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Kevin Fogg’s Quiet Breakout Season

Winnipeg Blue Bombers defensive back Kevin Fogg has rightfully become a fan favourite in Winnipeg over his CFL tenure. Fogg has served as a starting and back up halfback, cornerback, and strong-side linebacker. Now in his third season in the CFL, the versatile defender is thriving at halfback and punt returning.

Kevin Fogg’s 2018 Season

Multiple Defensive Positions

As mentioned, Fogg is no stranger to playing multiple defensive positions in the CFL.

After playing the first two games of the 2018 season at field cornerback, Fogg is now positioned at boundary-side halfback in Winnipeg’s secondary. The third-year defensive back spent some time – and at times struggled – at boundary halfback in his rookie season.

Fogg’s position swap was a result of teammate Maurice Leggett’s return to the lineup in Week 3. While some expected Leggett to replace Anthony Gaitor, Winnipeg’s boundary halfback at the time, Leggett was deployed at field halfback and Fogg to the boundary.

Traditionally, a team’s boundary halfback is their best cover man due to the high volume of targets.

That being said, the Bombers have given Fogg a challenging task over the last three weeks – and he has not disappointed. Since becoming the team’s starting boundary halfback, Fogg has only been thrown towards eight times (in three games) and has given up just four catches for 70 yards.

Dating back to the start of the season, whether in man or zone coverage, Kevin Fogg has been targeted 21 times, giving up 13 completions for 204 yards. Of those targets, he has not been beaten for a touchdown and has snagged two interceptions. Over six games, those are remarkable numbers.

Misleading Home Opener

Of the 204 yards against Kevin Fogg, 134 came in Winnipeg’s 33-30 season-opening loss to the Edmonton Eskimos. The Bombers’ defender was targeted 13 times, nine of which were completed. Although those are frightful numbers for a defensive back, a late coaching strategy should be held responsible for the majority of the completions.

In the Eskimos’ fourth-quarter comeback, Winnipeg’s secondary essentially played a prevent defence. It did not work, and Mike Reilly tore the Bombers’ defence apart. One play that stood out was Derel Walker’s 15-yard catch on Edmonton’s game-winning drive. This catch put Edmonton into field goal range, and saw Fogg line up nine yards away from Walker, who easily caught a Reilly pass while running a slant route.

Lights Out Defensive Play

If you eliminate Fogg’s numbers from Week 1 versus the Eskimos, he has only been thrown at eight times, four of which were caught for 70 yards. Getting tested only eight times in four games shows that opposing quarterbacks have respected Fogg’s coverage, and clearly know his whereabouts on passing plays.

In two of the Bombers’ five games this season, Fogg did not give up a completed pass.

Winnipeg’s defence has put forth porous efforts against the Hamilton Tiger-Cats and most recently the BC Lions. Among those two games, both opposing quarterbacks have mostly looked elsewhere than Kevin Fogg’s way. Travis Lulay learned his lesson when it looked like he had a sure touchdown pass to Bryan Burnham on the last play of the first half until Fogg closed the gap and executed an excellent pass breakup.

The ball-hawking attribute is still prevalent in Fogg’s game too as he is tied for the league lead in interceptions with two. For a defensive back who is an above-average tackler, Fogg has added tremendous cover skills to his game in 2018.

Elite Returning

One of the craziest stories league wide in 2016 was the denial of a return touchdown for Kevin Fogg. In his rookie season he ran four punts back for six, but all were called back via penalty. The hashtag #Free2Gz trended on Twitter as a result. Finally, Fogg found the end zone in October of last year, for real this time.

This season, Fogg holds a CFL best 313 punt return yards through five games. He is also fourth in punt return average (11.2 yards) among those with more than 10 returns.

Fogg has been a game-changing returner throughout his CFL career. This was especially the case during his electrifying 110-yard missed field goal return in Week 1 versus Edmonton.

Although the Bombers lost this game, this score energized the Bombers team and stadium.

The Last Word

Kevin Fogg’s breakout 2018 campaign has been quiet on the defensive side of the ball, but blaring in the return game. But as a defensive back, sometimes no attention is the best attention. Fogg and the Winnipeg Blue Bombers take on the Toronto Argonauts on Saturday, July 21 at 3PM central time.

Main image credit:
Embed from Getty Images

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