Last Renegade Hebert hopes to finish his quest for a cup

EDMONTON — If the Ottawa Redblacks win the Grey Cup on Sunday and they make a movie about it, linebacker Kyries Hebert already has a title picked out.

It comes from an article he saw this summer.

“The Last Renegade,” he said with a smile Friday. “I looked at that and that’s pretty cool. That would be a great title for a movie.”

It’s fitting for Hebert, the last remaining Ottawa Renegade in the CFL after that team folded in 2006. The players were dispersed to other teams and Hebert moved on to Winnipeg, then Cincinnati, then Hamilton, then Montreal.

Now back in Ottawa, he credits the city for saving his football career.

After a standout stint as a defensive back with the University of Louisiana at Lafayette Ragin’ Cajuns, Hebert tried out for the NFL’s Minnesota Vikings in 2002, but was cut.

He caught on with the Houston Texans for the remainder of that season, but was injured and released.

“I was unemployed in 2003 coming off an injury ... and didn’t know when my next football snap was going to be,” he recalled.

“It was the Ottawa Renegades that gave me an opportunity to get back on the football field and here we are however many teen years later and have an opportunity to have our names etched on history.”

For Hebert, the Renegade label fits beyond the jersey he once wore.

Nicknamed the “Angry Bird,” he is a feared hitter, always playing the game right on the line and occasionally over it.

He was suspended twice this season for hits deemed reckless by the league.

And, over the years, he’s saved some of his most vicious shots for Calgary, the team he will face on Sunday.

One of his suspensions this season was for a hit on Stampeders receiver DaVaris Daniels in Week 3, and in 2014, while playing with Montreal, he was ejected for levelling Stamps star running back Jon Cornish with a brutal flying clothesline.

The shot hit Cornish under the jaw and drove the running back’s head into the turf. He was left with a serious concussion and there is still bad blood between the two. After the hit on Daniels, Cornish took to Twitter and called on the Redblacks to cut Hebert for his dirty play.

“I’ve never looked at Calgary and been like: ‘that’s a team I hate,’ ” Hebert said Friday. “Like I hate Hamilton. I really hate ’em, but I never really felt that way about Calgary.”