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Still, it’s a tremendous pace for the nine-year veteran, who posted a career high 1,456 yards and seven touchdowns to lead the CFL in receiving yards in a 2014 season where he was one of three players to hit four digits. This year, there are 17 others on pace to share Bowman’s Mr. One-Thousand moniker.

One of them is teammate Derel Walker, the reigning CFL most outstanding rookie, whose 960 yards have him in fourth place, 150 yards shy of the 1,110 yards he earned in 12 games in 2015.

It’s a vastly different strategy than the one employed in Calgary, where Bo Levi Mitchell is right on Reilly’s heels with 3,237 passing yards, while tying his league-leading 17 touchdowns.

Mitchell’s favourite target is Marquay McDaniel, who barely cracks the top-10 receivers list with 706 yards on 56 receptions, meaning the Stampeders have spread the ball around on the way to a league-leading 32.3 points per game, while Edmonton sits third at 29.3.

“Playing in my ninth year and being around a young group like this that stays fired up, it keeps me motivated and makes me want to go harder,” said Bowman.

They need all the fire they can get at this point, with the Eskimos barely even in the conversation when it comes to challenging for first place in a West Division they won on the way to last year’s Grey Cup championship.

Monday’s loss put them in fourth place with a 5-5 record, well behind the 8-1-1 mark of the league-leading Stampeders.

“I wish the first person to get 1,000 yards automatically gets their team first place,” Bowman said. “I would be going crazy right now. But the fact is, it doesn’t. And as a team, we’ve got so much work to do, and we’re so close.

“I think we got woken up. They woke us up.”

All Bowman can do to help the Eskimos’ effort is continue to lead by example.

“I want to stay on a 100-yard-a-game pace,” he said. “I’m not big into those stats. Even for my personal goals, it’s not like I flip through the (record) book trying to beat somebody, but I always like challenging myself.

“So far, I’m on that pace, but it’s as a team category that I want to mesh with that. So I’ve just got to get better. The better I can be, the greater the team can be.”

gmoddejonge@postmedia.com

On Twitter: @SunModdejonge