‘I feel like I owe them’: Williams-Lambert stays with Riders

The Saskatchewan Roughriders wanted to keep Jordan Williams-Lambert in green and white, and the receiver decided to repay that sentiment by signing a new deal.

“(It was) just the interest, the interest they showed over the COVID period,” Williams-Lambert told media Thursday. “I feel like it wasn’t about the money. It was just getting an opportunity to continue playing and hopefully pursuing that opportunity I missed out on a year ago.”

Williams-Lambert said he considered free agency but took pride in what he was building in Saskatchewan.

“I feel like I owe to them, before any other team in (the CFL), the opportunity to go for a Grey Cup,” Williams-Lambert said from his home in Fishers, Ind.

While 2020 was a year many would want to forget, it was a year in which Williams-Lambert became a father. He and his wife Christa welcomed their son Ameer to the world 11 months ago.

“The wife wanted to come back (to Indiana), which played a large reason as to why we wanted to come back to have the baby. We had an opportunity to have it up there,” Williams-Lambert said.

He said he signed the one-year contract to keep him with Saskatchewan through 2021 because it was the best course of action according to his agent.

Before the 2020 CFL season was cancelled, Williams-Lambert joined quarterback Cody Fajardo in Nevada to get to know Saskatchewan’s top pivot.

While he played in five games for the Riders in 2019, Lambert had recorded 62 catches, 764 yards and four touchdowns in 2018 en route to being named the West Division’s most outstanding rookie — but that was before Fajardo took the reins.

“I really didn’t know him like that and it was tough trying to step in on their season (in 2019) because I wasn’t me due to (the fact) they had a lot of things going and I didn’t want to mess with their flow,” said the 26-year-old receiver, who spent part of the 2019 season with the NFL’s Chicago Bears.

“I actually crossed a lot of things off my bucket list (in Nevada). I played a full 18 holes of golf, we went hiking … He allowed me into his home. That’s different for me.

“I instantly had respect for him because no one made the trip. It was supposed to be a receivers-and-quarterbacks trip but everyone backed out, but I wasn’t going to back out. I wanted to see his work ethic.”