Second-year veteran fourth in CFL receiving heading into Labour Day Classic against Winnipeg Blue Bombers next Sunday<\/p>\n
REGINA — It\u2019s safe to say Saskatchewan Roughriders’\u00a0receiver KeeSean Johnson won\u2019t be flying under the radar of Canadian Football League teams again.<\/p>\n
It was around this time last year\u00a0the second-year veteran began to find his stride in the CFL game, getting more and more targets each outing and rewarding that decision with more and more yards on the field.<\/p>\n
By season\u2019s end, Johnson\u00a0caught 75 passes for 746 yards and five touchdowns, leading head coach Corey Mace to label the Fresno State grad as one of Saskatchewan\u2019s secret weapons heading into the current campaign. As it turns out, that assessment was correct, and Johnson isn\u2019t so secret anymore.<\/p>\n
With 55 catches for 794\u00a0yards and three touchdowns, including\u00a0four catches for 112 yards during Saturday’s 32-15 loss to the Calgary Stampeders,\u00a0Johnson has already surpassed his 2024 yardage totals. That also has him ranked fourth overall in receiving yardage in the entire CFL, a further sign that things are coming along in his game rather nicely — and attracting more and more attention around the league.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think people respect his game,\u201d Mace said. \u201cHe’s dependable, he\u2019ll go into the tough areas, make catches, get his YAC (yards after catch). Whenever we’ve called his number,\u00a0he’s been up there at a high tick, making sure he gets the job done for the team. So incredible, we’re happy to have that guy.\u201d<\/p>\n
For his part, Johnson is happy to\u00a0play the game and let his reputation build on its own — especially if it helps his team win games.<\/p>\n
\u201cI’m still new to the league and it takes time to build your name coming over and that’s fine with me,\u201d he said. \u201cAs long as my team wants to know me each week, I’m good with it.\u201d<\/p>\n
As Mace mentioned, a large part of Johnson\u2019s notoriety is a complete lack of fear when it comes to going after balls. That\u2019s resulted in a handful of spectacular catches through the first nine games this season, and a growing reputation as a player who\u2019ll do whatever he can to succeed in high-traffic areas.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen I see the ball [coming his way], my eyes light up, I’m ready to go get it,\u201d Johnson said. \u201cOnce I see the ball, I’m\u00a0doing my best and giving my best effort for my team to go out there and make the play.\u201d<\/p>\n
It certainly doesn\u2019t hurt to have competition pushing him along, and Johnson has someone close by doing exactly that — roommate and close friend Dohnte Meyers. The duo have been one-two in receiving for Saskatchewan much of the season, with Meyers currently second on the team and seventh in the CFL with 41 catches for 673\u00a0yards and six touchdowns.<\/p>\n
And when we say \u2018competition\u2019, well, that applies to everything — from targets to yardage to touchdowns to playing cards and even cooking.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe battle on everything, it doesn’t matter what it is,\u201d Johnson said, adding that they\u2019re always in good spirits. \u201cWe’re going to make it a competition\u00a0to get each other better. That’s the main thing\u00a0to get each other better each week, each day — that’s our goal.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Riders will be looking to rebound from Saturday’s tough loss in Calgary next\u00a0Sunday when they take on the Winnipeg Blue Bombers in the biggest regular season game of the year: the Labour Day Classic at Mosaic Stadium. While the fans might have had that game circled on the calendar for a good long while and sold the game out last week, Johnson and his teammates are trying to approach it as just another game.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou can’t look at the bigger picture further down the road if you can’t get past this one,\u201d Johnson said. \u201cSo that’s going to be our goal every week, I’m going to try to look at it like that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Teagan Witko, Justin Dunk and Wes Cates\u00a0have the pre-game show at 2 p.m. Sunday\u00a0while\u00a0Dave Thomas and Luc Mullinder have the game call at 5 p.m. Listen to all the extensive coverage on the 620 CKRM Co-operators Rider Broadcast Network.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Second-year veteran fourth in CFL receiving heading into Labour Day Classic against Winnipeg Blue Bombers next Sunday REGINA…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":94226,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[437],"tags":[49,48,521,522,520,82],"class_list":["post-94225","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\/94225","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=94225"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94225\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/94226"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=94225"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=94225"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=94225"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}