The Canadian Press
He is the brightest of the bright spots in what has otherwise been an unfortunate season, so far, for the Montreal Alouettes.
As the Als looks to springboard into a strong finish and a chance at catching the Ottawa REDBLACKS for a spot in the playoffs, they will rely on big number 85 to provide them with the clutch catches and big chunks of real estate that they’ll need in order to fire up the offence down the stretch. And big number 85 will likely deliver because delivering is what he’s been doing all throughout the 2017 campaign.
Receiver B.J. Cunningham is zeroing in on a thousand yards receiving, standing eighth in the CFL at the dawn of Week 16, and that might come as a surprise to you as it did me. Not that Cunningham isn’t the kind of receiver you can appreciate. Quite the contrary.
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It’s just that, in a season of struggle like the one the Montreal Alouettes are currently experiencing, one they are trying to break free from, where offensive yards have been hard to come by and where inconsistencies have been rife, B.J. Cunningham has come up with the kind of receiving numbers you don’t normally associate with those kinds of struggles.
In his third season with the Alouettes, Cunningham is among the league’s top pass-catchers, with 851 yards on the strength of 52 receptions. His average reception has gone for 16.4 yards, making him the league leader in that regard among receivers who have a minimum of fifty catches.
“See ball, get ball, play ball,” Cunningham said with a laugh, when asked to boil things down.
“When your number’s called and the opportunity arises, you’ve just gotta make that play.”
His success may be the product of that simple philosophy, but not just that simple philosophy alone. Quick to credit his teammates, his fellow receivers as well as quarterback Darian Durant, Cunningham conveys that two players in particular – one currently a teammate, the other now in Toronto – helped him get to a higher level of receiving excellence.
Those players are Nik Lewis and S.J. Green.
“I got to Montreal in 2015 and S.J. and Nik were both there,” explained Cunningham. “I was watching them and seeing how they were getting open.”
Cunningham is a better receiver in 2017 because, he feels, he is thinking the game more clearly than before and that is due in large part to Lewis, the CFL’s all-time leader in receptions and Green, the sensational game-breaker who was dealt to Toronto during the off-season.
While the physical blessings Cunningham possesses – the range, the speed, the leaping ability, the good hands – have all helped to make him a standout, the lessons he asked for and received from Lewis and Green have provided him with the tools necessary to take a great leap forward.
“I asked them to teach me,” said Cunningham, who quickly determined that Green and Lewis were more than just physically talented pass catchers.
That they had important knowledge stored in their brains, too. “I need to know that,” he told them.
“They took me through it. It took me a couple of years to figure it out, obviously. But once I figured it out – I’m still learning – at the end of the day, once you figure out defences and how they rotate, everything that’s going on around you, not just the man above you, it makes the game so much easier.”
“They taught me how to really feel the defence,” explained Cunningham. “Find spaces, find holes. This field is so big. Once you realize you can find little vacated areas, find the holes, find different ways to separate and get open… once I figured it out from those guys, I took it into my own game and used it. It’s helped me a lot this year.”
In four remaining regular season games – including Monday’s Thanksgiving battle with the equally hungry Edmonton Eskimos – Cunningham needs to average just over 37 yards per game in order to hit the 1,000 yard mark.
If he meets his average output in each of those four games – nearly 61 yards per game – he’ll finish the season with 1,094 yards. He needs just four yards in receptions to match his career high of 855 yards, set in 2016.
“It’s exciting,” Cunningham says of the possibility of getting to a thousand yards. “It’d be a career milestone for me. It’d be a great accomplishment. I haven’t done that yet.”
While he is proud to be stepping forward as a receiver, proud that his numbers are rising, Cunningham isn’t bragging. Nor is he celebrating in any big way. That’s because he and his Montreal teammates have staggered to seven consecutive losses, in need of a turnaround, pronto, in order to rise to playoff contention. It has been tough, Cunningham says, because he loves the organization, the city of Montreal and his teammates.
“Not even worrying about individual accomplishment when the season is kinda going this way,” he said. “You just wanna win games. At the end of the day I love my team.”
After the Edmonton game, the Als will have a bye week, followed by two games against Hamilton and one versus Saskatchewan. There is very little room for error, now, as the team tries to close a five point gap on second place Ottawa. A win against Edmonton would be huge, bolstering the chances that a third place finish in the East could still possibly lead to a playoff spot. Happily, there is no sign of quitting in the Alouettes’ locker room, according to Cunningham.
“We’re still fighting, we’re sticking together,” he said. “We go to practice each day, show up. You know what I’m saying. I don’t see anything deteriorating throughout the week. Everything gets better throughout the week. We’ve just gotta put all the pieces together and come out with a ‘W.’”
Whether the Alouettes can proceed on the upward trajectory Cunningham wants is yet to be seen.
What is certain is that, in 2017, B.J. Cunningham has put his own personal pieces together. The results are plain to see and, he hopes, only a hint of what’s to come.
“I feel like I’m just now gettin’ into a groove,” he said.
“I’ve gotta just keep getting better and keep getting better each day, each week, each year.”
