April 18, 2018

Landry: Kanneh plotting to ‘take back the crown’ with Ticats

Peter McCabe/CFL.ca

You know the saying. It’s the one people use when a great story unfolds in the world of sports, when it all comes together in Hollywood film style. “You couldn’t have written a better script if you tried,” they say.

Well, the opposite can be true too. And Abdul Kanneh knows it all too well.

“Man,” is all the Hamilton Ticats defensive back could say when asked to look back on the 2017 season.

Sometimes you don’t need to utter more than just one word to get your point across clearly and Kanneh’s “man” is a case in point, coming as it did, drenched in frustration and disappointment.

The 27-year-old has plans to flip the script in 2018, seeing a resurgent season on the horizon for both his team and for himself.

“That’s the only thing that’s been on my mind,” said Kanneh, from his off-season home in the state of Virginia. “Gettin’ back to the top. Staying injury-free and bringing what I know I can do to the table. What the team knows I can bring. Showing people that last year was a fluke. That it’s not gonna happen again.”

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The Ticats announced last week that Kent Austin will transition to a consulting role (David Chidley/CFL.ca)

A major re-write is in order, Kanneh figures, and there is the hope that 2018 will provide polar opposition to last season, when the Ticats sputtered early and often, while he could only watch from the sidelines, plagued by hip and elbow ailments most of the way.

Kanneh’s personal season was a near washout. After a stellar three-year run with the REDBLACKS, capped by a sensational tackle that helped Ottawa win its first Grey Cup in 40 years, Kanneh was expecting to stay at the top of the mountain when he signed as a free agent with Hamilton.

Instead, he got a personal hell of injuries on a team that saw its championship aspirations all but completely evaporate during the first half of the season.

Kanneh was one of the top free agents available after the 2016 season, and his signing by Hamilton was a big one, his presence expected to bolster what was already a pretty heady defensive unit.

But he got stopped before he got started.

“It was a mystery,” he said of the hip injury that flared up in training camp, coming up with nothing when pressed for an answer on when and how he suffered that injury. “I have no clue.”

The prized off-season signing was a no-go for the season opener, in Toronto, but there was hope that his presence in the Ticat line-up was imminent. So much for hope. Kanneh missed the first four games of the season, frustrated by an injury that he couldn’t seem to get right.

“I was just trying to do everything and anything to get back on the field,” he said. “Get healthy, get right. My body wasn’t working with me. I was disappointed.”

“I see myself rebounding after the injury, getting back to myself and showing the league that I am one of the top DBs. Just dominating. Taking back that crown.”

Abdul Kanneh on bouncing back in 2018

Meanwhile, his teammates were suffering through a dismal start to the year, dropping four in a row before Kanneh was able to suit up against the Calgary Stampeders, at the end of July. A big game from the Cats and one from Kanneh could help stem the tides of misfortune for both.

Instead, that contest encapsulated the struggles of both the team and the man. Hamilton lost, 60-1 and Kanneh was injured during the first half. This time it was his elbow and he’d be sidelined for even longer.

He didn’t see game action again until very nearly October, in a Week 16 game against the Argos. His elbow, he said, still was not quite right, but good enough to allow him to play. The Ticats were in the midst of a remarkable, late-season turnaround and Kanneh wanted to be a part of it.

Wanted to be what he was supposed to be all along; a key player on a playoff-bound team.

Kanneh was a game-changer in his time with the Ottawa REDBLACKS, a CFL all-star in 2015 and an Eastern all-star in 2016, capping his three years in the capital by making a game-saving tackle on Calgary quarterback Andrew Buckley in the dying moments of the Grey Cup Game. It was a tackle that prevented a touchdown that would have won the game for the Stampeders, in all likelihood. Instead, the Stamps were forced into a game-tying field goal and the REDBLACKS went on to win a stunner in overtime.

In the lingering lore of that upset, receiver Ernest Jackson‘s game-winning catch will long be remembered, as will quarterback Henry Burris‘ virtuoso performance on a bad knee. The Kanneh tackle will not be far behind whenever Ottawa fans reminisce about that game.

Beyond that moment, Kanneh had proven his worth in Ottawa. In his all-star year of 2015, he racked up six interceptions and four forced fumbles, adding two sacks and compiling 57 tackles. A year later, the numbers fell slightly but were still impressive; 52 tackles, a sack, three interceptions and a forced fumble. With the heroics of the Grey Cup game factored in, Abdul Kanneh had shown himself to be an elite CFL defender.

That’s the guy Kanneh believes himself to be. That’s the guy the Ticats believe him to be.

Abdul Kanneh was considered one of the biggest off-season additions a year ago (Ryan McCullough/Ticats.ca)

A terrible, forgettable 2017 is gone now and Kanneh is determined to return to that top-level status, spying a bounce back season not only for himself, but for the entire Hamilton organization. He is grateful for the patience and understanding shown him by the Ticats while he rehabbed two different injuries a year ago.

“There was never a doubt in my mind,” he said of management’s support. “They always had my back, a hundred per cent. They always told me ‘make sure you do what you have to do to get ready’. It was all a hundred per cent support.”

Although most of last season was a dismal personal disappointment, like the entire team, Kanneh did start to see some light as the campaign wound down.

“At the end of the season I started to get back into my game,” he said. “Started playing real good. My elbow was what it was but my body was feeling good.”

With CFL camps just weeks away, optimism abounds and there is eagerness aplenty for Kanneh and his Ticat teammates, all of them ready to rinse the taste of a bitter season. All ready to build on the promise of last fall’s surge.

For Kanneh, a healthy year would afford him the chance to concretely show the Ticats that they did, in fact, get the guy they bargained for in free agency a year ago.

What would that look like?

“I see my team going to the playoffs, competing for the East Division Championship,” said Kanneh. “After that, we’ll go on to win the Grey Cup. As for myself, I see myself rebounding after the injury, getting back to myself and showing the league that I am one of the top DBs. Just dominating. Taking back that crown.”

Now that’s a script to get excited about.