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Video: Nate Coehoorn’s incredible grab of a deflected ball helped earn him a new deal

Sometimes, a great play is mostly about being in the right spot at the right time and then having the ball bounce your way. That partly sums up Edmonton Eskimos' Canadian wide receiver Nate Coehoorn's remarkable catch against the Toronto Argonauts Sunday, but Coehoorn's own effort and skill played significant roles in what happened there. Here's video of his incredible play:

This play is amazing on several levels. First, it's remarkable that Edmonton quarterback Mike Reilly even gets the throw off. Two different Argonauts' linemen break through the pocket on him and have a chance to bring him down, but he wisely steps up into a hole, then ducks out towards the sidelines. However, that gives another defender in front of him a shot to bring him down, and one of the linemen he beat at first is now coming at him from behind. Reilly doesn't have much time to set and throw before he gets hit, and he's throwing this across his body, but he does get the ball quite a ways down the middle of the field. This is a pretty ill-advised throw normally, though, as there are three defenders in the area (halfbacks Joshua Gatlin and Alonzo Lawrence and safety Matt Black), while Coehoorn's the only Eskimo there. As Reilly told The Edmonton Journal's Chris O'Leary, the hit made his throw weaker than he wanted:

“I didn’t really see much of it because I was getting pinballed around,” Reilly said of the toss. “I didn’t get nearly as much on the throw as I had wanted to. I was running to the left and having my shoulders turn awkwardly and I got hit right as I was throwing it.” ... "(The hit) kind of made the ball not have as much steam on it, but (Coehoorn) was behind the defence pretty good,”

That's where the truly incredible part of this play happens. Really, this should have been a pick for Black (#39), who's the first to settle under the ball. Gatlin (#13) has a bead on it as well, though, and he backs up into Black as he jumps, causing the two to collide in the air. The ball bounces off Gatlin, then off Lawrence who comes in behind him. Meanwhile, Coehoorn goes for the initial ball, but is pushed backwards by the Black-Gatlin collision and starts falling downfield. He keeps his eye on the ball, though, and after it deflects on Lawrence, he's somehow able to haul it in and hang on while falling flat on his back. It was a huge play, one that helped keep the Eskimos (who were down 33-16 at this point early in the fourth quarter, but only lost 36-33 in the end) alive, and one that showed Coehoorn's versatility and improvement as a receiver. Here's what he told Esks.com about the play:

"We had a play called, and I slipped behind coverage. Mike was scrambling a bit. I threw up my arm way deep behind coverage and he was scrambling the other way. He just threw up the ball and gave me a shot. It was just a jump ball, I just kind of went up, pushed a guy, got batted around a bit, fell back and it just kind of landed in my arms. I've been watching (teammate) Cary Koch make all his nice catches, so it's kind of wearing off on me, I guess."

Of course, one incredible catch does not a superstar make (hello, David Tyree!), so it's fair to say that this was far from the only reason the Eskimos extended Coehoorn's contract through 2015 Tuesday. The third-year man out of the University of Calgary has improved by leaps and bounds since Edmonton chose him fifth overall in the 2011 draft: he only caught two passes for 29 yards his first season, but hauled in 45 for 576 yards last year and already has 27 for 362 yards so far this season, putting him well on pace for a career year. Sunday's game showed he's quite capable of spectacular catches as well as normal ones, though, and that had to help convince the Eskimos he's worth keeping around. If he can make more grabs like this, that extension will look like a pretty good investment.