Saskatchewan Roughriders defensive back James Burgess Jr. was put to the test, and he had to rack his brain for a bit.<\/p>\n
Asked by Voice of the Roughriders Dave Thomas if he remembered the last time he played in a football game before last Saturday, Burgess hemmed and hawed.<\/p>\n
\u201cOh, man. It\u2019s been a minute,\u201d he said. \u201cI haven\u2019t played like a real game since college, actually. So, it\u2019s 2024. I don\u2019t even remember my last game in 2024. I think we played Tuskegee with Alabama State.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ding, ding. Right answer, James. We can forgive his hazy memory, though.<\/p>\n
Burgess stepped in for the injured Tevaughn Campbell in the second half of last week\u2019s 28-26 win in Edmonton to make his CFL debut. It took an awful long time for him to get to that point after his senior year of college.<\/p>\n
Burgess wasn\u2019t selected in the 2025 NFL Draft but eventually signed with the New England Patriots. He never made their roster. He signed with the Roughriders in February but was cut in training camp. At least the Riders liked what they saw and re-signed him in June.<\/p>\n
\u201cJames, that was one of the tougher cuts at the end of camp because he had a good camp,\u201d Riders coach Corey Mace said. \u201cWe thought highly of him, obviously, being able to bring him back just like that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Burgess has been preparing for his CFL debut for weeks now. The 6-foot-3, 200-pound DB needed a little time to get the intricacies of the Canadian rules down first.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s different,\u201d he said. \u201cAdjusting to 12 people and wagglers. But once you really buy in and learn formations, you pick up on it quick. Football is football at the end of the day. It was a slight change, but I adjusted good.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy first time seeing it, I\u2019m like, \u2018Whoa! What is this?\u2019 You\u2019ve just got to trust yourself, trust your speed, and trust your technique and your leverage.\u201d<\/p>\n
Burgess, 24, stepped in nicely for Campbell, recording four tackles in the victory. He certainly impressed his coach.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s made plays in practice since he\u2019s been back,\u201d Mace said. \u201cWe were comfortable to definitely get him out there in the game, and he showed up for us, made some key tackles for us to help us get off the field. Just another guy that understands the process and what we\u2019re trying to get done here, prepares himself.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf his number\u2019s called, he\u2019s expected to go out there and execute, and he did a good job.\u201d<\/p>\n
Campbell is out for Saturday\u2019s game with a forearm injury, so the Riders might need more of what Burgess offered last week when the Ottawa Redblacks visit.<\/p>\n
He\u2019ll be drawing on that first CFL experience \u2013 that long-awaited first pro game \u2013 in his next opportunity.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was wonderful,\u201d Burgess said. \u201cTo go out there and really contribute to the gameplay and make some plays out there, it felt good to really get out there and do me.<\/p>\n
\u201cLord knows I\u2019ve been waiting for my chance and just grinding every day, trying to stack my great days. When they told me that I was dressing and told me that I was going to get into the game, I was ready and knowing I was going to go out there and make some plays.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Saskatchewan Roughriders defensive back James Burgess Jr. was put to the test, and he had to rack his…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":848286,"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-848285","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\/848285","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=848285"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/848285\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/848286"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=848285"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=848285"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=848285"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}