Jason Halstead/CFL.ca
Through the duration of his football career, Willie Jefferson has encountered his share of ups and downs. The All-Star defensive lineman has been lucky through his eight CFL seasons, though, to have experienced far more highs than lows.
He joined an Edmonton team in 2014 that would win 12 games and play in the Western Final, then bounce back to win the Grey Cup in 2015. After exploring NFL options, he joined the Saskatchewan Roughriders for the tail end of their five-win season in 2016 and as far as regular season losses go, they’ve grown to be few and far between since. Jefferson has been on playoff teams ever since that 2016 miss. He was a key addition to what’s grown into a historically great Winnipeg Blue Bombers team and after back-to-back Grey Cup wins, he’s been a part of three championship-winning squads.
So when his Bombers missed out on the CFL’s first three-peat since Edmonton was in the midst of its five-in-a-row run 42 years ago, Jefferson hit that rare, unfamiliar feeling of coming up short. It was the first time in his CFL career that he’d lost on the Grey Cup stage.
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“I feel like as a leader, the guys needed somebody to look at, someone saying, it’ll be better. It’ll be OK,” Jefferson said of the moments after the 109th Grey Cup.
“So I didn’t necessarily cry after the game. I was more or less so happy for the guys on the other team that they finally got the opportunity to win the Grey Cup. I’m just ready to get back to Winnipeg and get ready for the next year.”
One of the many impressive things about watching Jefferson and the Bombers’ run through these past three seasons has been their ability to stay consistent. Head coach Mike O’Shea seems to have been able to get his entire team to block out the noise and pressure that comes with winning at the rate that they have. The back-to-back Grey Cup wins and three consecutive Grey Cup appearances piled up in the periphery for them as they stuck to their process and put the same type of work in, week after week through the last three years.
The Grey Cup loss may have hit hard and the long off-season that followed didn’t help, but there’s a sense that just like all the games before it, the final one of 2022 was processed, learned from and it’s been on to the next step for the team.
Jefferson said that going back to the team’s hotel that night in Regina and seeing their families and friends was the hardest part.
“Just going through it and reflecting on the loss, that’s probably the easiest part, trying to take it as a regular loss from the season, things like that and get ready to move on,” he said.
“I know a lot of the guys, it was tough for them. It was their first Grey Cup loss, then not knowing if they’d be back. That’s (fuelled) a lot of guys for the off-season, working out, getting ready for training camp.”
A playmaking threat on defence, Jefferson has scored five touchdowns over his last six seasons played (The Canadian Press)
Once the off-season got rolling, it felt in many ways like a typical one for the Bombers. General manager Kyle Walters got to work and extended the majority of his team’s key pieces before they became free agents. That included O’Shea, who added another three years onto his deal. The actual free agency period was light, transaction-wise for the Bombers, but still significant. They brought star receiver Kenny Lawler back, which may have convinced fellow receiver Rasheed Bailey to find his place in the roster, as he re-signed as a free agent three days later on Feb. 17.
The team lost offensive lineman Michael Couture to BC, receiver Greg Ellingson to Montreal and defensive lineman Casey Sayles to Hamilton. The rest of the league’s dominant, win-heavy group will be back on the field next month when training camps open, ready to attempt a climb back to the top of the league’s mountain.
“Unfinished business,” Jefferson said of what motivated so many players to put their names to paper so quickly this winter.
“We were so close to capping off something amazing. Three years in a row in the Grey Cup with pretty much the same team. To do it in Regina, us being from Winnipeg, that would have made it even more special. To lose by one, to be so close to doing that thing. Just trying to get it back. Trying to bring the Grey Cup back to Winnipeg to give our fans exactly what they want and continue our winning culture.”
