Burris still wants to have an impact
Henry Burris first apologized for not calling back sooner. Just one of those weeks.
Gigs as a fill-in host for a morning TV show. Picking up the boys from school, then whatever sports activities they have on the schedule. Planning for the Burris AllStar Weekend charity fundraiser in May. Workouts designed to keep that 40-year-old body in the kind of shape required to play quarterback in the Canadian Football League.
Nothing about sticking pins into a voodoo likeness of Trevor Harris, the free agent who was signed on Tuesday with the stated intention that he, not Burris, would be the Ottawa Redblacks’ starting QB in 2017.
“The team is definitely preparing for the future, when that time comes. They went out to find the No. 1 young guy in the league right now, and Trevor is definitely that guy,” Burris said Wednesday, only a few months after he was named the CFL’s most outstanding player after leading the league in passing yards with a career-best total of 5,693 and also leading the second-year Redblacks squad to an appearance in the Grey Cup game.
Burris said lots of people thought he was finished after the Hamilton Tiger-Cats released him and signed the much younger Zach Collaros following the 2013 season, then again after he and the Redblacks won just two of 18 games in 2014, but the athlete who cashed his first CFL paycheque in 1997 said he didn’t want to step away even a year early and risk “what if” thoughts for the rest of his life.
“I’m not going to let anybody push me out,” he said. “My body is going to be the dictator of what I end up doing … or not.”
Burris said he could even envision himself sticking around with the Redblacks in 2017 as a backup for Harris, the CFL’s No. 3 passer (4,354 yards) with the Toronto Argonauts last season, and has talked with the team about extending a contract that is scheduled to expire next February.
“At the end of the day, I want to help this team continue to win. That’s why I was brought here,” Burris said.
General manager Marcel Desjardins said the Redblacks had not asked Burris to adjust his salary for 2016, but an additional year would only be paid at the going rate for backup quarterbacks.
Desjardins did one other piece of free-agent business on Wednesday, signing 27-year-old Canadian Arnaud Gascon-Nadon to a two-year contract.
Redblacks fans may recognize Gascon-Nadon as the Tiger-Cats defensive lineman who dropped a potential interception on the play immediately before Burris and Greg Ellingson connected on a 93yard pass-and-run touchdown that provided the winning points in the East Division playoff final last November.
“I’m not worried about his hands,” Desjardins joked in reference to Gascon-Nadon, who effectively took the roster spot of team sack leader Justin Capicciotti after he agreed to terms on a two-year deal with the Saskatchewan Roughriders.
Gascon-Nadon spent the past three seasons with the Tiger-Cats, who drafted him 17th overall in 2012. The 6-foot-3, 250-pound Montreal native played at Rice University in Texas in 2008 before transferring to the Université Laval in Quebec City.
Last season, he ranked third among Ticats with 11 special-teams tackles. He also recorded three tackles as a backup on the defensive line.
Another free agent from the 2015 Redblacks, running back Jeremiah Johnson, signed with the B.C. Lions. Defensive tackle Keith Shologan (Winnipeg Blue Bombers) and Jovon Johnson (Montreal Alouettes) had found other employment on Tuesday.
Desjardins said the Redblacks had reached out to a small number of free agents, particularly defensive backs, but found that many were assessing their prospects of finding work in the National Football League before making decisions on CFL offers.
“Our intent was not to be out there doing a whole bunch of things,” said Desjardins, whose Redblacks last year made the biggest splashes of free agency by signing four veteran receivers and an offensive tackle.
By one count, 28 players moved to new CFL teams as of Wednesday afternoon, and every team except the Calgary Stampeders had lost at least one. Hamilton and Edmonton led with five departures each, and four of the former Eskimos signed with the Roughriders.