That crowd on Saturday? Wow, I had flashbacks to the Western final in ’08 on that last drive in the fourth quarter. It was amazing.

When the fans are like that, I don’t think they realize how much impact they make on the game when it gets that loud. The receivers are walking to the line of scrimmage because they don’t want to be offside and it’s hard for them to run a deep route. That’s an extra second to get to the quarterback because it takes the receivers more time to get downfield than when they’re hitting the full speed and running downhill. And that’s extra confidence for the DBs because the receivers aren’t able to run downhill from the line of scrimmage.

It makes a big difference when the game’s on the line like that and the other team’s trying to go deep. The crowd did an amazing job. Hey that’s what we need. When we’re at home, we need a home-field advantage and the fans definitely gave us that Saturday night.

I thought we moved the ball well again in this last game. It left like the Toronto game — we moved the ball a lot but we didn’t score a lot. It felt like we should have scored more touchdowns, but it’s a positive to be moving the ball and to be keeping our defence off the field. We can’t lose the game if our offence is on the field. We just have to cut down on the penalties and cut down on the mistakes and just capitalize and score.

We’re just making little mistakes. When you have two downs, it’s hard to capitalize when you make a mistake on first down. Then on second down, you can’t make a mistake. It’s got to be crisp and sometimes, we’re not making those plays. We just have to make the plays and everybody has to make a more assertive effort of saying, “Hey, when we get down here, let’s go score.”

I think it’s really good to have Ken-Yon out there again. I think it’s even better to have him out there and for him to have the game that he had, to get the 86 yards and to show everyone that he’s still effective. I think that was the biggest thing for him is to prove that he’s still effective in this league and for us to know that we’ve still got a guy we can count on.

It’s always easier when we’ve got more guys for the opposition defence to be worried about. With Ken-Yon’s speed and Romby’s speed, it gives that defence a whole different element. You almost have to pick your poison because we’ve still got Joffrey in the backfield and if you’re going to take away the run, then it’s bombs over back there.

It was a good night for me. I went home and watched a TV copy and noticed I had a lot of first downs. That’s my biggest thing is getting first downs and keeping the chains moving. I let those other guys go 80 yards to score, I’m not that type of person.

I had no idea I was close to my career highs in receptions and yards for one game until after the game. But it didn’t make any difference. My most important thing was to focus in on helping this teams reach its goal. When the game’s on the line, I always want the ball in my hands because I know I can make the play. I had the opportunity to make some plays Saturday night and I made them and we came out with the win.

A lot of people have been asking about that play where I jumped over the Saskatchewan player. Like I said after the game, I’m just trying to be an athlete. If you think about it, you’ll be late. My instincts tell me to go and I go. I’ve trained myself to play football and then once the play starts, it’s all instincts. In the off-season, I do a lot of explosive jumps and a lot of different things to prepare myself for any situation. So it’s good to be able to see your work pay off.

As far as the team goes, we have to take advantage of where we’re at right now. We’ve got five games in a row coming up against the West, we have to take advantage of that. We’ve got to come out and prove we want to be the top team in the West. We can’t take BC for granted, they’re a good team. We can’t take Edmonton for granted, they’re a good team. Everybody knows that on any day in the CFL, anybody can win. We didn’t play particularly well Saturday night, but we got the victory. Now we’re looking forward to playing better next week and coming away with another victory.

Nik Lewis, #82
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