Vengeance not his mission

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 05/08/2010 (5537 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The obvious slant would be a player going up against his former team; a chance to show a previous employer an error was made when the pink slips were handed out.

But that’s not where Winnipeg Blue Bombers wide receiver Chris Davis is in his approach to the game against the Hamilton Tiger-Cats Saturday. Davis, who spent two years with the Tabbies before getting his release last season, has a simple plan of attack for his return to Ivor Wynne Stadium — and it doesn’t involve screaming for vengeance before kickoff.

"I’m not looking at it like that at all," the 26-year-old said after the club went through a weather-affected practice at the team offices Wednesday. "(Hamilton) already knows I can play, so it’s not really a thing of proving to them that I can play or any bad-blood stuff — it’s just about me performing. I don’t want to put any added pressure on myself, like ‘I’m going back to Hamilton, so I better go get ’em’ or anything like that.

"I just have to play a solid game. That’s what I want to do."

With prized rookie Terence Jeffers-Harris out with a bum ankle (he was still wearing the walking cast Wednesday), Davis appears to be finally getting a chance to show the Bombers he was not only worth the time and paperwork it took to bring him to Winnipeg (he signed as a free agent in April), but also worth the wait to see what he can do on the field.

The Wake Forest grad has fallen short in his bid to challenge for a starting spot within the Blue and Gold receiving group so far (he has yet to dress for a single game this season), but that should change this weekend.

Despite a battle with fellow import Jamayel Smith for the injury-replacement gig, the Bombers are leaning toward Davis to take Jeffers-Harris’s spot in the lineup against Hamilton.

Forget about showing the former team they made a mistake letting him go — Davis says this is a chance for him to show the Bombers (2-3) that they made a smart move bringing him in.

"When it comes to be my time to play, like it is this week, I’m going to just go out there and try to perform best I can," Davis said. "I’m going to try to show (the Bombers coaches) that I’m capable of doing some of the things I did in Hamilton last season.

"This is my chance to play. I’m excited to show this team that I can do it."

Davis is at a loss for what happened in Hamilton, where he caught 54 balls for 668 yards and five touchdowns in 13 games. He says the reasons for his release were never really explained to him, and figures the unemployment was just a player moving in a different direction than the team wanted to go.

"I was discouraged when I got let go," admits Davis, who also played four games with Montreal during the 2006-07 seasons. "I didn’t know where my next opportunity was going to come from. It came as a shock, really, but once I signed up with Calgary (he never played with the Stamps), I think I managed to let it go.

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"It’s a business, right? You can’t dwell on stuff like that too long."

Davis, who will probably line up in the slot against the Ticats (1-4), believes the intangible he brings to the Bombers is prior CFL experience, and that’s one of the traits Bomber head coach Paul LaPolice says has kept the 5-10, 186-pound receiver around through the first six weeks of the season.

"We felt he was one of the quicker guys we had in training camp and had some escapability in man coverage," LaPolice said. "He can play at a number of spots… that’s the reason we’ve kept him around."

The Blue Bombers return to the practice at Rods Field this morning.

adam.wazny@freepress.mb.ca