Naaman Roosevelt returns ahead of schedule

OTTAWA – Naaman Roosevelt hasn’t watched a video of the hit that knocked him out two games ago.

He doesn’t really need to see it, either. He remembers it well enough.

“It was a big hit,” the Saskatchewan Roughriders slotback said Tuesday after practising for the first time with the CFL team since absorbing the shot. “I feel like I take those hits all the time.

“I’m just happy to be back and I know everybody was happy to see me out here today.”

Roosevelt was injured after catching a pass from Kevin Glenn during the second quarter of Saskatchewan’s 15-9 loss to the visiting Calgary Stampeders on Sept. 24.

Just after making the reception over the middle, Roosevelt was hit hard by Calgary defensive back Tunde Adeleke. Roosevelt took the brunt of the hit in the head — and then he hit his head on the ground when he fell as well.

On Tuesday, Roosevelt confirmed he ducked while trying to get down to protect himself “like I always do.” He also said he didn’t think there was anything dirty about the hit, for which Adeleke received a 15-yard penalty for unnecessary roughness.

Added Roosevelt: “It was just bang-bang and I got caught in a bad spot.”

The 30-year-old product of Buffalo admitted that he lost consciousness for a short time before coming around. He received medical attention on the field before being escorted to the Roughriders’ locker room.

“(I only felt symptoms for) probably a day or two after and then, after that, I was feeling good,” said Roosevelt, who believes the concussion he suffered was the first of his pro football career.

“The trainers did a good job of, every day, making sure I was good and making sure everything felt good. Everything has been feeling good for the past week and I’m just excited to be back with the guys.”

Roosevelt hadn’t practised since the Calgary game and he was placed on the six-game injured list in advance of Friday’s 18-17 victory over the host Ottawa Redblacks. His replacement, Antwane Grant, caught two passes for 45 yards in Saskatchewan’s come-from-behind win.

Roosevelt, meanwhile, was dealing with nothing more than a headache.

“After a couple of days (following the hit), I felt good,” he said. “(The trainers) wanted me to just relax and chill, so I chilled for a couple of days and just started running a few days ago. I feel good today.”

Roosevelt was activated off the six-game list prior to Tuesday’s workout at MNP Park on the campus of Carleton University, where he practised with the first-team offence. He’s to be at Glenn’s disposal Saturday when the Roughriders visit the Toronto Argonauts.

“You always miss guys when they’re actually not playing and it’s due to an injury; you feel for those guys,” Glenn said. “At the same time, you know that we have guys on the roster who can step up and fill in while he’s down.

“But Naaman’s a leader on the team and when he’s in there, we’re a better football team.”

Despite missing the game against Ottawa, Roosevelt remains sixth in the CFL with 929 receiving yards this season. He’s also tied for third in the league with seven touchdown receptions, he’s fourth with 26 second-down catches that produce first downs, and he’s 11^th with 64 receptions.

His return comes at a good time for the Roughriders, who put Grant on the one-game injured list Tuesday with a suspected leg injury. It also comes at a good time for Roosevelt who, after recovering, enjoyed a few days off.

“I felt energized (during Tuesday’s practice); I felt like my legs were back,” he said. “I feel like it was a bye week for me. I got to relax and chill.

“The trainers did a good job of always being around me, helping me out and just making sure I was good. They said I was good to go and I feel good to go.”

Roosevelt’s 2016 season ended after 11 games due to a knee injury, so he’s well aware that making it unscathed through an 18-game regular season can be difficult — especially for a player who often is asked to catch passes in high-traffic areas.

Football leagues across North America have been looking for ways to eliminate high hits on defenceless receivers in hopes of increasing player safety. The NCAA, for example, has a targeting rule that can result in a player’s ejection from a game if officials deem he targeted an opponent’s head.

The hit on Roosevelt prompted more discussion about high hits in the CFL as well.

“Football’s football,” Roughriders head coach-GM Chris Jones noted Tuesday when the subject was raised. “We’ll play with whatever rules that the league comes up with. We’re coaches and players and we just comply to the CFL rules.”

For his part, Roosevelt said that the hit and the subsequent talk about player safety once again got him thinking about the long-term health of his brain.

“If you play football, you always do,” he said. “You’ve been taking contact since you were young. For all of us, you hear stuff like that and you watch movies. For football players, it’s going to be in your head.”