REDBLACKS FOCUSED ON CONTAINING REILLY
Ottawa’s defence knows Edmonton QB can put up yards with his arm or rushing
The Ottawa Redblacks, who have been an offensive conundrum in 2018, will need to be at their best Saturday afternoon to beat the Edmonton Eskimos, whose offence rarely slides off the rails.
It starts with the quarterbacks. When Ottawa’s Trevor Harris has been good this season, he’s been really good. When he’s been bad, well, let’s just say it’s not just on his shoulders alone.
Edmonton’s Mike Reilly on the other hand was the CFL’s Most Outstanding Player in 2017, and is as dynamic as ever. He’s one behind league-leader Bo Levi Mitchell, with 26 touchdown passes (Harris has 13). Reilly is dangerous when he tucks the ball under his arm, too. He’s got 343 yards rushing with a CFL-best 11 touchdowns.
“They’re explosive,” said Redblacks coach Rick Campbell about the Eskimos offence. “Two things with Mike, one is he can stand in the pocket and throw, but you can’t let him do damage with his feet where he starts running around with the ball. We have to limit that. And with Edmonton, you have to limit the big plays.”
Redblacks linebacker Kevin Brown has never lined up opposite Reilly. It’s an opportunity he’s looking forward to.
“He’s a great quarterback. He’s dynamic, he’s got a great arm and doesn’t make mistakes with the football,” said Brown. “We have to do what we do, keep his options limited as best we can. Just like every team we play, there are wrinkles we put in for the flavour of the week.
“We have to keep the same mentality and the energy we had in Saskatchewan and bring that back home.”
If the Redblacks can maintain the mojo and effort that earned a 30-25 win over the Roughriders, they have a great chance of beating the Eskimos. Though strong offensively, Edmonton has their own speed bumps, mostly on defence. They’ve given up 312 points this season. Ottawa has given up 278.
“It’s a big game,” said Redblacks receiver Diontae Spencer. “We want to grab momentum. They’re 7-5, we’re 7-5. We hear about their offence, we feel we have a great offence here, too. Our defence is one of the best in the league so we’ll see how we match up. I’m looking forward to it, I’m excited to face a good Edmonton team.”
Credit to the Redblacks, who put ugly losses to Montreal and B.C. behind them to beat the Riders.
“In football, you’re going to have your ups and downs,” said Spencer. “Good teams are the ones who can come back through adversity, they’re going to be resilient through everything. Those are the teams you see in the Grey Cup. Hopefully we can be that team. It’s a long season, but each week for us the pieces are coming together.”
“You can’t have highs, you can’t have lows,” said Brown. “We just take every game as it comes. We learn from our mistakes and come out each week with the same mentality.”
And while they’re trying to remain even-keeled, Brown said the charter trip home from Regina last week was much sweeter with the victory.
“Some of the guys slept, but most people were still up and wired from the game,” he said.
IS KYRIES BACK?: Might Kyries Hebert return to his starting middle linebacker role Saturday? The 37-year-old is eligible to return from a two-game suspension for what the CFL called a “reckless” hit to the side of the head of Montreal Alouettes receiver B.J. Cunningham. But will he even be on the roster this week? Both, it seems, are to be determined. Said coach Campbell: “We’re going to see, we haven’t made any decisions yet. As we’ve seen, we can play with Kyries starting, we can play with the other guys. The last few weeks (Hebert) has done a great job, he’s been busting his butt on scout team, doing whatever he needs to do to help the football team. I know the guy’s a good football player. We’re going to let practice play out, then we’ll go from there. We have to consider the ratio. I think we dressed two American linebackers last week so for him to get on we’d have to shuffle something else around.” The Redblacks like Avery Williams, who stepped into the middle in place of Hebert. Said Campbell: “He’s done a really good job and you can see he’s getting more comfortable.
“That’s a function of just getting used to the league and the players and the motion.
“He’s a guy we think will keep getting better and better.”
THE RUSH FACTOR: In the recent loses to both Montreal and B.C., manpower rushing at Harris and blitz packages with as many as seven defenders was an issue. In Edmonton, the Roughriders didn’t seem to put on that kind of pressure. “People in this league always try to be moving targets, they try to mix things up, so you never know for sure what you’re going to get,” said Campbell.”