Fragile O-line injury away from facelift?
Eskimos unit has been internally scrutinized, criticized, reshaped
Kavis Reed often speaks of the football environment as an ecosystem, where a slight change to that system can send everything askew.
Two days out from their Canadian Football League season opener, Reed’s Edmonton Eskimos got a sampling of what can happen when a virus infiltrates the ecosystem.
Offensive guard Simeon Rottier was absent from Thursday’s practice, thanks to a stomach issue that Reed hoped was just a 24-hour bug.
“Simeon had a bit of a virus and we didn’t want him to infect anyone else, so we decided to send him home,” the coach said after his team wrapped up its prep for Saturday’s game against the Saskatchewan Roughriders.
“It’s a stomach situation and generally those things are 24 hours. Obviously, you have to wait, but we expect him to be fully recovered (Friday). But because we didn’t know if it was viral or something he ate, we didn’t want to take the chance of him being here.”
With Rottier, a 29-year-old, four-year CFL veteran out of the lineup, centre Gord Hinse slid over and played Rottier’s right guard spot. Hinse’s spot was filled by third-string centre Brian Ramsay. Normally a guard, Ramsay is filling in for injured backup Alexander Krausnick, who missed most of training camp with a knee injury and is on the one-game injured list.
That’s a lot of names and a lot of talent and before one meaningful game has been played, a lot of shuffling; even if it’s just a 24-hour bug that sent Rottier home.
For a group that’s been as internally scrutinized, criticized and reshaped as it has over the past month — starting tackles Thaddeus Coleman and Cliff Louis joined the team at the start of this month and left guard Matt O’Donnell is all but a rookie with one start in six games played last year — the prospect of the still-gelling group being an injury away from a quick facelift seems troublesome.
“We’re pretty confident that we won’t have to (sit Rottier out), but obviously in terms of roster that will be something we consider in order to protect ourselves in case it is something more serious than we feel,” Reed said.
Hinse lost the starting centre job a year ago but took it back in training camp this year. He said that if he were to move from centre to right guard in a game that it’d be a change, but one that the line could handle.
“If that particular situation was to happen, the calls are coming from a different person, so that changes things just a little bit,” he said. “And that, initially, moving one spot over isn’t very far but it is far enough. You see things a little differently, but I played guard a lot and I played centre a lot, so whatever spot I end up playing it shapes up pretty good.”
Going up against a Riders’ defensive line that’s pushing to be an elite one in the CFL this season, with defensive ends John Chick and Ricky Foley and tackles Jermaine McElveen and Keith Shologan, Hinse knows he and his linemates are facing a challenge, whether he’s the centre or the right guard.
“It’s a great challenge in the first week. We get to go out and kick it off with one of the top defensive lines in the country and it’ll kind of show exactly where we are as an O-line,” he said. “If we can handle these guys, then we can do a good job for the rest of the season.
“It’ll be a good test for us and, you know, they’ve got some really good players, but we do, too. We’ll match up well and have a good game.”
The negative headlines and criticism, Hinse said, has pulled the group together. After a rough first week of camp, Reed has said that the line has shown improvement each week after that first week.
“We just realized that it was either shape-up or ship-out and as a group we all came together and got better, not just personally, but as a group we got better and got to know each other a little more,” Hinse said.
“I think we’ve improved a ton and I think there’s still room for improvement, so hopefully we can keep improving throughout the year.”
Reed suggested that line battles are the one area of preseason play where there isn’t much held back from teams being secretive about their long-term plans.
“I think you’ll hear this almost ad nauseam: You win football games in the trenches,” Reed said.
“We have to make certain that in the trenches we are more physical than their guys are and establish the line of scrimmage for ourselves offensively and defensively. I don’t think the speed of the game will change for them. They may see more pressures, they may see more twists and stunts, so visually there may have to be some adjustments but in terms of the speed it will not be any different.”
That fragile ecosystem just needs to stay intact for Saturday.