Catching on: Picton makes first three receptions of CFL career

When Mitch Picton was a member of the University of Regina Rams, he caught seven passes in the first game ever played at Mosaic Stadium.

On Friday, the Regina product caught the first three passes of his CFL career at the same facility.

“It felt good,” the 26-year-old Saskatchewan Roughriders receiver said Thursday.

“I’ve played a lot of football in my time, so once I got out there again, it was just another game of football. It felt good to get out there and be playing again.”

On Oct. 1, 2016, Picton caught seven passes for 85 yards and two touchdowns in the Rams’ 37-29 victory over the University of Saskatchewan Huskies in a test event for the brand-new Mosaic Stadium.

He finished that Canada West regular season with 58 receptions for 834 yards and 11 touchdowns, earning him a spot on the Canada West all-star team as well as U Sports first-team All-Canadian honours.

The Roughriders selected the 6-foot-2, 200-pound receiver in the fifth round (37th overall) of the 2017 CFL draft, but he returned to the U of R for the 2017 campaign.

He re-signed with Saskatchewan in November 2017, but didn’t make his CFL debut until 2019. He played two games that season, but didn’t catch any passes.

He did, however, pick up pointers from the veterans in the Roughriders’ receiving corps — information that he’s putting to use now. He also developed a great relationship with fellow receiver Kyran Moore.

“He’s my dawg,” a grinning Moore said of Picton. “When I first came in (in 2018), my rookie year, in training camp, I was struggling with the playbook for a long time. Pic was the one who was always next to me.

“If I don’t know it, Pic knows everything. He knows the whole offence.”

“It was a steep learning curve for both of us,” Picton added. “It’s a team game, right? Receivers playing side by side, you both have to know what you’re doing if either of you want to be successful. We had a lot of long meetings and spent a lot of time in the film room getting the (play)book down.”

Picton made three receptions for 36 yards in Saskatchewan’s 33-29 victory over the B.C. Lions last Friday. An off-season of training with teammate Brayden Lenius helped Picton earn a starting job in 2021 and he’s eager to make the most of it.

“What happened on Friday night was the expectation,” Picton said. “All those days that we were in here, this is exactly what we expected to happen, this is what we were working towards and (after the game) we both said, ‘This is kind of just the beginning. There’s a lot of work left to do from here.’ ”

For Moore, seeing his buddy make his first career CFL catch was a great feeling.

“Seeing Pic out there just doing his thing, man … I really was cheering for Pic more than myself,” Moore said.

Picton will be looking to add to his totals Saturday, when the Roughriders play host to the Hamilton Tiger-Cats (8 p.m.). He now has one game as a starter under his belt and can use that on Saturday.

“You learn something every game,” Picton said. “There’s a lot you can always take out of games, whether that’s positive or negative. You just have to try to learn from your mistakes and move forward.”

Hit earns fine

It took a while, but the CFL made the right call on a brutal hit against Roughriders quarterback Cody Fajardo. That’s according to Riders head coach Craig Dickenson.

Fajardo was cranked by Lions linebacker Jordan Williams during Friday’s game. Dickenson challenged the play, saying it was a hit to the head deserving of a penalty, but the officials didn’t agree.

The league announced Wednesday that Williams was being fined an undisclosed amount.

“I’m glad that the league came out and made a statement, or at least expressed their wishes, that it was an unnecessarily rough play and fined him for it,” Dickenson said Thursday.

“I don’t want anybody to lose money, but I think the league did the right thing by coming out and saying, ‘That was unnecessarily rough, and we’re going to fine you because of it.’ ”

At the same time, Dickenson acknowledges that people make mistakes and he’s glad they made the right call in the end.

“There was a number of times in the game we probably got away with something,” he said. “We try to make sure that we point that out to our guys and we say, ‘Just because it’s not called doesn’t mean it’s not a penalty.’ And the same goes on (the missed call on Williams).”

On top of that, Dickenson doesn’t think it was a vicious play, just a mistake.

“Did I think (Williams) tried to hurt (Fajardo)? Absolutely not. He’s a hard-nosed football player that was being physical,” Dickenson said. “But it was a hit to the head, and the league made sure that they penalized him financially, and I think that goes a long way towards at least discouraging those sorts of hits.”

Notes: Offensive lineman Mattland Riley is still out. Dickenson revealed Riley has mono, which takes a long time to recover from. Fellow offensive lineman Brett Boyko is also sick and missed Thursday’s practice, though Dickenson didn’t detail his illness … The Roughriders announced the Labour Day Classic against the Winnipeg Blue Bombers is sold out. The annual clash, which is set for Sept. 5, also marks the first Coors Light Party in the Park of the 2021 season.