The grass stain on Sean Whyte’s Eskimos jersey after Friday’s CFL game in Toronto can only indicate one thing
The 33-year-old kicker is once again handling all the Eskimos kicking duties.
Whyte, who kicks field goals and converts for the Esks, also took on the additional responsibility of punts and kickoffs the last two games for the first time since July 2017 with punter/kickoff specialist Hugh O’Neill on the six-game injured list.
That also means he could be the last player left on the field to attempt to tackle or slow down an opponent’s kick returner who has escaped the initial coverage, hence the grass stain.
“I like doing everything just because it keeps me in the game,” said Whyte. “I can go on the field and hit a punt and then maybe go kick a field goal and there’s not as many nerves because I’ve already been on the field.
“In the game at Calgary, I didn’t get a kick until the third quarter.”
Whyte, whose field-goal accuracy in 60 career games with the Eskimos since 2015 is a sizzling 90.6 per cent, missed that 35-yard field goal attempt at McMahon Stadium.
Of course, Whyte also admitted that a bad punt could also send him into “a weird rhythm,” so it could work the other way, too.
“But I’m an athlete, and I want to do as many things as I possibly can,” he added.
Whyte has been a full-time kicker for most of his 11-year CFL career. The only seasons he’s kicked only field goals and converts were 2016 and 2018. Part of the reason for that is the quad injury that knocked him out of the lineup for 12 consecutive games from August through October in 2017.
“Once I tore my quad, (the Eskimos) said, ‘Don’t punt. Don’t kick off. We don’t want you to get hurt again,’ ” Whyte recalled. “So, really, I haven’t had a punt snap since I injured myself. I had two practices going into (the Ottawa game on Aug. 9th) game with punt snaps. Otherwise, I had never taken a snap since the time I got hurt. And I had maybe two kickoffs since I got hurt.”
When Whyte discovered that he had to do punts and kickoffs again, he said, “Alright, cool.” He also joked that he was going to “just close my eyes and hope for the best.”
He had been actually practising punts without receiving the long snap in punt formation this season, but he still found himself shaking off the rust once he was doing it again with the lights on and cameras rolling. He said before the Toronto game on Friday that “there’s a lot of rust in my punt technique. I’m getting better and better the more I do it. I’m remembering old reminders and my old technique.”
Still, he’s done better than he expected when he averaged 40.8 yards on six punts and 60.3 yards on three kickoffs against Ottawa and 42.8 yards on four punts and 61.3 yards on six kickoffs against Toronto.
“He’s a great field goal kicker, but he’s capable of doing all three (jobs),” Head Coach Jason Maas said. “Not every kicker in our league can do that and do it well.”
With an 11-point performance Friday (field goals of 15 and 13 yards plus all five converts), Whyte moved into a tie with Jerry Kauric for fifth place on the Eskimos all-time scoring list with 577 points. Now he needs nine points to tie former Esks receiver Brian Kelly for fourth place in franchise history and 19 points to tie former Ottawa Rough Rider/Calgary Stampeder J.T. Hay for 17th place on the CFL’s all-time points list.
The league’s leading scorer with 25 successful field goals on 30 attempts and 20 converts on 21 opportunities also needs four points to reach 100 this year and eight points to reach the 1,400 milestone for career points.
Whyte will have double-duty once again Friday when the Eskimos, 6-3, host the 7-2 Winnipeg Blue Bombers at 7 p.m. at The Brick Field at Commonwealth Stadium (TSN, 630 CHED).
One benefit for the Eskimos having only one kicker in the lineup means an extra national player is available for special teams duty.
The Eskimos have also added national kicker Greg Hutchins to the practice roster. The former UBC kicker had been released after training camp.
Elite women’s rink teach Esks how to curl
Whyte, who is a passionate recreational curler during the football off-season, recently had an unexpected chance to scrimmage with Laura Crocker’s competitive women’s curling team at the Saville Community Sports Centre.
The kicker from White Rock, B.C., was supposed to be teaching a few of his teammates – receiver/Florida native Greg Ellingson, Global defensive back Jose Alfonsin from Mexico and offensive lineman Jacob Ruby – how to curl.
“So, we showed up to the Saville, and I look over, and there’s Kate Cameron, and I know Kate pretty well (having met the Winnipeg curler through his friend, Chelsea Carey, at a recent Canada Cup in Camrose),” Whyte said. “I gave her tickets when we were in Winnipeg (this year). So I’m like, ‘There’s Kate! What the heck, that’s Laura Crocker! Oh, crap! That’s Taylor McDonald! I curled with her (in the world’s largest curling pro-am at the Lupus Spiel USA 2019 at Blaine, Minn., in May).’
“I was like, ‘This is crazy.’ So then we were all just doing our thing, and I just looked at them and said: ‘You guys should coach (my teammates) instead of me.’ So they came over and helped us out.”
Because he’s a self-taught curler, Whyte was worried that he didn’t know enough technical details to properly teach his non-curling teammates about how to play the game.
Crocker’s rink, which also includes lead Nadine Scotland, turned Whyte’s request for help in teaching the Eskimos players a few curling skills into a one-end, winner-take-all scrimmage for the other team’s jerseys. Crocker easily defeated the football players 5-0.
“I don’t think (his teammates) realized who these people were,” Whyte said. “To me, I’m like, ‘Holy! This is amazing!’ To have them coach you, that’s some of the world’s best curlers.
“They had a great time with it, so it was pretty fun,” he added.