In a season in which precious little has gone right for the Winnipeg Blue Bombers, wide receiver Chris Matthews stands out as a shining exception.

With 45 catches for 684 yards and five touchdowns -- and four 100-yard-plus games -- Matthews heads into today's Banjo Bowl against the Saskatchewan Roughriders at Canad Inns Stadium fourth in receiving yards in the CFL this season.

To put that accomplishment in context, consider the identity of the three receivers ahead of him -- Montreal stud SJ Green; Toronto all-star Chad Owens; and Hamilton's Chris Williams, who's making a compelling case as the early favourite for the league's Most Outstanding Player.

That is elite company for any player, but it is beyond anyone's expectation to see a CFL rookie like Matthews, with the grand total of nine games of three-down experience, to be keeping that kind of company.

But what makes it truly eye-popping is the fact that Matthews has put up those kind of numbers while playing on a 2-7 team with the worst offence in the CFL -- dead last in points, touchdowns and quarterback efficiency.

Indeed, in a season in which Bombers GM Joe Mack is under siege and hard-pressed to point to much in the way of accomplishments, you could make the case that Matthews is one of the lone bright spots Mack can cite of a decision he made that's actually worked out well in 2012.

Matthews says that's uncharitable, however. "He found me, he found (running back) Chad Simpson, he found everybody on this team," Matthews said Saturday morning following a light team practice at Canad Inns Stadium.

"We win as a team and we lose as a team. Nobody is responsible more than others -- quarterbacks, receivers, lineman, D-backs. We're all in this together."

A couple of hundred fans showed up on a crisp and windy Saturday morning for what the team billed as Fan Appreciation Day -- with rides, a dunk tank featuring a Roughrider fan and a free concert to help distract the local faithful from a dismal season.

There's no substitute for winning football, however, and there is no denying Matthews has done his part for the cause this season.

Matthews had a decent college career at Kentucky, where he led the team in touchdowns as a senior. And he was a late pre-season cut of the Cleveland Browns in 2011.

But there was little reason to expect that his learning curve in the CFL would be so quick and his trajectory so sharply upward in a season in which the Bombers were hoping only to have him replace the departed Greg Carr's modest production. Instead, Matthews already has more yards, more 100-yard games and more touchdowns in nine games than Carr mustered all of last season for Winnipeg.

He's exceeded everyone's expectations, in other words -- including his own. "I feel like I have," said Matthews, a 22-year-old native of Long Beach, Calif. "When I came up here, I just wanted to start and have an impact for this team. And obviously, I feel I've done that."

At 6-5, 218 pounds, Matthews forms a big target for his quarterback to find. "He's really dangerous," Bombers QB Joey Elliott said Saturday. "He's a big target and once he gets going, he can make some unbelievable plays."

He has made short work of more than a few secondaries this season, putting up 100-yard plus games against Montreal, Edmonton, Hamilton and, most notably, B.C. But while he has made it look easy at times, he says it hasn't been.

"I don't know if I've made it look easy -- a lot of it I've made it look hard," Matthews laughed. "You have to make all the easy catches -- and then you have to make the hard catches look easy. That's really all there is to it."

Still, Matthews believes there is room for improvement. "Breaking tackles and getting more yac-yards (yards after catch) -- I feel like I can still do a lot more with that," Matthews said.

paul.wiecek@freepress.mb.ca

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition September 10, 2012 B3