Photo by Joshua O’Connor 
Photo by Jon Halpenny 
Photo by Scott Grant
At TD Place on Saturday, the Ottawa Redblacks faced off against the Toronto Argonauts for their final home game of the 2021 CFL season. Unfortunately the Redblacks were not able to give their fans a win to cheer for, having lost 23-20 but what Redblacks fans did cheer about on Saturday was a 100 yard, record breaking kickoff return touchdown from return specialist DeVonte Dedmon.
The return marks Dedmon’s 5th kickoff or punt return touchdown of his CFL career, and he is now the fastest player in CFL history to reach that milestone, doing so in just 15 games. Henry “Gizmo” Williams was the previous record holder, scoring his 5 touchdowns in 18 games. He later went on to score 53 all-purpose touchdowns over the span of 149 CFL games and secure the record for the most all-purpose yards in pro football history with 25,571, 23,977 of which coming in the CFL, the rest in the USFL and NFL. Looking at the stats, DeVonte Dedmon is on pace to break that record, and any other record out there. In just 15 games played Dedmon has gained 2,906 yards and scored 6 touchdowns on just 148 touches, averaging 19.6 yards every time he’s touched the ball and averaging just under 200 yards per game played. With one game remaining in the 2021 CFL season, Dedmon will look to add to his totals, but he also just signed a contract extension, bringing him back for the 2022 CFL season so Redblacks fans are expected to cheer him on even more moving forward.
Prior to breaking the record on Saturday, Dedmon appeared on JZ Media’s “Talking Phresh” barber shop talk podcast alongside Jean Phresh, Jordan Zlomislic and Ginuwine Eyma where he talked about his journey to Ottawa, his success with the Redblacks thus far, his confidence & mindset as well as his life outside of football. Part one from the conversation released last week on Jordan Zlomislic’s YouTube and part two came out this Sunday following Saturday’s big game.
JZ MEDIA 