THE CANADIAN PRESS
Hello, Felix Faubert-Lussier. I saw you smiling under that helmet, from behind your face mask. It’s so nice to be able to release your inner punter, isn’t it? We’ve all got one. Sure we do. Mine shanks every single kick and then tries to sell roughing the kicker penalties when he’s not even been touched.
My inner punter’s kind of a jerk that way. But yours? Yours is sensational. A 43.2 average is not too shabby for a receiver. Keep smiling. As if there was any way you could actually keep that inner punter glow under wraps.
Here are this week’s takeaways.
1. BRANDON ZYLSTRA IS AQUAMAN
I suppose there could be a number of other plausible explanations for Zylstra having had such an immense first half against Montreal in the pouring rain. Six catches for 182 yards in 30 minutes of football, with drops the size of hockey pucks bombing down like diving gannets.
And to think, he’d have had even more if one Mike Reilly throw wasn’t too high for Zylstra to pluck. Oh, he went up like a porpoise leaping through a ring at SeaWorld to try and get it, but there’s only so much even Aquaman can accomplish.
When asked, at halftime, why he didn’t opt to wear those super-sticky receiver’s gloves we’ve become accustomed to seeing, Zylstra just kind of shrugged and muttered something about them not really doing anything in weather like that. I knew what he really meant, though, and that was that he’s Aquaman and so the more water, the better.
The only disappointing thing about his performance was that he didn’t use his powers of telepathy to summon a couple of humpback whales for an end zone celebration after his touchdown.
2. I DON’T KNOW WHY YOU’D MOVE RICHARD LEONARD FROM CORNER TO HALF. I MEAN, THAT’S CRAZY, RIGHT?
Richard Leonard has enjoyed an all-star calibre campaign in his rookie season (The Canadian Press)
Richard Leonard, the first-year defender who was, at the halfway mark of the season, one of the only true bright spots (nodding at you, too, Larry Dean) in the Hamilton Ticats’ gloominess, couldn’t possibly have played better at corner. His tackling was letter perfect, he led the league in knockdowns and opposing quarterbacks were starting to think “uhh… maybe we oughta not throw over there so much anymore.”
So, when I tuned into Friday night’s game between the Ticats and Winnipeg Blue Bombers and heard that Leonard had been shifted to the halfback spot for the affair, I whispered to myself: “What? Why?”
Well, here’s a li’l takeaway. Richard Leonard, so good on the island, can play up a storm in traffic, too. He wrapped up six tackles, one for a loss, picked off a pass and had yet another knockdown. He still leads the league, by the way, now with 12 of them.
Look, Richard. I don’t care if you play the rest of the season, sensationally, at half. You can have a maximum of one all-star position only.
3. STRUGGLING? CALL ON YOUR CANADIAN QB
He wasn’t the only one responsible but the fact is the Saskatchewan Roughriders were stalled in Toronto until Brandon Bridge kick-started their ski-doos. Down 13-3, the 25-year-old native of Mississauga, Ontario, stepped in and took the lead role with the best home-brew pivot performance since… I dunno… Gerry Dattilio, who was a real, honest-to-goodness Canadian starting quarterback who played in the seventies and eighties and once threw for five touchdowns in a game against Hamilton in 1980.
Bridge was calm, collected and rifle-armed in going 20-for-28 in the passing department for 292 yards and two touchdowns. Even Toronto head coach Marc Trestman — known as a bit of a quarterback expert, of course — lauded Bridge for his quick decision-making in getting the ball out fast, a key ingredient in keeping a good Argos’ defence off-balance.
Bridge’s performance left Saskatchewan head coach Chris Jones insisting that there was no quarterback controversy. Except that head coaches don’t generally get to decide that because quarterback controversies have always resided strictly in the domain of public opinion. Not to worry, though. I think everyone can at least agree that Brandon Bridge is developing well and has become a pretty good insurance policy.
Beyond that? I’m seeing a way cool promotional film in my mind’s eye. One where Brandon Bridge is seen from on high, climbing the wind-swept jagged landscape of a far off land, then cautiously approaching a cliff where a mysterious, cloaked figure stands. As Bridge draws near, the figure slowly turns and we squeal with delight as we see the face of Russ Jackson peering out from under a hood. Could it be? (Fade to black, John Williams music score swells, roll credits)
4. HOLD UP ON THAT OTTAWA EULOGY
REDBLACKS QB Trevor Harris showed no rust in his return to action this week (The Canadian Press)
You’ve seen it over and over on those TV medical shows. There’s a team of doctors and nurses working frantically on a flat-lined patient and everything looks bleak and done and deathly until someone yells “we’ve got a pulse!”
Well, that was Saturday night’s REDBLACKS win in Vancouver. And I’m not sure exactly when that “we’ve got a pulse” moment came. Might have been when Jerrell Gavins flew in and caused a Bryan Burnham fumble to help key the comeback, or when Antoine Pruneau did likewise to cover a loose ball on a gutsy pooch kick after a touchdown.
I don’t know, but it was in there somewhere. Down 25-6, and just a week removed from a putrid come-from-ahead loss at home against Saskatchewan, the Ottawa REDBLACKS appeared to be as animated as proverbial doornails before the big plays came callin’ complete with Trevor Harris grabbing the paddles and yelling “clear!” as he fired three touchdown passes to help ensure the patient is stable.
Jon Snow lives! Perhaps. Full recovery? Don’t know yet but it sure beats, as they say, the alternative.
5. CALGARY WON’T BE BEATING HAMILTON 60-1 IN WEEK 17
With a new coach and a different QB, the Ticats are a different team this time around (The Canadian Press)
Is this the same team that got so thoroughly demolished at McMahon Stadium back in July? Nope. Nopers. Nope-ity nope nope.
Sure, many of the faces are the same but the overall package is much, much different and a road win against one of the league’s premier teams shows you that the broken down jallopy that got totalled in Calgary definitely emerged from the mid-season shop with more than just a new coat of paint. Within a signature win came a signature drive, a 14-play gem that traversed 85 yards, ate up nearly nine minutes of fourth quarter clock and put the game out of reach with a major score. That was the best drive of quarterback Jeremiah Masoli‘s career, right there, and it salted away a big victory in Winnipeg.
With Hamilton’s defence continuing to improve, a much, much, much closer game than July’s is in the offing when the Stampeders come calling at The Tim on Friday night. If the Ticats pull off an upset there… look out.
AND FINALLY…
Duron Carter was summoned, late in the Toronto game, to play a little defence for the Roughriders. He lined up at corner across from Argos’
playmaker DeVier Posey and… rolled up to play press coverage on him. This should leave no room for doubt in your mind that there is ever,
ever any in Carter’s. Of course, if I knew Ed Gainey had my back I might play press too.
