WitP: Chad Owens, RGM, Bess, Samson, McBriar

Herb Zurkowsky of The Montreal Gazette profiles Chad Owens.

Chad Owens won't begin to suggest it was easy. Not for a minute. Practising day after day for nearly four months knowing he was unlikely to play.

And that was only one aspect. On the Alouettes' practice roster since July 14, he was earning perhaps $1,000 per week before taxes - and probably less - while supporting a wife and three children. But dreams don't die easily.

"A lot goes to staying mentally strong, knowing you're not getting paid a lot," Owens said. "Things cross your mind, but quitting was never one. I'm here because I love playing football. This is the career path I've chosen. And my pro career has been filled with ups and downs. It has been a roller-coaster ride.

"But this is the reason why I get up and come to work, regardless of the circumstances."

Owens, a 5-foot-8, 180-pound wide receiver, gets a rare opportunity to play today (1 p.m., TSN, RDS, CJAD Radio-800), when Montreal completes its regular-season against the Toronto Argonauts at the Rogers Centre.

Go Mighty Mouse!

Also in the CFL, Ryan Grice-Mullen had a 73-yard kickoff return for the second straight week in the BC Lions loss to Edmonton. RGM also had 2 receptions for 34 yards.

Omar Kelly of the Sun-Sentinel asks if Davone Bess is in a sophomore slump.

Bess caught 17 passes for 140 yards in the first three games, but his production has slowed down drastically over the past four. Since Chad Henne's taken over as the starting quarterback Bess hasn't contributed more than 18 receiving yards in any of the past four games.

What's worse is that the Dolphins' slot receiver has had a fumbling problem over the past two weeks. He's fumbled three times, but fortunately one never counted because the Jets didn't review the play courtesy of a great rush job by the Dolphins.

"This thing all of a sudden popped up in the last couple of games. As far as confidence I think Davone is a pretty confident football player. I would hope that he has a short memory, that he can put it behind him, but it isn’t so much just putting it behind him," Sparano said. "You have to work on some of the fundamentals; you have to be conscious of some of the fundamentals in those situations. When something like that happens, it is a little bit like disease and I think the only way you get it out of your system is you go back and you concentrate on the fundamentals and get things done in practice the right way and then it will carry over.”

Bess has been putting in extra work to break out of it.

``I'm working my butt off this week to hold onto the ball,'' Bess said. ``It's just a matter of me being more careful. I've got to be ball-conscious.''

During the past two weeks, Bess fumbled twice. (He actually fumbled a third time, but the Jets ran out of time to challenge the play before Miami got the next snap off.) As a result of the drops, the team's leading receiver was back at the team's facility a day after the win against the Jets to get it figured out.

``I came in for Victory Monday [normally designated as a day off] and just caught a ton of punts, just to get my confidence going again,'' Bess said. ``It never really brought me down, but it hurt me that I could have potentially lost us the game.''

Samson Satele has solidified his hold as the Raiders starting center.

Satele conceded catching on the the zone blocking system took awhile, especially after missing OTAs following shoulder surgery.

“Now, I got this offense down,” Satele said. “Now I can just go and run with it and get the starting job back, and it’s my job to lose I guess.”

“It’s more a techinique thing. I was still in my power reaches instead of zone reaches so once I got that down, Cable saw it, and I handled it pretty well, like you said. I didn’t take it in a negative way. It took me about four weeks into the season and I’m right back in it.”

Said Cable: “When you evaluate his play and Chris’ play when Chris was the center, it surpassed it. He’s been really a bright spot for us lately.”

Mat McBriar is having one of the best seasons of his career.

In 2006, Mat McBriar blew everyone away with his 48.2-yard average. He followed that up in 2007 with an equally impressive 47.1-yard average.

After suffering a season-ending leg injury in 2008, McBriar has returned with an average of "only" 46.4 yards per kick. But that only tells part of the story. His net average has increased to 41.7 yards per punt, which is the best in his career.

On top of that stat, McBriar has also downed 17 of his 30 punts (56.6%) inside the opponent 20. He ranks third in the league in total punts downed inside the 20. No other punter has placed a higher percentage of punts inside the 20, though. In fact, the only other punter who has placed more than half of his punts inside the 20 is Cleveland's Dave Zastudil, who has downed 25 of 49 punts.