Willie Jefferson fully understands the three basic laws of physics, having made a career toiling for every possible advantage in football’s trenches.
He’s lived these laws: that an object cannot change its motion unless a force acts upon it, that force on an object is equal to its mass times its acceleration and, for every action in nature there is an equal and opposite reaction.
The Winnipeg Blue Bombers veteran defensive end also knows this: at 6-7 and 245 pounds it’s absolutely impossible for him to be invisible anywhere, and especially so between the white stripes.
Jefferson has now gone eight games without registering a quarterback sack, his longest stretch since a 10-game span during his rookie season in Edmonton in 2014. And he’s been quite honest over the last couple of weeks about the frustration that goes along with that drought.
“It’s the truth. I am who I am and I’m honest about it,” Jefferson said in a chat with bluebombers.com this week. “I’m not hiding from anybody. I’m out there on the field about 95 percent of the time on defence and it’s not something you can miss. In the last eight games I’ve had multiple times to sack the quarterback and it just hasn’t happened – either they got out of it, there was a penalty or whatever it may be.
“The truth be told I’m not losing sleep over it because I know I’m out here giving it my all and still making plays, still getting some pressures, still making the quarterback throw bad passes or incompletions, doing my part to get us off the field on second down.
“But at the end of the day, guys do like their numbers; football players love their numbers. At the end of the season, I want to say, ‘Yeah, I had this many sacks.’”
For the record, Jefferson is stuck on eight sacks – still leading the Blue Bombers, but with six players in the Canadian Football League now ahead of him in Mathieu Betts of B.C. (15), Bryce Carter of Ottawa (11), AC Leonard and Jake Ceresna of Edmonton (10 each), with Calgary’s Mike Rose and Toronto’s Folarin Orimolade at nine each.
Jefferson does so many other things to affect a play, as head coach Mike O’Shea pointed out before last week’s win over the Argonauts, including leading the CFL with 11 pass knockdowns, being tied for the league-lead in forced fumbles with Betts at three, while adding 18 tackles. And if the league still tracked pressures, Jefferson would almost certainly be at or near the top of that category, too.
Still… for D-linemen, sacks are king.
“That helps, hearing Coach O’Shea say something like that. But I just want my numbers,” said Jefferson. “I’m hard on myself. I’m way harder on myself than anybody else.
“I’ve got friends and family saying the same thing that Coach O’Shea does, that I’m out here making other players and doing whatever I can to help the team and this and that. But at the end of the day, I’m missing the stat that most people notice. It’s something I’m known for: putting quarterbacks on their backs with a sack and having the crowd go crazy and get us off the field on second down.
“It’s not been happening that way.”
There are some compelling reasons for that, too, from Jackson Jeffcoat missing action and how that impacts the extra attention Jefferson already gets from offensive coordinators across the league with double-teams and chip blocks — even with him moving from end to the inside on certain snaps.
“That’s a part of football,” Jefferson said with a shrug. “That’s good game-planning from offensive coordinators and offensive line coaches. I do appreciate the recognition and the eyes on me because it gives other guys opportunities to make plays. That’s all good. But I still want to get mine.
“And at the end of this season I can already honestly say I’ve missed way more sacks than I’ve made. At the beginning of the season defensive player of the year was something I was going for but now with missing all these sacks and with it coming down to the end of the season all that’s thrown out of the window.
“Now I’m even more focussed only on getting the ‘W’ and doing everything I can to help us get to the Grey Cup.”
Jefferson will get to the quarterback again, perhaps as early as Friday’s first-place showdown with the Lions in Vancouver. For as immensely skilled as he is, he’s also got a relentless work ethic.
“Hey… I know it’s coming,” he said. “You can’t stay down for too long. I’ve been working, keeping my head down and grinding to try and get there. And when they come, they’re going to come.”
And the celebratory sack dance that will come with his next take-down?
“When it comes on Friday, I’m going to make a lot of noise,” Jefferson said with a grin. “A lot of noise.”
ALL QUIET:
FYI, the CFL trade deadline came and went at 4 p.m. Wednesday without the Blue Bombers making a move.
OUCH UPDATE:
The Blue Bombers held a closed-to-the-media practice on Wednesday, but there were a couple of updates from O’Shea afterward: KR/WR Janarion Grant did practice but CB Demerio Houston did not.
Jamal Parker finished the Toronto game in Houston’s spot, but the club could also turn to Abu Daramy-Swaray and Desmond Lawrence. Asked how the players in the defensive back room compete with each other, O’Shea said:
“They compete for each other. I don’t think it’s that cutthroat room where everybody’s trying to get one up. They all want to play, they all want to be on the field at the beginning of games, but they all really want to contribute to winning first and foremost.
“We say this all the time – they might not exactly like their role in the moment, let’s say if they’re not out there right away, but they certainly do well in their role in support. I do understand that guys compete to win jobs, but when we’re in season it’s about how do we win games?”
SALUTED:
The Blue Bombers offensive line got some love from the folks at Pro Football Focus for their work in September, being honoured as the hogs with the highest grade from Weeks 13 to 17. Jermarcus Hardrick (69.4), Pat Neufeld (68.2) and Chris Kolankowski (63.3) received the three highest grades. QB Zach Collaros was also an honourable mention at QB to B.C.’s Vernon Adams, Jr.
