Johany Jutras/CFL.ca
You know how there’s a point where you stand in front of your gas barbecue, holding the “ignite” button in, but all you’re hearing is escaping gas and a constant “click, click, click”?
That’s been the Ottawa REDBLACKS’ season in 2016.
“It’s gotta catch at some point,” you tell yourself, although you’re wondering if there isn’t now so much gas billowing out that your eyebrows are in danger if it does. Finally, you turn the thing off and go get your long-reach butane lighter and turn the burners on again.
Voila, flames begin to leap.
This is where the REDBLACKS find themselves right now, heading for their Friday night showdown with the Ticats in Hamilton. In need of a long-reach butane lighter.
If there’s anything that can fire ’em up, it’s a back-to-back battle for first place with their chief East Division rival.
“I told the guys at the beginning of the week ‘if I have to talk you into getting excited or pumped up for these then we got the wrong guys’,” said REDBLACKS head coach Rick Campbell this week.
“But I know our guys are excited.”
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Henry Burris looks to be the spark the REDBLACKS need (Patrick Doyle/CFL.ca)
The REDBLACKS were expected to challenge for first place in the East once again this season, so the fact that they are is a good thing.
“You can argue we’re in a better position than we were in last year at this time,” said Campbell. While that might be true, standings-wise, it is not true when you compare where the REDBLACKS are as a football team to where they were last October.
If they were, they’d be well ahead of the Ticats right now with the sum total of zero worries when it comes to whether they’d be hosting the Eastern Final. The good news is that they have four regular season games in which to build needed momentum and consistency and that, they hope, can start on Friday night.
Ottawa’s season began well enough, firing up with one click and a burst early in the summer as the team got off to a rousing start of 3-0-1 and looked every inch the team that they and the rest of us thought they’d be. Solid in all phases, punctuated by a boffo offence.
Since that great start, however, a team that looks so very good when you scan the roster from top to bottom has gone 3-7 with an inconsistency that has been perplexing to say the least.
“We’re right there,” said Campbell, when asked about his team’s failure to string together any kind of winning streak since July. “That’s part of what gets people frustrated, too.”
“We feel the same way,” he continued. “We’re right there, we can get it done, but other teams in this league are good too and we’ve gotta get ourselves over the hump and get on the right side of the scoreboard in those close games.”
The close games do tell a tale for the REDBLACKS. They’ve lost twice to Saskatchewan, by one point (down to their third-string QB in that one) and by three. Lost to Toronto by three. Fell to BC by six and then by seven. In the mix as well were blowout losses to Montreal and Calgary.
At times, the defence has looked pretty good and maybe ready to start dominating a little again, the way it did down the stretch last season. While the Ottawa offence got all the headlines in 2015, a surging defence became just as important a factor in the team securing first place.
“We’ve just gotta find a way to find ourselves, find the right chemistry, find the right mindset towards the end of the game so we can clinch these wins and get that bye…”
Arnaud Gascon-Nadon
But good batches of play in 2016 have been followed by bad ones, with that elusive consistency turning to vapour each time it seemed they were about to clutch it. In 2015, the REDBLACKS’ defence was led by a rotation of fierce defensive linemen that included the Canadian duo of Keith Shologan and Justin Capicciotti, as well as the explosive edge rush of Shawn Lemon. All three left via free agency this past off-season.
“We’ve just gotta find a way to find ourselves, find the right chemistry, find the right mindset towards the end of the game so we can clinch these wins and get that bye, finish first,” said defensive lineman Arnaud Gascon-Nadon. His absence has hampered the REDBLACKS in finding that chemistry as he was expected to take up some of the slack that was left with Capicciotti’s exit. Gascon-Nadon is expected to return to the Ottawa line-up on Friday night after nursing an ankle injury since Week 5. Perhaps his presence will provide Ottawa’s defence with a spark.
The offence goes into the Hamilton game having been dealt a very big blow with the loss of wide receiver Chris Williams, gone for the season with a knee injury. In a turn of good luck, receiver Khalil Paden is available to step in, even though the REDBLACKS had released him just over a week ago. He hadn’t signed elsewhere and Ottawa can now insert a familiar receiver in Williams’ place. If Paden plays well and the REDBLACKS emerge as a strong team down the stretch, this might be one of those little, fortunate moments in a season that we should all remember.
This brings us to another important factor in any Ottawa surge and that is quarterback play.
“Henry’s been a leader on this team for an extended amount of time and that leadership helps,” said Campbell this week, explaining why he has handed the starter’s job back to 2015 MOP Henry Burris.
Starter to begin the year, on the bench behind Trevor Harris for weeks, now starter again, Burris’ season is reflective of the up and down nature of Ottawa’s fortunes as a whole. While Harris was ineffective in putting up points against the Roughriders last Friday night – Burris came on in relief to lead an Ottawa comeback that ultimately ended in another loss – it might be premature to say that Harris is suffering from the same type of late-season swoon that led the Toronto Argonauts to press a still-injured Ricky Ray into action in the fall of 2015.
Besides, just a week prior to the Saskatchewan game, Harris had strafed the BC Lions’ defence for 485 passing yards and might have won that game had an intended touchdown pass not struck a goalpost late in the fourth quarter.
Just like last year, Rick Campbell will hope for another strong finish for his team (Johany Jutras/CFL.ca)
It might well remain a good bet that Ottawa’s quarterbacking is still in good hands and that the offence can still function at a high level even without Williams in the lineup.
That is, IF Burris/Harris and company perform consistently. The bigger question for the REDBLACKS at this point might really be how well their defence can get the job done, and how persistent their efforts are.
Consistency. The REDBLACKS need that to be more than what they are chasing. They need it to be cornered. Pronto.
Right now is the time when we find the full measure of the 2016 Ottawa REDBLACKS, a powerhouse born in a splendid 2015 season, but one that continues having a hard time finding ongoing prosperity in the wake of a Grey Cup appearance last November.
Time is running out. Will the REDBLACKS finally get some ignition with Burris at the helm and their rivalry with Hamilton as fuel?
That’d make for some tasty late-season barbecue if they do. If not, their fans go home without the steak they’d been promised and no one’s ever happy about that.
