O-line, kicker will be fine, GM says

There’s been plenty of criticism heaped on the Ottawa Redblacks’ offensive line and their kicker.

At times, they haven’t been good enough.

Remembering that they’ve played one game, sometimes two, more than other CFL teams, the Redblacks have given up a leagueworst 30 sacks. Plus, they’ve allowed 70 quarterback pressures — fourth in the league, but also more than 20 above Winnipeg, Calgary and Saskatchewan — three teams ahead of Ottawa in the win column.

Ottawa GM Marcel Desjardins said he believes in the guys who line up in front of the quarterback.

“Look, when I look at our offensive line, I would take our group before pretty much any group in the league and I mean that truthfully,” he said. “They may not always play the best as a unit, there are breakdowns that happen with every offensive line. But at the end of the day, they are a solid group and we have full confidence in them. A sack isn’t always going to be a result of the O -line not doing its job. There are so many other things that can break down and cause that to happen.”

Kicker Brett Maher had a great start to the season, but has slumped, missing two field goals in each of the past two games. Against Hamilton, in a 26-22 loss Saturday, one of Maher’s misses was from 25 yards. Stating an obvious point, with two singles on the misses — the four points left out there were the difference. Maher’s field goal percentage is 81.1, seventh in the CFL. His convert percentage of 68.4 is ninth. In his favour, Maher has a nice 46.4-yard punting average, second in the league.

“It’s just like your golf swing, you have to work through the kinks,” said Desjardins, who said the team would not bring in another kicker to compete for the job. “Right now, he’s not feeling it. But we have complete confidence he’s going to get back on track.”