The replay was definitive.
Somehow, Jalen Philpot had managed to get a toe down on the endzone turf.
It was close, but he had miraculously managed to stay inbounds and secure a vital touchdown for the Calgary Stampeders.
Catch of the year? It’s going to be in contention, that’s for sure.
“I definitely knew I was in the corner of the endzone, but I had no idea if I was going to get my foot down,” Philpot said on Wednesday. “I felt it get down, but just no idea if I was inbounds or not. It’s just trusting my training and getting my feet down whenever I get the ball in my hands.”
It was a massive play for the Stampeders, who would go on to beat the high-flying B.C. Lions by a razor-thin 25-24 scoreline.
And it was massive for Philpot, too.
The 23-year-old missed all of 2023 after getting surgery on an injured hamstring. Missing your second professional season could derail the development of a player, or slow it down, at the very least.
So there were going to be inevitable questions about how Philpot would look when he returned to the field this season.
The Stamps have been careful to manage his playing time, but through six games he’s caught 17 passes for 240 yards and finally got his first touchdown since 2022 when he came down with Jake Maier’s pass on Sunday against the Lions.
“It’s my first touchdown back, so it’s awesome to have a memorable one,” Philpot said. “It’s something I can always look back on and I don’t know if I have anything better than that in my career, so it’s a good one to look back at.”
The Stampeders coaching staff is still trying to be careful with how much they use Philpot. It’s a gradual process getting him back to 100%, and the player himself estimates he’s still not quite there. He’s closer to 95%, he thinks, and the best is still yet to come.
Sunday’s game against the Lions was an encouraging one, though, as he put up a season-high 79 receiving yards to go along with the touchdown.
“A lot of it as a receiver is opportunity,” said Stampeders GM/head coach Dave Dickenson. “We did limit how many plays he was even on the field early on because we want to make sure we gave him a chance to build into something. I think he’s telling us he’s ready to go a full game, whether that happens or not, we’ll see.
“But I do think he’s got talent, he works hard, he’s hungry, you know, he can get better, though. Part of that is just getting opportunity and part of that is playing well week-in, week-out.”
With the Stampeders offence showing real improvement in recent weeks and the next month-and-a-half offering up some beatable opponents, this figures to be a crucial stretch for the team.
And Philpot is going to have a big part to play in that. The Stampeders receiver room has been hit by a few early-season injuries, but there’s still a tonne of talent for Maier to throw the ball to.
It’s generally going to be a group where different guys are counted on to step up at different times — and Clark Barnes deserves a shoutout for the work he did late against the Lions — but there’s no shortage of gamebreakers in that room.
And Philpot is starting to look like one of them.
It’s been a long road to recover from the injury that stole the 2023 season from him, but he’s proving that tough break is truly behind him.
“That was the one thing that was always in the back of my mind with this major injury,” Philpot said. “What they say with major injuries is, ‘is the guy going to be the same play when he gets back,’ so that’s something I challenged myself with, let me work really hard to get back to the best I can be.”