Rushing tandem focused on wins

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 07/08/2015 (4028 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

THEY were branded “thunder and lightning” prior to the start of the CFL season, suggesting the Blue Bombers had the perfect storm when it came to executing the run game.

But six weeks into the year, the rushing tandem of Paris Cotton and Cameron Marshall has spent less time tallying up yards on the field and more time weathering criticism off it.

While the design is meant to employ two formidable options in the backfield — the speed of Cotton combined with bruising power of Marshall — a closer look at the numbers reveals it’s often only one who gets the chance to shine in a game, if any at all.

Through six games, Cotton has hit double digits in run attempts just three times, with his most productive outing coming in a Week 1 win over Saskatchewan in which he ran 13 times for 108 yards to go with four catches for 59 yards and one touchdown through the air. He had just 10 carries in the other two games, totalling a combined 76 yards on the ground.

As for Marshall, his most touches came last Thursday in a 23-13 win over the B.C. Lions in which he ran the ball 10 times for a total of 50 yards. In that game Cotton’s stat line read five runs for a dismal nine yards.

“It’s game-dependent on who’s going to get more touches,” said head coach Mike O’Shea following practice Thursday. “It starts off with the scheme we’re employing versus the scheme their defence is going to employ, what we think is going to work the best and then it goes to, as the game wears on, who might have the hotter hand.”

It’s that last remark that begs the question: How can you determine a hot hand when neither guy is getting the kind of attempts worthy of heating up?

Cotton has just 53 carries this season compared to Marshall’s 31, among the lowest for running backs in the CFL.

It’s to their credit they have chosen to bite their tongues and continue to put in the work.

“We both want this team to win so however we’re going to do it is how the coaches want us to do it,” said Cotton, now in his second year with the Bombers. “When I’m on the field I’m doing the best I can and when he’s on the field he’s doing the best he can. There’s no competition between the two of us because we’re both of the same mindset of wanting this team to win.”

Asked if he felt it was important he get more touches to cement his standing in the lineup, Marshall was clear.

“Whatever makes this team win games, that’s what’s important,” he said. “Obviously as a competitor you want the ball, but I don’t want the ball if it’s going to compromise the team.”

jeff.hamilton@freepress.mb.ca twitter: @jeffkhamilton

Jeff Hamilton
Multimedia producer

Jeff Hamilton joined the Free Press newsroom in 2015, reporting on the sports and investigative beats until he left the Free Press in July 2026.

Every piece of reporting Jeff produced was reviewed by an editing team before it was posted online or published in print — part of the Free Press‘s tradition, since 1872, of producing reliable independent journalism. Read more about Free Press’s history and mandate, and learn how our newsroom operates.