NFL PLAYOFF PRIMER
Lions in post-season just three years after 0-16 debacle
In actual fact, Nik Lewis had a feeling he was playing his final few games with quarterback Henry Burris when Drew Tate took over as the Calgary Stampeders’ starting quarterback in October.
But it didn’t really sink in for the veteran slotback until earlier this week when Burris was dealt to the Hamilton Tiger-cats in a Canadian Football League trade that brought quarter back Kevin Glenn and offensive lineman Mark Dewit to Calgary.
“I felt mixed emotions,” said Lewis over the phone from Texas, where he spends his off-seasons. “i thought hank could play better than he did last year, but at the same time, I felt like it was time for him to get a change of scenery to become that guy again. I honestly believe that he still has the tools to lead teams to great records in the regular season, and potential playoff success. Ricky Ray and Henry Burris are probably the two best quarterbacks, in my opinion, in the West, and now they’re in the East.”
And that means Lewis will have to get used to life without the man with whom he developed one of the better passer-catcher relationships in the CFL over the past seven seasons, a relationship that produced a Grey Cup title in 2008, a Most Outstanding Player award for Burris in 2010 and Lewis’s first-team nomination as MOP this past season.
“You have to wish him the best; he was a great teammate for seven years,” said Lewis. “He and Jeremaine (Copeland) brought a new attitude to Calgary in 2005; they brought a winning attitude here, and I think those are the biggest two (player) moves that Calgary has made in the last seven years. those two, with ken-yon rambo coming in the same year, and Joff (running back joffrey reynolds) and i were already here — it made a great offence for years. He was the glue that held it all together for so long.”
Which, it seems, leaves a void in the Stampeder locker-room as most of the people Lewis mentioned are either gone (Copeland and Burris) or seemingly about to be gone (reynolds, whose option likely won’t be picked up by the Stamps, allowing him to pursue free agency in February).
“I guess it allows me to be a little bit more of a leader; things happen like that,” said Lewis. “When Jeremaine left, I stepped up a little bit, and now it’s time for me to step up even more and increase my role on the offence and my role in leadership.”
Before that happens, Lewis needs to get healthy. He injured his knee in the West Division semifinal loss in Edmonton, and has spent the nearly eight weeks since rehabbing it.
“I’m just focused on getting back into training,” he said. “I’m starting to be able to move like I used to. This is the longest I’ve been without working out in a long time, and I think my body is responding well to it. I just had to strengthen the knee back up. I’m glad I didn’t have to have surgery; now, the biggest thing is mentally seeing how it responds to the pounding of the workouts.”
And that, said Lewis, begins next week when he returns to the gym with his trainer. “I’m looking forward to going out there and putting on an exciting show (in the 2012 season),” said Lewis, before adding, mysteriously: “Wherever I may be.”
Excuse me? “Just sayin’,” said Lewis with a chuckle. “I don’t know. We all know how Ricky Ray left (Edmonton). You have to leave the possibilities open. You never know.”