James Letcher Jr., who signed with the Saskatchewan Roughriders on Feb. 2.<\/a><\/p>\n\u201cI\u2019m excited to see what I can put together as far as accessories.\u201d<\/p>\n
He plans to provide some excitement in return.<\/p>\n
Letcher Jr., whose explosiveness was evident over three seasons with the Montreal Alouettes, looks forward to being a multi-dimensional playmaker with his new CFL team.<\/p>\n
\u201cI would say everybody knows what I can do on special teams, and I\u2019m not going to take that for granted, but I definitely want to implement myself more on the offensive side,\u201d says Letcher Jr., who has discussed the possibilities with Roughriders quarterback Trevor Harris.<\/p>\n
\u201cI feel like he\u2019s thinking the same way. He knows how explosive I am on specials and he wants to implement that on offence. I do, too, so we\u2019re already thinking about the same kind of things.<\/p>\n
\u201cHopefully I can score on offence as much as I do on specials.\u201d<\/p>\n
In 30 CFL regular-season games, Letcher Jr. has scored on punt returns of 100 and 99 yards in addition to reaching the end zone on a 125-yard missed field goal return. His first CFL touchdown reception was registered last season.<\/p>\n
His resume also includes a 105-yard kickoff-return TD that helped Montreal defeat the Toronto Argonauts 38-17 in the 2023 Eastern Final. Montreal went on to win the Grey Cup.<\/p>\n
In nine games with the Alouettes last season, he averaged 11.0 yards per punt return and 25.1 yards per kickoff return.<\/p>\n
As a starting receiver against the host Ottawa REDBLACKS on June 13, he caught four passes for 37 yards \u2014 including a 16-yard TD.<\/p>\n
The versatility is well-established.<\/p>\n
At Piper High School in Kansas City, Letcher was a first-team all-league selection as a running back, defensive back and kickoff returner following his senior season.<\/p>\n
Next stop: Topeka, Kan., where he attended Washburn University and starred for the Ichabods.<\/p>\n
As a senior in 2022, he caught 80 passes for 1,076 yards and scored 10 aerial TDs for the second year in a row. He also scored on two of his 11 punt returns, averaging 26.0 yards in that facet of the game.<\/p>\n
The year before, Letcher Jr. took two kickoff returns to the house. His first collegiate kickoff-return TD, recorded in 2019, was a 100-yarder.<\/p>\n
A three-time All-American at Washburn, he was named the Mid-American Intercollegiate Athletic Association\u2019s top special teams player in 2021 and 2022.<\/p>\n
He graduated from Washburn as the school\u2019s all-time leader in receptions (228), all-purpose yards (5,623), and kickoff return touchdowns (three).<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve been doing it my whole life,\u201d Letcher Jr. said. \u201cIn high school, I played offence, defence and special teams. In college, I played offence and specials. Going to the CFL, I didn\u2019t want to stop, so I\u2019m glad Saskatchewan is going to give me more of an opportunity to do that.\u201d<\/p>\n
The 5-foot-7, 180-pounder is known for creating opportunities with his speed, which was an asset long before it became an attribute in tackle football.<\/p>\n
\u201cI kind of figured that out early,\u201d Letcher Jr. said. \u201cAs a kid, whenever you would play tag or you were in a race with other kids, you\u2019d tag somebody and they\u2019d start chasing you. Then they\u2019d stop chasing you because they couldn\u2019t catch you. That\u2019s when I realized, \u2018I can definitely do a little more with this, outside of playing tag.\u2019<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve heard plenty of stories of me being bad as a kid. I used to get in trouble and I used to run away from the repercussions of me getting in trouble. I say it as a joke, but I\u2019m so serious.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was to the point where parents were getting mad at me because they couldn\u2019t catch me, and I was a little kid at the time. Most parents or most grown-ups can catch any kid they want to catch, but it\u2019s hard to catch me when I\u2019m running fast and I\u2019m juking fast.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m making them go one way and I\u2019m running the other. I\u2019m ducking under tables. I\u2019m running under chairs. I\u2019m finding a way to get out of there \u2014 and I have almost a 100-per-cent completion rate at that.\u201d<\/p>\n
With more completions to come.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"New team. New colour scheme. \u201cI\u2019ve never been in green before, so this is the first time,\u201d says…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":524869,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[437],"tags":[49,48,521,522,520,82],"class_list":["post-524868","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cfl","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-canadian-football-league","tag-canadianfootballleague","tag-cfl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/524868","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=524868"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/524868\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/524869"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=524868"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=524868"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=524868"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}