Jefferson’s performance takes flight for Bombers

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 28/08/2019 (2206 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

WILLIE Jefferson has stated a few times during the CFL season his time with the Winnipeg Blue Bombers has been a work in progress.

Consider his most recent body of work about as fine a finished product as they come.

On Wednesday, the Blue Bombers defensive end was named a CFL top performer for August, a month in which he played a huge role in propelling Winnipeg to three victories and a league-leading 8-2 record.

“You certainly know he’s capable of it,” head coach Mike O’Shea said. “It’s pretty easy to understand when you put a guy into a different system and you’re asking him to do some different things and he’s working with different players around him and getting used to all that. I guess if he called it a slow start, that’s fine.

“I just think it’s the natural progression, knowing full well that Willie’s capable of taking over a game, which he showed last week.”

Jefferson was named a weekly star just days ago for his monster performance in a win over Edmonton. He had three sacks, four tackles, two forced fumbles, two tackles for losses, a pass defended and a fumble recovery in Winnipeg’s 34-28 win over the Eskimos.

In a 32-16 victory over the B.C. Lions in Week 10, Jefferson registered a sack and pulled in an interception. He added another pass knock-down in a 26-24 triumph in Week 9 over the Calgary Stampeders at home and added two sacks, a forced fumble and a pass knock-down Aug. 1 in a one-point loss to the Toronto Argonauts.

An all-star with the Saskatchewan Roughriders the previous two campaigns, Jefferson is demonstrating why Winnipeg general manager Kyle Walters worked hard to ink the 6-7, 248-pound Texan to one-year deal in February.

The 28-year-old former Grey Cup winner with Edmonton (2015) said hard work and a simple plan have translated into solid, consistent performances.

“Staying locked in, staying mentally focused, just keeping my routine, eating well and not getting too caught up in the hype, the glory,” said Jefferson, whose eight quarterback sacks are tied for second in the league, while he leads with five forced fumbles.

“Every week, we want to flush the success and get ready for the next weekend and go 1-0. That’s one thing that coach O’Shea and (defensive) coach Richie (Hall) says, just to go 1-0 every week. We know we have a tough opponent this week in Sask. — going into a hostile environment, we know we want to go in, play a cool, calm and collected game and get out of there with a win.”

● ● ●

Bombers safety Jeff Hecht and running back Andrew Harris clearly have some stuff to deal with this week.

Hecht has been a vocal critic of players failing a drug test, accusing the Ottawa Redblacks’ Louis-Philippe Bourassa of being “lazy” and trying to “buy an edge” when Bourassa failed a drug test earlier this season.

But Harris was suspended for two games Monday after testing positive for traces of an anabolic steroid, prompting some backlash on social media from at least two CFLers — the Calgary Stampeders’ Derek Dennis and Ottawa’s Richie Leone. Both felt Hecht should turn that same critical eye toward his teammate.

That won’t happen publicly, the 33-year-old Edmonton product said.

“To think that I would treat my teammate the same way as I would treat somebody else in the league is naive of some people because I’m a team-first guy,” Hecht told reporters Wednesday. “Me and Andrew have spoken and we’ll continue to speak on the subject, that’s where I’ll leave it.”

Harris maintains he didn’t knowingly use a banned substance and believes a supplement he took was contaminated.

“We’re super cool. I’ve been playing football with and against Andrew for 15 years now, so we have a good relationship. This doesn’t strain it in any way, I don’t think. It’s tough for him and I’m going to let him deal with it the way he deals with it,” Hecht said. “As far as the situation I’m in with my stance on it, my stance is well known, it’s well documented.

“I’ve been a vocal opponent of the situation since college and junior, and my stance is duly noted, it’s well documented my entire life.”

As for toning down his shots on social media toward others who skirt the rules?

“I don’t think I change my behaviour, ever. A few people, friends of mine and associates, reached out to me and recommended to me about deleting some old stuff that I posted. And I’m just not going to do that,” he said. “I think lying is the tool of the coward, so I’m not going to hide my stance on anything.”

● ● ●

Winnipeg has added Kevin Anderson to a stable of quarterbacks that includes Chris Streveler and Sean McGuire. No.1 QB Matt Nichols remains on the six-game injured list.

The 6-2, 215-pound Floridian spent rookie camp with the team. He played four seasons for the Fordham Rams, completing 580 passes for 7,663 yards and 73 touchdowns. Anderson holds the record for most touchdown passes in the school’s history. In 2018, Anderson spent time with the Orlando Apollos of the Alliance of American Football.

jason.bell@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @WFPJasonBell