Perhaps the football gods saw what happened to the Saskatchewan Roughriders last weekend and decided it was time to show some mercy.
The Green and White have seen some good news on the injury front in their return to practice this week, with former two-time 1,000-yard receiver Sam Emilus among a handful of players back on the field in full action.
Emilus missed the last three games with a foot injury and is coming off the six-game injured list, with his return bringing valuable reinforcements to a receiving corps that has been decimated by injuries through the first half of the season.
“I feel great, man. Being out for three weeks now, just being back outside with the boys, it felt amazing,” Emilus said at practice on Wednesday afternoon. “It's tough but thankfully guys stepped up. I missed three games and we won two? Guys that had to replace me stepped up and we kind of see what they can bring to the table. That's big for the long run and for their career also.”
Emilus was injured during the Week 8 game against the Edmonton Elks and was a game-time decision for the rematch a week later, but was moved to the six-game just prior to that contest.
Things improved quickly, though, leading to his return against the B.C. Lions on Sunday.
“I just had to see what the result was for my injury and once we had the result, we kind of had an idea of what would be the timeline,” Emilus said. “Obviously, me being a competitor, I wanted to play, but it was also being smart because it's a long season.”
Roughriders quarterback Trevor Harris was naturally happy to see one of his top targets back on the field.
“There's a reason why he's one of the higher paid guys in the league,” Harris said. “I remember telling him in 2024 ‘you're going to be a Hall of Famer’ and I don't know if he believed me. I think eventually the media and he'll believe me. You’lll see it throughout the course of his career. So obviously a welcome sight to be back.
“The guys have done a good job filling in for him and getting experience, too, so down the road, if they're ever needed, we know we can count on them.”
Emilus said he wasn’t surprised to see the likes of Dylan Djete, Johnny Johnson III and Daniel Wiebe step up and shine, especially seeing how hard they work in practice.
“It was a lot of rookies or second year guys that had a first chance to step on the field and it just came with prep,” Emilus said. “Those guys work their butt off every day. They kind of follow the leaders, they're really attentive to what we say and once it's time to be on the field they do their thing because they've been playing football ever since how long. They just got to have the opportunity and seize it.”
When it comes to how things turned out last week in Saskatchewan’s 26-19 loss to Hamilton, you can count Emilus among the many who thought there was a lot more left in the Riders’ tank than was shown.
“I feel like it wasn't really us, we could have been way better,” Emilus said. “You're not going to be perfect the whole season and games like this, it kind of brings you back down to earth and tells the team that we got to keep working. It's going to be easy, it's going to be ups and downs. We hit kind of a downhill and it's all about going back up this week.”
The Rider Broadcast Network will have all the action from Sunday’s game in B.C. beginning with the pregame show at 2 p.m. Dave Thomas and Luc Mullinder will then have the game call at kickoff at 5 p.m.
