HAMILTON — Denzel Radford has been pulled in a couple of different directions during the 2017 CFL season.
On Friday, the Saskatchewan Roughriders rookie finally may have found a place to stay.
Radford, who has practised both at receiver and safety with the CFL team, stepped in at safety when Mike Edem suffered a shoulder injury during the third quarter of Saskatchewan’s 27-19 victory over the Hamilton Tiger-Cats at Tim Hortons Field.
Radford held his own at the position to help the Roughriders’ cause.
“When Mike went down, I knew I was probably the next man up,” said Radford, a 23-year-old product of Calgary. “I know the coaches are going to critique my play quite a bit. I don’t know if I was up to standard, but I did what I could.”
Radford played receiver at the University of Calgary, but Roughriders head coach-GM Chris Jones said when his team acquired Radford from the Montreal Alouettes on June 7 that the rookie would play safety.
The 6-foot-1, 198-pounder since has gone back and forth across the line of scrimmage for Saskatchewan’s practices. He has been a fixture on special teams all season — he had two such tackles Friday to fatten his team-leading total to 14 — but hadn’t been used as a regular on either side of the ball.
That changed Friday.
“When I went in (to replace Edem), I tried to stay as calm as possible,” Radford said. “Especially as a rookie, there’s a lot of pressure going out there. I tried to keep my mind clear and tried to perform. I knew the plays, so I just wanted to execute to the best of my ability.”
And? Did he?
“I think there were a few times where I might have been a bit too deep in coverage,” admitted a grinning Radford, who recorded one defensive tackle in the contest. “But my main focus was making sure that nobody went over top of me.
“I wasn’t giving up a big play. I’d rather let the 10-yard underneath routes go rather than a 50-yard touchdown go over my head. I was a little bit cautious and maybe a little bit delayed in coming up to routes, but I think overall, we as a defence did enough to get the W.”
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The Roughriders’ defence forced five turnovers in the contest, with two interceptions, two fumble recoveries and a turnover on downs. The takeaways led to 17 points.
A fumble recovery by Edem set up a field goal before another recovery by Tobi Antigha led to a touchdown. The first of Ed Gainey’s two interceptions set up a TD and his second, which he made in the Roughriders’ end zone, squelched a Hamilton scoring opportunity.
The defence was stretched to the limit in the second half — the offence had just three first downs after the intermission, with all three coming on the same drive — but it held.
“If we mess up, we hope that the offence is going to have our backs,” Gainey said. “We’ve got to play as a team and not get too down on each other. In times like that, it gets pretty stressful. We’ve just got to stay even-keeled and make sure we get off the football field.”
Offensive tackle Thaddeus Coleman was left shaking his head by the Roughriders’ output after the break. Saskatchewan had eight possessions in the second half and punted on seven of them.
“You could feel it in the second half: We were up, but we took our foot off the gas,” Coleman said. “Good teams don’t do that, so it’s a learning lesson.
“We haven’t been in this position where (opponents) actually came back and made it a game. We’re going to look at the film, see what we did wrong and correct our mistakes.”
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Demond Washington’s lapse in judgment benefited the Roughriders on Friday.
The Hamilton defensive back was disqualified during the third quarter for spitting. The accompanying 25-yard penalty, which followed a 13-yard pass from Brandon Bridge to Bakari Grant, gave Saskatchewan a first down at the Tiger-Cats’ 23-yard line.
On the next play, Bridge found Naaman Roosevelt for a touchdown that gave the Roughriders a 27-10 lead.
The target of Washington’s spittle was Saskatchewan guard Derek Dennis.
“I guess he thought I was trying to be with dirty him, when I really wasn’t,” Dennis told reporters. “Just an accidental hand hit him. I guess it hit him in the stomach or somewhere.
“He came up to me talking mess. I just told him, ‘You’re just a little DB. I’m not going to sit here and argue with you for no reason. If you’ve really got a problem with me, we can address it later,’ and I guess he took it upon himself to spit in my face.”
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EXTRAS: Gainey has a league-leading eight interceptions in 11 games this season. He entered the 2017 CFL campaign with five picks in 60 career games … Roughriders receiver Devon Bailey makes his catches count. Bailey has two receptions this season and one of them (Friday’s nine-yarder) has produced a touchdown. As a member of the Edmonton Eskimos last season, Bailey also had two catches and one of them (a 72-yarder on Nov. 5 against the Toronto Argonauts) was for a touchdown. Bailey had three TDs on 35 career catches … Six players have returned punts for Saskatchewan this season and, after Friday’s contest, five of them have been injured (although not necessarily on returns). The latest to join the list of walking wounded is Marcus Thigpen, who left Friday’s game after returning three punts for 77 yards. Duron Carter also was injured Friday, while Ricky Collins Jr., Nic Demski and Christion Jones sustained injuries early this season. Only Gainey, who had two punt returns for 24 yards Friday, has remained unscathed.
