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At 38, with 34 years of football on his odometer, the Winnipeg Blue Bombers' Milt Stegall figures he's been lucky to get this far without suffering a major injury.

So the disappointment in having to miss the first five weeks of the CFL season while recovering from knee surgery is tempered by the realization that few players his age have the option to keep playing.

Stegall will make his season debut Friday night against the Toronto Argonauts, a little more than two months after undergoing an arthroscopic procedure on his knee to clean up cartilage.

Stegall calls it his "100,000-mile tune-up."

"This is truly the first major injury I've had in 17 years as a pro," Stegall said. "But if you play long enough, these things will happen because the body isn't built to take this kind of pounding."

The past few weeks in the CFL have been a good reminder of the damage football can cause, with several players, most notably Edmonton receiver Jason Tucker, sustaining serious injuries.

At the end of last season, Stegall wasn't sure he would return in 2008, but he said even surgery never gave him cause to question his decision to come back.

"Not at all," he said. "When I made a decision, it wasn't conditional at all. It didn't have me thinking, 'Maybe I shouldn't return.' I knew it would take a while before I stepped out on the field. That didn't sway me one way or the other."

Stegall's most obvious goals for this season are one more chance at an elusive Grey Cup ring, and to break Allen Pitts's career record for reception yards (Stegall trails by 196 yards). But he says it is simply the desire to keep playing that brought him back.

"A lot of people say it's because of [losing] the Grey Cup, but I can't say I wouldn't have come back if we had won," he said. "Being a pro football player is not a career, it's a job, and I want to do it as long as possible and mentally you're never out of it. I just decided, let's see what happens, because when it's over, there's no coming back."

Though it was difficult for Stegall to watch as the Bombers stumbled to an 0-4 start, it hasn't been the receivers who have been letting Winnipeg down.

In fact, Winnipeg's trio of Kerry Johnson, Terrence Edwards and Romby Bryant all rank among the league leaders after five weeks. Johnson, who leads the CFL with 40 catches, will have to take a seat while Stegall steps into the lineup, perhaps no longer as the go-to guy.

"My focus is on helping this team win games," Stegall said. "I've got enough touchdowns and made enough receptions, if they want me to be a decoy, I can do that. I don't need to be the focus. I just want to help this team get to the Grey Cup."

The Bombers have a couple of other intriguing storylines heading into tomorrow's game.

Quarterback Ryan Dinwiddie's second start this season will match him up against one of the league's tougher pass defences. It could also mark a chance for running back Charles Roberts to redeem himself after five subpar games to start the season.

Roberts, who ranks fifth all-time in CFL rushing yardage at 29, will likely get lots of chances against a team that has had tremendous trouble stopping the run this season.