Aaron Crawford hasn\u2019t even taken his first snap as a Saskatchewan Roughrider and he\u2019s already a team record holder.<\/p>\n
According to the team\u2019s website, the 39-year-old long snapper\u2019s signing by the Riders on April 6 gave him the record for most days between contractual affiliations with the club: 4,676.<\/p>\n
In other words, when Crawford sees game action as a Saskatchewan Roughrider for the first time this season, it will be a full-circle moment about 13 years in the making.<\/p>\n
Crawford, signed this season to serve as the club\u2019s long snapper, first joined the team\u2019s practice roster in 2012 but didn\u2019t play.<\/p>\n
The Medicine Hat product was then invited to Rider training camp in 2013 but didn\u2019t make the roster then either.<\/p>\n
\u201cI tried here in 2012, I came in late in the season during expansion and didn\u2019t stick. And then 2013 got another chance, didn\u2019t quite stick. So I can rectify that, actually get some games for the Riders under the belt and make it right,\u201d Crawfold told reporters after practice Monday on Day 2 of Roughriders training camp at Saskatoon\u2019s Griffiths Stadium.<\/p>\n
He landed later in 2013 with the Hamilton Tiger-Cats, setting up a 12-season run in the CFL that\u2019s gone uninterrupted since (notwithstanding the COVID-19 cancellation of the 2020 season).<\/p>\n
Along the way he\u2019s played in two Grey Cup games \u2013 in 2014 and 2019, both with Hamilton \u2013 and spent the last five seasons with the Calgary Stampeders.<\/p>\n
At long last in Saskatchewan, his role will be as successor to long-time special teams fixture Jorgen Hus, who retired in April after 10 seasons with the Green and White.<\/p>\n
Retired, but far from forgotten, as Hus was once again around the field with his old team Monday \u2013 this time mentoring Crawford, three years his senior, as opposed to the up-and-comers at Saskatchewan\u2019s rookie camp last week.<\/p>\n
\u201cHaving someone like that just makes the transition so much easier and kind of can just ask him how he handled the ebb and flow of the day and just try to step in,\u201d said Crawford. \u201cThat way there\u2019s less friction for the special teams coach (so I\u2019m) just trying to step in and do what was already done, and no sense trying to reinvent the wheel.\u201d<\/p>\n
Though if the team ever did need someone to undertake that sort of project, reinventing the wheel \u2013 or a wheel at least \u2013 is something else Crawford is well experienced in after suffering and rehabbing two major knee injuries over the past decade.<\/p>\n
The veteran of 166 CFL regular season games most recently had surgery in September and was noticeable in part for the knee brace he sported at Monday\u2019s practice.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe knee\u2019s great,\u201d he assured. \u201cMy surgeon was awesome. My last surgery I did have a longer rehab process. We did a different graft this time and I don\u2019t know if that played into it or what but just everything was handled so good.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Aaron Crawford hasn\u2019t even taken his first snap as a Saskatchewan Roughrider and he\u2019s already a team record…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":664279,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[437],"tags":[3878,49,48,521,522,520,3290,4398,27684,27683,1893,4401,27682,4400,4399,82],"class_list":["post-664461","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cfl","tag-agriculture","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-canadian-football-league","tag-canadianfootballleague","tag-cfl","tag-contests","tag-country-music","tag-gx94","tag-manitoba-news","tag-radio","tag-rider-radio","tag-saskatchewan-news","tag-saskatchewan-roughriders","tag-saskatchewan-sports","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/664461","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=664461"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/664461\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/664279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=664461"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=664461"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=664461"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}