In hoping to maintain superhero status for the Saskatchewan Roughriders\u2019 fan base in 2026, Kian Schaffer-Baker turns \u2013 in part \u2013 to a formidable comic book villain.<\/p>\n
\u201cI love this one quote from Batman. Bane says it. He says \u2018Victory has defeated you,\u2019\u201d the sixth-year Saskatchewan Roughriders receiver said in a post-practice interview during the team\u2019s training camp at Saskatoon\u2019s Griffiths Stadium.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s very easy to be at the top of the throne, have everything going your way and get complacent. But we just carry that mentality that we\u2019re at the bottom of the pit. We still gotta climb out of this thing. We gotta keep digging, keep fighting.\u201d<\/p>\n
Schaffer-Baker ended his 2025 season by catching three passes for 27 yards in the Riders\u2019 25-17 Grey Cup victory over the Montreal Alouettes.<\/p>\n
The result marked his first Canadian Football League championship and also capped a campaign in which he was limited to five regular season games due to injury.<\/p>\n
In both circumstances, Schaffer-Baker sees motivation to view 2026 as a fresh start.<\/p>\n
\u201cHow can we improve on what we did last year?\u201d he asked. \u201cIf you\u2019re talking about the things you did yesterday, you haven\u2019t done enough today.\u201d<\/p>\n
Schaffer-Baker of course has done plenty in his CFL career to date. He finished his rookie season in 2021 with 47 catches for 563 yards and two touchdowns, then was named the Riders\u2019 nominee for the league\u2019s most outstanding Canadian award after his second year \u2013 one in which scored a career-high five touchdowns including one that took him 85 yards to the end zone.<\/p>\n
Post-Grey Cup he was rewarded by the team with a new two-year contract and, health permitting, figures to line up this season as part of a receiving corps that could feature up to four Canadian starters (Samuel Emilus a lock, with Dhel Duncan-Busby and Daniel Wiebe pushing for spots as well).<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re the revamped Canadian Air Force. We\u2019re the Canadian Flight Gang I feel like. A whole new coined term for us,\u201d said Schaffer-Baker. \u201cWe got so much depth whether it\u2019s Canadian, American, whoever jumps up into the spot, we know what our expectations are, we know what we gotta do each and every single day and we all help each other get better, that\u2019s the biggest thing.<\/p>\n
\u201cSomething I tell the younger guys is just be a sponge out here, and I\u2019m still a sponge going into my sixth season. I\u2019m still learning stuff from younger guys, older guys, guys who played in the NFL, guys that come from other leagues, there\u2019s always something to be learning.\u201d<\/p>\n
One of those younger guys is Wiebe, an eighth-round draft pick of Saskatchewan\u2019s in 2025 who was named the Canada West conference\u2019s football player of the year after his final season with the University of Saskatchewan Huskies.<\/p>\n
Despite his relatively small stature for the position (5-foot-9, 190 pounds), Wiebe is a player Schaffer-Baker sees as a potentially-significant contributor for the Roughriders in the near future.<\/p>\n
Wiebe suited up as a starting wide receiver for Monday\u2019s preseason kickoff against the Calgary Stampeders while Schaffer-Baker was among the many veterans who did not dress for the game.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe surprises me every single day and the biggest one I think is just his work ethic and his tenacity that he carries every single day,\u201d said Schaffer-Baker. \u201cHe might not be the biggest guy out there as we can see but he plays like he\u2019s 6-foot-5, 245 pounds.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In hoping to maintain superhero status for the Saskatchewan Roughriders\u2019 fan base in 2026, Kian Schaffer-Baker turns \u2013…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":684477,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[437],"tags":[49,48,521,522,520,177141,82],"class_list":["post-684476","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-cflsaskatchewan-roughriderskian-schaffer-baker","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/684476","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=684476"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/684476\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/684477"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=684476"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=684476"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=684476"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}