2019s just a painful injury,\u201d Hatcher Sr. said. \u201cIt\u2019s one of the hardest ones to get back from \u2014 if not the hardest.\u201d<\/p>\n The injury came on only the second offensive series for BC in the 2023 West Division Final. After breaking his route, Hatcher Sr crumpled to the turf.<\/p>\n There was no contact on the play \u2014 just bad timing and bad luck.<\/p>\n \u201cI remember just falling on the ground, getting up, hopping to the sideline on one leg, throwing my helmet and telling them I just tore my Achilles,\u201d he said \u201cIt happened really fast. It was really a blur from that moment on, for the rest of that night.\u201d<\/p>\n Hatcher Sr. had arrived in Winnipeg\u00a0for the West Division Final with visions of advancing to the Grey Cup. Instead, he faced a gruelling rehab with no guarantee of full recovery.<\/p>\n And all this came after he finished the 2023 regular season with 78 catches for 1,226 yards and six touchdowns.\u00a0\u00a0His yard total that year was the second-highest in the league, behind only Hamilton\u2019s Tim White.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Earlier this week, Hatcher Sr. asked his wife to be honest and tell him if she ever doubted his ability to return to peak form after the injury.<\/p>\n Her answer? No, she said. Not once.<\/p>\n \u201cFrom the time it happened, I told her that everything was going to be okay, and I was going to be back the same,\u201d Hatcher Sr. said. \u201cShe said she believed in me wholeheartedly.<\/p>\n \u201cHaving that support from her means so much.\u201d<\/p>\n The original timeline looked like a 12-month recovery, at best.. In the end, Hatcher returned to the field in eight months thanks to what he calls grit, hunger and self-assurance.<\/p>\n \u201cA lot of long days grinding,\u201d he said. \u201cShout out to Marc Rizzardo in Burnaby for my rehab.\u201d<\/p>\n Hatcher Sr. returned in Week 9 of the 2024 regular season,\u00a0 hauling in 38 passes for 608 yards. Decent numbers, to be sure \u2014 but some fans wondered out loud whether the star receiver\u2019s best days were behind him.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n The Tulsa, Okla. product was never known for blazing speed. He\u2019s a scrappy, physical receiver who never shies away from heavy traffic and fights for every yard.<\/p>\n \u201cI came back with 11 games\u00a0last year and\u00a0 felt like I had a solid outing,\u201d he said. \u201cBut coming off a torn Achilles, that\u2019s not really easy to do.<\/p>\n \u201cI knew after getting this full off-season in \u2014\u00a0putting in the work I usually put in \u2014 I would come back and have a good season.\u201d<\/p>\n Good? Try great. The chemistry between Hatcher Sr. and quarterback Nathan Rourke<\/a> is pretty to watch.<\/p>\n \u201cMe and Nathan, we\u2019ve known each other for a while,\u201d Hatcher Sr. said. \u201cWe both are, I would say, football junkies. We both love the game, and we see the insides and the outsides of the game. We see the big picture, and not just the X\u2019s and O\u2019s and stuff like that.\u201d<\/p>\n The Lions possess other offensive weapons which give Rourke plenty of choice. Justin McInnis<\/a> has 68 catches for 1,115 yards this season. Ayden Eberhardt<\/a> is sitting at 39 catches for 713 yards. Tailback James Butler has 206 carries for 1,103 yards along with 38 catches for 378 receiving yards.<\/p>\n But Hatcher Sr. is not satisfied. The ultimate goal, of course, is hoisting the Grey Cup next month in Winnipeg. And from an individual perspective, Hatcher Sr. has another target in mind \u2014 the great Geroy Simon.<\/p>\n \u201cI actually had my eye on his franchise record,\u201d he said of Simon\u2019s\u00a01,856-yard mark set in\u00a0 2006. \u201cI don\u2019t know if I\u2019m gonna be able to do it this year, but next year I\u2019m coming for it.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Keon Hatcher Sr. spent the BC Lions\u2019 bye week embracing his most important roles in life \u2014 husband…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":204677,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[437],"tags":[49,48,521,522,520,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-204676","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\/204676","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=204676"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/204676\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/204677"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=204676"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=204676"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=204676"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}