BURRIS DESERVES HALL OF FAME CALL
Former Redblacks QB’s Grey Cup victories and career stats leave no room for debate
In his first year of eligibility, Henry Burris should be in the Canadian Football Hall of Fame.
Check that ... Henry Burris will be in the Canadian Football Hall of Fame. Soon. Very likely this year.
What’s been happening in 2020 is surreal — a COVID-19 nightmare that has clouded much more than professional sports — but it will be business as usual for the Hall of Fame voters who soon will name the Class of 2020, sure to be led by Burris, a legend in these parts legend since he led the Ottawa Redblacks to a championship in 2016, ending a 40-year drought for Ottawa’s CFL teams. Place your bets, because it’s about to happen for a guy who established his legacy over 18 Canadian Football League seasons.
When Burris gets the Hall call, he’ll be just the 21st member of an exclusive club of players to gain entry on the first ballot, the most recent being former Calgary Stampeders star Jon Cornish in 2019. Others include Ben Cahoon, Anthony Calvillo, Tommy Joe Coffey, Doug Flutie, Tony Gabriel, Wayne Harris, John Helton, Garney Henley, Russ Jackson, Brian Kelly, Ron
Lancaster, Gene Makowsky, Warren Moon, Jackie Parker, Lui Passaglia, Hal Patterson, George Reed, Geroy Simon and Milt Stegall.
Let’s examine the evidence that I says makes induction a no-brainer for Burris.
A two-time CFL Most Outstanding Player (2010, 2015), Burris led teams to three Grey Cup championships (1998 and 2008 with Calgary and 2016 with Ottawa), earning Grey Cup MVP honours in 2008 and 2016. He ended his CFL career ranked third all-time with 63,639 passing yards and 373 touchdown tosses.
He also spent time with the Saskatchewan Roughriders and Hamilton Tiger-Cats.
There were 12 games in which he threw for 400 yards and 93 games that saw him compile more than 300 yards via the air. He led the CFL in 2012 with 5,367 yards, in 2013 with 4,927 yards and 2015 with 5,693 yards.
He also spent time in the National Football League with the Chicago Bears and Green Bay Packers.
His masterpiece, of course, was the 2016 Grey Cup victory, a 39-33 overtime win for the Redblacks over the Stampeders. During the pre-game warm-up, then 41-year-old Burris felt a grind and a pop in his left knee and limped off to the locker-room. What happened in the next three hours or so was the stuff of legends as he completed 35 of 46 passes for 461 yards for three touchdowns while also rushing for two scores.
It was an incredibly courageous effort, maybe the greatest Grey Cup performance of all time, on just one good leg.
“Yes, there was an injection, yes I took some pain killers, and yes, they readjusted my brace so I couldn’t extend it all the way,” Burris said later. “Once the meds kicked in, it was like a Mack truck could have hit me and I wouldn’t have felt a thing. It was the biggest win of my life, my biggest accomplishment. To win a championship in three years, to start with an expansion team, to win a Grey Cup when nobody gave us much of a chance, that was so fulfilling.”
It was the last game Burris would play for the Redblacks, as he announced his retirement early in 2017, disappointed that Trevor Harris had been promised the starting quarterback job for the following season.
“When they guaranteed Trevor a starting job, I didn’t like it,” Burris said at the time. “In Year 2, your team is in the Grey Cup. In Year 3, you win the Grey Cup.
And you get forced out? When I found out (Harris was promised the No. 1 job), I knew when I was retiring.”
Rather than dwell on that, though, his career achievements stand out, putting Burris on a level with the best of the best. There was no Good Hank/Bad Hank. For much of his career, it was Great Hank.
Burris set 20 Temple University football records during his four-year college career, and he still holds the Owls’ single-game marks for passing yards (445) and total offence (502), both set in 1996. He was inducted into Temple’s Hall of Fame in 2018.
It’s not just his career stats that make him a Hall of Famer, it’s also the intangibles, including his ability to make rebuilding teams better in a hurry. The 2012 Ticats won just six games, but a year later with Burris under centre in his second season as their starting quarterback, they won 10 regular season games and advanced to the Grey Cup.
After winning just twice in 2014, the Redblacks won 12 games in 2015 and advanced to the Grey Cup before going 8-9-1 and winning the Cup in 2016.
Burris felt he was still capable of playing at a high level when he departed the CFL.
‘If I had come back, I could still run as fast as Mike Reilly, I could still have as strong an arm as Bo (Levi Mitchell). I still feel I could go out there and be better than all of them,” he said at the time. “But that’s the competitive nature that still exists in me.”
A good guy? Yep. Big time. In 2015, Burris was honoured with the Tom Pate Memorial Award, presented by the CFL Players’ Association to the player with the unique combination of outstanding sportsmanship and dedication to the league and the community. Each time, Burris and his wife Nicole and kids Armand and Barron settled into a community, they made an impact.
It all adds up to a place in the Hall of Fame. Now. tbaines@postmedia.com
I still feel I could go out there and be better than all of them. But that’s the competitive nature that still exists in me.