The Saskatchewan Roughriders will look to contain one of the best running backs in the CFL this week.<\/p>\n
Dedrick Mills<\/a> led the league last season with 1,409 yards last season. He\u2019s already off to a stellar start to the 2026 campaign as well, as the Calgary Stampeders rusher had 112 yards and a touchdown in his Week 1 contest against the Winnipeg Blue Bombers.<\/p>\n \u201cI like Dedrick. He\u2019s one of my favourite running backs in the league. I like his pad-level and his grunt \u2014 he likes to run the ball and talk trash and that\u2019s my favourite running back, I ain\u2019t going to lie to you,\u201d said Riders linebacker Antoine Brooks Jr.,<\/a> who had 13 tackles in the team\u2019s Week 2 win over the B.C. Lions.<\/p>\n \u201cHe has all the moves and all the packages. He can run, he can catch and he can come out and block. That\u2019s the type of running back I like. I can\u2019t wait to see him.\u201d<\/p>\n With how dynamic of a rusher Mills can be, the entire defence will need to work together to stop him.<\/p>\n \u201c(Defensive backs) have to make sure we\u2019re a part of the run game. He\u2019s going to be able to make his plays \u2014 he\u2019s a great, powerful runner \u2014 and we have to make sure we show up in the box,\u201d said defensive back Marcus Sayles<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cWe can\u2019t give him any open gaps or any leakage out on the edge because he likes those stretch runs so we have to make sure we show up in the run game.\u201d<\/p>\n Kickoff for the game is set for 5 p.m. The Green Zone pregame show begins at 3 p.m.<\/a><\/p>\n Mills isn\u2019t the only member of the Stamps the Riders need to account for, as Vernon Adams Jr.<\/a> presents a unique challenge for any defence he faces. The veteran quarterback had 239 yards in the air with a passing touchdown to go along with 48 rushing yards and a touchdown on the ground.<\/p>\n \u201cVernon\u2019s a great quarterback. He\u2019s one of those quarterbacks that can get out (of the pocket) and still look up \u2014 not a lot of quarterbacks can do that,\u201d Brooks Jr. said.<\/p>\n \u201cWe have to just focus on containing them and making sure he doesn\u2019t scramble a lot and look up and throw the vertical. Settle down the explosive plays and we will be fine.\u201d<\/p>\n Saturday\u2019s contest will take place at McMahon Stadium in Calgary, which will play host to the 113th Grey Cup in November. While the Riders will look to be in that final game in Calgary, they are focused on this week and getting a win in their rivals\u2019 stadium.<\/p>\n \u201cThey have great fans and for it to be early in the year, they are going to be supporting their team and we want to ruin their party,\u201d Sayles said. \u201cWe have a great game plan and had a great week of practice and will be good to go.\u201d<\/p>\n The Riders will be without Rolan Milligan Jr.<\/a> (shoulder), safety Nelson Lokombo<\/a> (ankle), linebacker Jayden Dalke<\/a> (hand), and long-snapper Aaron Crawford (knee). All of them have been ruled out. Jaxon Ford<\/a> is expected to start at safety with Juju Hughes making his CFL debut in place of Milligan.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Saskatchewan Roughriders will look to contain one of the best running backs in the CFL this week.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":746036,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[437],"tags":[49,48,521,522,520,82],"class_list":["post-746035","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\/746035","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=746035"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/746035\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/746036"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=746035"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=746035"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=746035"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}