CALGARY — Duron Carter answered his detractors with one play — and with one word.
Carter was the target of a great deal of doubt and skepticism after it was revealed that he would play cornerback for the Saskatchewan Roughriders in Friday’s CFL game against the host Calgary Stampeders.
Normally a wide receiver, Carter had never started a game at corner at any level of football. Calgary quarterback Bo Levi Mitchell joked on Twitter that the Stamps would throw 25 passes at Carter because of his inexperience, and league observers expected Carter to fall on his face.
But Carter silenced everyone with a solid performance in Saskatchewan’s 30-7 victory at McMahon Stadium — especially after he returned his first career interception for a touchdown.
His only offering on Twitter in the hours after the game consisted of one word: “Life.”
“(Contributing as he did Friday) is what’s expected of me anywhere,” Carter said. “I’m supposed to be putting touchdowns on the board no matter where I’m at and that’s how I play.”
Roughriders head coach-GM Chris Jones was roundly questioned in the days leading up to Friday’s game for moving his team’s leading receiver to cornerback.
Jones explained numerous times that Carter was the best option to play the position, since Kacy Rodgers II and Chris Lyles were injured, Sam Williams was sick and newcomer Melvin White was still learning the CFL game. Besides, Jones said, Carter had practised at corner and played a few snaps there earlier this season.
Jones suggested that Carter would play both ways but, as it turned out, every snap he took was on defence. According to Jones, the Roughriders “didn’t feel like we needed him on offence” (even though Carter’s replacement, Josh Stanford, had just one catch for 19 yards).
So Carter stayed on defence. He blitzed a couple of times (including on Calgary’s first offensive play), he tackled Jerome Messam — Calgary’s 255-pound tailback — for no gain on one carry, and he turned in the game’s signature moment.
On the sixth play of the fourth quarter, Mitchell lofted a pass to his right. It went over his receiver’s head to a waiting Carter, who started to his right, reversed his field and scampered into the end zone for a 43-yard touchdown that gave Saskatchewan a 27-7 lead.
“I just stayed true to my coverage and he put one right in my hands,” Carter said. “I figured nobody on offence was out there ready to tackle, so it was an easy touchdown.”
Carter finished with two tackles and the pick-six. Two long passes to receivers he was covering fell incomplete, which made his stat line look better.
“I thought he played OK,” Jones said. “He got beat a couple of times, let guys get in behind him a couple of times and Bo Levi overthrew them. He’s a good football player. He could play full-time corner if I wanted him to.”
In Carter’s mind, that wouldn’t be so bad. He admitted that he feels more freedom as a DB than he does at receiver — “Defence allows you to sort of be you,” he said — and more able to affect a game.
Asked if he had done a lot of work to prepare for his maiden voyage on the corner, Carter replied: “I’m supposed to say yeah, but it was the same old stuff.”
“You can only watch so much film,” he added. “I’m a feel-it, be-out-there guy. It really took me the first two series to see where I was at and after that I was really comfortable.”
It’s unclear where Carter will play Friday when the Roughriders play host to the Montreal Alouettes. Rodgers practised last week and could return, which could send Carter back to the offensive side of the ball.
Or he could remain on defence, where his showing Friday was exactly what some people expected of him.
“I knew it was going to happen,” defensive back Ed Gainey said. “As soon as Bo Levi got on Twitter and started talking trash, I knew it was over at that point. They’re a good football team, but when you count people out like that, you talk trash and say you’re going to come at us? Man, we prepared all week for this.
“I believed in Duron, I knew he and I were going to get a lot of opportunities and I told him he was going to get (an interception).”
Some believed the decision to move Carter was made to punish him for his role in a fight with Williams during Monday’s practice. There also is a school of thought that says Carter — who’s viewed around the league as a disruptive influence on teams — is a distraction.
After an eventful week, Carter was asked if he felt vindicated.
“I never feel vindicated because, to tell you the truth, I don’t really feel in the wrong,” he said. “I’m just out here living my life. I’ve been the same since Day 1.
“Everybody in the locker room appreciates me. I’m sort of the big brother to some guys. I get really passionate about football, everybody understands that and they let me be me.”
Carter’s showing in Calgary was only part of a larger story.
The Roughriders’ defence held the Stampeders to 10 first downs, 168 yards of total offence and a season-low seven points (comprising two field goals and a single).
It was the second straight meeting between the teams that the Stampeders failed to score a touchdown; they had five field goals in a 15-9 victory over Saskatchewan on Sept. 24.
“It was just a higher level of focus that I saw on the team and a never-quit attitude that’s going to help us win for the remainder of the season and going into the playoffs,” linebacker Henoc Muamba said.
“I was telling a lot of the guys before the game that this game has a deeper meaning than just one night. It’s not only what it means for our playoff run but also the message that it’s sending to the rest of the league.
“We’ve evolved, we’ve grown up and we’re here to play.”
