Versatile Lauzon-Séguin to sub for injured Rogers
Jason Lauzon-Séguin is, apparently, the Mr. Fix-It of the Ottawa Redblacks’ offensive line.
Need a right guard in a pinch? Left guard? Right tackle? Left tackle? Lauzon-Séguin has played all those positions and will have started at three of them after he lines up at the latter position against the B.C. Lions in Vancouver on Saturday night.
The biggest variable in shifting from one side of the line to the other, Lauzon-Séguin says, involves how a blocker sets up, how he uses his hands, what he sees in front of him and what he doesn’t see.
“Moving from right to left, everything changes,” he said Thursday following Redblacks practice at TD Place stadium.
“It’s like a mirror, so everything is upside down and everything is opposite, but when we practise, we do both. We do right guard-left guard, we do right tackle-left tackle, so when you go on the field (in a game), it’s just a difference to play against somebody else.”
Sorry, forgot to mention that Lauzon-Séguin is in his first Canadian Football League season after the Redblacks drafted him seventh overall in May from the Laval Rouge ET Or football factory. He also missed four contests after suffering a concussion in the June 25 season opener against the Edmonton Eskimos.
Even so, he’s the pick of Redblacks coaches to take over at left tackle from SirVincent Rogers, the CFL’s most outstanding offensive lineman in 2015, but almost certainly relegated to spectator status for the rest of this season after the Toronto Argonauts’ Shawn Lemon fell on him from behind, causing an ankle injury that required surgery earlier this week.
Lauzon-Séguin had started that game at right tackle. Now international lineman Jake Silas slides back into that starting position, but there’s more, too, with Nolan MacMillan shifting to right guard and J’Micheal Deane returning to left guard after missing Friday’s contest because of his own injury.
That means four-fifths of the offensive line will have different starters than were in place for the opening offensive series against the Argos.
“We are going to be just fine up front,” said Redblacks quarterback Trevor Harris, whose blind side will be the one protected by LauzonSéguin.
“My job is just to go back in the pocket and trust them and trust that they’re going to do their jobs, and they have to trust me that I’m going to do my job. As soon as we can all click on those cylinders, we’re going to be just fine.”
Offensive line coach Bryan Chiu, who sent out the same five blockers up front for all 18 regular-season games and both post-season games in 2015, has been the one primarily responsible for managing the shifting pieces in 2016.
Yes, it’s disappointing to lose Rogers, Chiu said, but the next man up is expected to perform the task at hand and each of the other linemen on the active roster has CFL experience, even if it’s just the eight-game total for Lauzon-Séguin.
“He has the mental makeup to be able to play,” Chiu said. “He’s confident and he’s technically sound. He’s good. He’s a good football player.”
Lauzon-Séguin, a 25-year-old who grew up in the Eastern Ontario community of St-Eugène, said the primary goal of a lineman remained the same no matter which side of centre he was on: don’t let the quarterback get hit.
The only difference might be that the quarterback can’t see pass rushers coming from his blind side — for the right-handed Harris, that would be the left side of the offensive line — so the stakes might be a little higher there.
“You try not to think about it because you don’t want to play with that in your mind,” said LauzonSéguin, who was at right tackle when the Redblacks (6-5-1) lost to the Lions (8-4-0) by a 29-23 score at home on Aug. 25. “You want to play free and just do your best. I’m not thinking about that. I’m just thinking about what I do and how to do it.”
Other expected Redblacks roster changes for Saturday’s game include the returns of defensive halfback Forrest Hightower (in place of Nick Taylor), punter Zack Medeiros (Sergio Castillo) and fullback/special teamer Brendan Gillanders. The deadline for finalizing the 46-man active roster is Friday afternoon, and that number will be trimmed by two an hour before kickoff on Saturday.