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It was during the Hamilton Tiger-Cats training camp earlier this year that defensive back Mike Daly knew 2018 was going to be something special.
When he, and the rest of his team, laid eyes on 76-year-old defensive coordinator Jerry Glanville – who showed up to Ron Joyce Stadium with his signature sunglasses and a cowboy hat – they knew right away that they were in for a treat.
“The funny thing is, too, he didn’t end up taking off those aviator sunglasses pretty much that entire day, all the way into the night meetings,” Daly chuckled over the phone after practice on Tuesday.
“He’s walking around, the sun’s been down for a while and he’s still got those same sunglasses on. I think once we saw that, we were kind of like, ‘okay, this is going to be a fun year.’”
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Delvin Breaux has amassed 13 tackles and one forced fumble in nine games in 2018 (Adam Gagnon/CFL.ca)
As much fun as Hamilton is having in their locker room, their defence is having the same amount of success.
The team boasts the league’s best pass defence, sitting ahead of the pack in almost all categories. As a unit, they’ve allowed the fewest completions (193), the fewest pass attempts (323), the fewest average passing yards per game (211.5 yards) and the fewest total passing yards (2,326).
“Our defence this year is doing so well that it kind of makes everybody play a lot better,” said Daly. “If you look around our team, a lot of us are probably having our best year because of how well our defence is playing.”
Daly is one of those individuals that is having his best season yet.
The safety has surpassed his career-high in defensive tackles (36) and has already two interceptions, one off his career-best of three in 2015. Daly has seen more of the field this season – he was injured for all but two games in 2017 and he beat out fellow Canadian Courtney Stephen for the starting spot this year – and he’s also finding a groove playing under Glanville.
The six-foot-one, 189-pound Kitchener, Ont. native has made the most of his fifth year in Tiger-Town , making a major impact in the first of Hamilton’s back-to-back wins against the Toronto Argonauts. With his team trailing by just one point, Daly picked off Argos pivot McLeod Bethel-Thompson in the fourth quarter. That interception led to a 19-yard Alex Green touchdown that gave the Tabbies a seven-point lead with 10 minutes left in the contest.
Fast forward a few plays later and Brandon Banks was in the end zone for the home team, sealing the deal for the Ticats in the Labour Day Classic.
“Especially with interceptions, they just kind of come when you’re doing your job correctly,” he said, when asked about that pivotal play. “It just depends on where ever he (Bethel-Thompson) decides to throw it. He managed to throw it where I was. I had that play about three or four times in the game and it kind of would have looked like that every time, he just didn’t throw it until the fourth quarter.”
The team’s final line of defence has been consistent this entire season and has stepped up to the task of shutting down the league’s top gunslingers.
In Week 1, Hamilton held Stampeders pivot Bo Levi Mitchell to just 47.2 per cent passing. In Week 11 they allowed reigning MVP Mike Reilly to toss just 250 yards – that’s tied for his lowest passing yardage game of the season.
Last week in the Labour Day rematch, the Ticats didn’t feel like they left their best performance out on the field. Bethel-Thompson was able to complete 27 of 42 passes (64.3 per cent) and threw for 295 yards and two touchdowns in the Argonauts loss.
“I’d be lying to you if I said we weren’t all sensitive about it (last week’s performance) right now and pretty upset because we’ve been having some success with it,” admitted the McMaster product. “I think after this week we have to take a step back and figure out what we did well against some of those guys that we held in check and figure out how to fix our mistakes from last week.”
Daly makes a tackle on Marcus Alford during the Labour Day Classic in Hamilton (Johany Jutras/CFL.ca)
Hamilton hosts the Calgary Stampeders on Saturday afternoon as the Ticats look to nab their fourth-straight win. Even with the Stamps missing leading-receiver Kamar Jorden from the lineup, Daly knows his team can’t take the 9-2 West Division leaders lightly.
“We’re also not oblivious to the fact that we’re playing the top team in the league,” he said of this weekend’s matchup against the Stamps. “We have to take a step back and realize they do a lot of good stuff without or without Kamar Jorden. They do a lot of good stuff because they have Bo, they have other good receivers.”
Unlike the first contest between these two teams, Hamilton will have shutdown corner Delvin Breaux in the mix. Breaux signed with the Tabbies in Week 2, missing the first match against Calgary.
“You can just tell that he’s the type of guy that really enjoys playing football,” Daly said, explaining what Breaux brings to the team off the field. “Some guys stress out about things but he’s just even keel. He’s just out there to have a lot of fun. I think a lot of us feed off of that because to see a guy that did go to the NFL and was an impact player there in the NFL and now to come back and see how well he’s doing, for the second time around in the CFL, it’s just kind of cool to see a guy enjoy football that much when he’s been through the kind of things that he’s been through.”
Along with Breaux – who spent two seasons with the Ticats before heading to the NFL – Daly and Stephen are the most experienced of the bunch, but looking at how the unit is performing this season, you’d never guess.
Rookie corner Jumal Rolle has collected 30 tackles and two interceptions while second-year halfback Cariel Brooks has amassed 35 tackles and a pair of interceptions himself. Frankie Williams, who suited up in the last few games at field halfback for the injured Richard Leonard, has tallied 16 tackles in nine games so far this season.
“We like to think we’re all misfits from different areas,” he said. “There’s not really many people that have been around for a long time other than me and Courtney.
“To have those guys come in, they already know the entire defence, they already know how to do everything so it’s pretty easy step for them to walk right in and do well.”
