Everyone associated with the CFL was thrown into turmoil on Monday with the cancellation of the season–players, employees and fans alike. Now we’re all left to contemplate “What now?”
Riders kicker Brett Lauther finds himself looking for the silver lining in all this. With no season in Canada, his thoughts stray south of the border.
“A dream of mine has always been to get a look (in the NFL),” Lauther told us on the Sports Cage. “And as far-fetched as that sounds to some people, and even myself included, when you look back at my career from 2014, ’15, ’16, ’17 when I told people I was going to play in the CFL again, a lot of people would’ve laughed then too.”
Lauther was out of football for four full seasons, after playing four games in 2013. When he returned in 2018, he was one of the league’s best kickers. So he’s overcome long odds before.
“Depending on what happens, I’ll probably try to keep working hard to maybe get a shot down there…see if anything comes of it,” he says.
During the off-season and the pandemic hiatus, the 29 year old has been working for a payment processing company. He is loving his job. And at the moment, it has much more certainty than being a CFL kicker.
“I’d obviously like to be back in Saskatchewan next year but you never know if there’s even going to be football again.
“There’s a lot of questions and not a lot of answers right now.”
All-star receiver Shaq Evans signed a one-year contract to return to the Riders for 2020. At 29 he feels he’s losing one of his best years.
You only get X amount of years in your PRIME! So to lose one hurts bad! Hurts really bad!
— Shaq Evans (@shaq_evans1) August 17, 2020
Evans has not been working another job in the off-season, but “I’m going to now because I gotta do something for the time being,” he told the Sports Cage.
“I’m going to figure something out for now. Because, obviously, this isn’t going to last forever. It’s just tough because you’re not prepared for something like this. You’re not prepared for your season to end out of your control.”
Evans says he interested in coaching players–teaching them the leaping, spinning catches that made him a fan favorite in 2019. But when it’s time for football again in 2021, he wants to be back in Saskatchewan on a new contract.
“Either way if I played or didn’t play I would’ve wanted to re-sign here if the opportunity presented itself,” he says. “Definitely don’t want to go anywhere. Not right now.”
