By Mitchell Blair
For Riderville.com
The Saskatchewan Roughriders won’t be attending the 2011 Grey Cup as a team, but it’s hoped a couple of players may be able to attend as a finalist for a year-end CFL award. Team nominees were announced Wednesday across the league and when it comes to the most outstanding player, those who vote on the award for the Riders selected receiver Weston Dressler.
The 4th year Rider is honoured to be selected as the team’s most outstanding player, but he wishes it were under different circumstances.
“It’s nice knowing that people view me as that type of player on this team,” Dressler said following Wednesday’s last practice of the year. “In the end though, you want to be competing in the playoffs and the Grey Cup and it’s very disappointing that we won’t get the chance to do that.
Dressler goes into Friday’s season finale in Edmonton leading the team in catches with 78 to go along with a team high 1034 yards and five touchdowns. He is not the only receiver to garner some recognition for his season as teammate Chris Getzlaf was given the nod as the team’s top Canadian. It’s the first honour for the Regina product who has caught 53 passes for 940 yards and eight touchdowns. That is the best of any Canadian receiver in the CFL this season.
While he didn’t get the nomination for most outstanding player, linebacker Jerrell Freeman is the team’s nominee for top defensive player. Freeman has had an outstanding season as he goes into the final weekend of the season leading the CFL in tackles to go along with five sacks and three interceptions. Freeman says he is honored to be given this recognition, but he says he would gladly trade it in to keep playing.
“I would trade this all in to have a chance at playing in a 3rd Grey Cup,” Freeman admitted. “The individual accolades are nice and I am hoping to be named the top defensive player in the league, but if I could trade that in so I could play in the playoffs and compete for the title again, I would.”
Freeman says when he looks back at the season, he credits one thing for the success he has had.
“I had a better understanding of the defence,” Freeman said. “This is not an easy defence to understand and it took a couple of weeks to learn it all. Once I did learn it, it all started to mesh together for me and it put me in a position to make plays all over the field when called upon.”
For the first time, Chris Best won the top offensive lineman category while Craig Butler was able to snag the nomination as the team’s top rookie with Chris Milo getting the special teams player award. It was a great birthday present for the 25 year old who was the team’s 4th round draft pick this season. It also is something he never thought he would get early in the season when he was struggling.
“The old saying is its not how you start, its how you finish and it certainly wasn’t a good start for me,” Milo said. “Confidence wasn’t high after those first couple of games, but confidence is something that you build, and Ken Miller showed a lot of confidence in me. I have taken the words from Coach and I’ve done my best to make him and his wife (Maureen) who has talked to me about life several times this year proud of me.”
The team nominees will be whittled down to division nominees next week. League winners will be announced on the Thursday of Grey Cup week which is November 24.
