November 26, 2016

REDBLACKS’ Draheim on the hot seat vs. vaunted pass rush

J.P. Moczulski/CFL.ca

Taking on Charleston Hughes is okay by Tommie Draheim. Better than snow, anyway.

“I’d much rather play in mud than that snow. That was awful,” said Draheim, the Ottawa REDBLACKS left tackle who had never before had to try and dig in on pass protection in the kind of slop that blanketed TD Place last Sunday during the Eastern Final.

Draheim, the 27-year-old native of San Diego, California and a grad of San Diego State, had played in wind and rain during his football career, but not snow.

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“Sunday’s game was a first for me in the snow,” he laughed. “I’m definitely glad that those kind of conditions won’t be around for the Grey Cup.”

Not supposed to be, anyway. The forecast for Sunday night’s 104th Grey Cup game presented by Shaw, calls for partly cloudy skies, a temperature of about one degree and just a slight chance of any rain or wet snow.

Tommie Draheim won’t have to worry about his footing but he does have a rather large concern to deal with when the REDBLACKS take on the Calgary Stampeders at Toronto’s BMO Field.

Draheim, the left tackle who is charged with the all-important job of protecting the blind side of quarterback Henry Burris, will have nice weather and a beautiful grass field in which to dig his cleats as he sets his feet in order to take on any rushing quarterback hunter the Calgary Stampeders care to challenge him with.

He just might be seeing a lot of Hughes, the CFL’s sack leader and the man who knocked quarterbacks to the turf sixteen times in 2016.

“He can speed (rush), he can bull (rush), he can work inside,” said Draheim of Hughes. “He can do a lot of things.”

Keeping Charleston Hughes or any of Calgary’s edge linemen like Cordarro Law, Frank Beltre and Ja’Gared Davis off your quarterback is a big job and it’s not one, frankly, that Draheim would be performing this weekend had things gone according to plan for the REDBLACKS.

That’s no slight on Draheim, by the way. It’s just that if SirVincent Rogers was healthy, he’d be in there. The 2015 CFL lineman of the year suffered a season-ending ankle injury back in September, however, and the team’s usual right tackle, Jason Lauzon-Séguin, shifted over to Rogers’ spot until the end of October. When Lauzon-Séguin’s replacement on the right side, Jake Silas went down to injury, Ottawa’s coaching brass made the decision to move Lauzon-Séguin back to right tackle and insert Draheim at the left flank.

Draheim hadn’t played a regular season down in 2016 when he made his debut against the Winnipeg Blue Bombers in Week 19.

“Sir V being Sir V, he was gonna hold that spot down so I was just here to be prepared to back up any position that needed me,” said Draheim, who toiled hard in practice at different positions along the line, all but centre. “They had me ready for whatever,” he said.

So it might have been that he’d have been used somewhere else had it come to it but he’s happy to be on the left side, a position he’s played most of his life. “Left tackle is like riding a bike,” said Draheim.

“I’ll always be able to do that.”

That’s why it maybe shouldn’t have been too much of a surprise when Draheim played pretty well, all things considered, in that first game in Winnipeg, where he was fed a steady diet of Blue Bomber rush end Jamaal Westerman. It wasn’t as though he’d never played at all in the CFL.

J.P. Moczulski/CFL.ca

Previously, he suited up for the BC Lions for thirteen regular season games and a playoff encounter, in 2015.

Still, with the biggest game of the year on the horizon and just three games under his belt to get warmed up, Draheim isn’t feeling that he’s played his best football yet. “There’s still plenty to improve on,” he said. “That’s what this week of practices is for.”

Facing that fearsome Stampeders’ rush won’t faze Draheim but he does not take the challenge lightly, pointing out that the varied matchups he’s likely to see will mean that job one is being assignment-sound, rather than worrying too much about what his opponent will do.

“We’ll see everybody,” he explained. “The key is to not worry about who’s going against you but worry about yourself. Worry about your set. Worry about your hands. The rest will take care of itself. When you take the correct sets, you take their moves away from them, so that’s what you’ve gotta try and do.”

Will it feel any differently when Hughes is lined up opposite?

“It’s not gonna make you paranoid or anything but it’s just gonna make you aware that this set has to be a little bit more urgent than some others,” said Draheim, keenly aware of the CFL sack leader’s talents.

He’s aware of all of them, really; Hughes, Beltre, Davis, Law. Like a baseball pitcher keeping a book on opposition hitters, Draheim will lean on knowledge of the habits and strengths of Stampeder pass rushers.

“That’s why you watch film,” he said. “That’s why you study tendencies. That’s why you watch as much as you do so we can find those weaknesses and try to exploit ‘em. Nobody’s perfect.

“You’ve gotta find what works for each (opponent) and try to utilize it as much as possible.”

With guys like Hughes and his buddies looking to make his life a living hell on Sunday night, at least Draheim won’t have to worry about snow.

Hell ain’t so bad when you’re an offensive lineman. It’s expected, in fact. When it’s frozen over and the footing is suspect, however, well that’s one thing Tommie Drahiem can do without.