WINNIPEG No matter what happens in the Grey Cup game, Ottawa football fans will always have “Second-and-25,” to remind them of the 2015 Canadian Football League season, just like “Clements to Gabriel” reminds of 1976 and the “act of God” raises images of Russ Jackson’s 1969 Rough Riders.
Second-and-25 was the setting upon which Redblacks quarterback Henry Burris and wide receiver Greg Ellingson, with considerable help from teammates, created magic. Burris heaved a football high into the afternoon sky over TD Place stadium and Ellingson went up and seized it before running half the length of the field for the winning touchdown in a 35-28 triumph against the Hamilton Tiger-Cats in the East Division final.
Now the Redblacks have to climb a loftier peak against the Edmonton Eskimos here on Sunday.
The Eskimos experienced ups and downs, too, including quarterback Mike Reilly’s knee injury in the season opener. Following his September return, they won nine in a row, including last weekend’s 45-31 decision against the Calgary Stampeders.
Good stuff, but not Second-and-25. As well, Edmonton’s championship “drought” extends only to 2005, when the Eskimos edged the Montreal Alouettes 38-35. Ottawa fans haven’t celebrated since “Clements to Gabriel” 39 years and two CFL franchises ago.
Here’s an assessment of the Redblacks and Eskimos going the 103rd Grey Cup game.
Head-to-head record overall
Eskimos 4-0 over the Redblacks, 2-0 in 2015.
July 9 at Edmonton: Eskimos 46, Redblacks 17. This one was decided by half-time, when the Eskimos led 36-11. Slotback Adarius Bowman finished with five receptions for 120 yards and one of three touchdown throws by Matt Nichols, filling in for Reilly, By mid-season he was starting for the Winnipeg Blue Bombers. The Redblacks passed for just 196 yards, ran for just 25 and scored one touchdown on defensive tackle Zack Evans’ 66-yard interception.
July 17 at Ottawa: Eskimos 36, Redblacks 25. Quarterback Henry Burris scored to give Ottawa a 12-11 lead in the fourth quarter. However, Edmonton isolated linebacker Damaso Munoz in coverage on speedster Kendial Lawrence, who took a pass from Nichols and completed a 63-yard touchdown play. The Redblacks again struggled to run (46 yards), but, in a sign of things to come, Burris was 29-for-39 for 252 passing yards.
Offence
Three interesting Redblacks stats: league-best 5,806 passing yards and 18 rushing touchdowns; 1,203 combined rushing yards from tailbacks.
The Redblacks were 4-4 at one point, but the offence clicked after QB Henry Burris and his new receivers solved the system implemented by first-year co-ordinator Jason Maas. Thousand-yard seasons for Chris Williams, Greg Ellingson, Ernest Jackson and Brad Sinopoli plus a career-best 5,693 passing yards for Burris proved that. Also significant: 895 combined rushing yards for tailbacks Jeremiah Johnson and William Powell, a mid-season arrival who became a multi-purpose threat after Johnson was injured in October.
All that translated into first in the East with 12 victories.
Brad Sinopoli has become a dependable target for Henry Burris.
“That night, Sunday (of the East Final), was incredibly special,” said Sinopoli, the former University of Ottawa quarterback who led the CFL with 471 yards after catch and led all Canadian receivers with 1,035 yards, 11th overall. “We were on a high, the way that it ended along with a lot of people in Ottawa, just to go around, just to see how happy they were with the way that it ended. But we got to work pretty quickly, knowing that our task isn’t done yet.”
Burris received a scare when a hit by Winnipeg’s Jamaal Westerman injured his left knee — the Redblacks’ QB revealed this week that it was problem with the medial collateral ligament — but he missed only one snap before returning with a protective brace. He has looked more comfortable with the brace in recent games and seems capable of moving around the pocket when required.
Three interesting Eskimos stats: 125 rushing attempts by quarterbacks for 614 yards, both No. 1 during the regular season; 31:38 average time of possession, second-best to Ottawa’s 33:10.
Edmonton Eskimos’ Adarius Bowman (4) and Kenny Stafford (7) celebrate a touchdown agains the Ottawa Redblacks during first half action in Edmonton on Thursday July 9, 2015.
Adarius Bowman ranked second overall with 1,304 receiving yards, while Derel Walker finished fifth (1,110, plus six touchdowns) and became West nominee for the top rookie award despite playing only 12 games. The wonder is that Eskimos coaches found someone else more worthy of playing in those first six games. Tailback featured rotating characters. Akeem Shavers, released by the Redblacks during training camp, started the West final and carried nine times for 40 yards.
Defence
Three interesting Redblacks stats: league-best totals for rushing yards (70.8), net offence yards (297.6) and 62 quarterback sacks.
A hamstring injury that will keep all-star halfback Jerrell Gavins sidelined Sunday may lead to some shuffling in the secondary. Forrest Hightower practised in Gavins’ spot early in the week, allowing the Redblacks to keep Abdul Kanneh at cornerback, but on Friday they had Brandon Sermons at cornerback and Kanneh at halfback. The Ticats took shots down the field against Sermons in the last game of the regular season and against linebacker Antoine Pruneau in the East final.
Jovon Johnson #2 of the Ottawa Redblacks is back in a Grey Cup game.
Redblacks cornerback Jovon Johnson played in the 2011 Grey Cup game with the Blue Bombers as a teammate of current Eskimos defensive lineman Odell Willis. Asked this week what he recalled about that contest, which Winnipeg lost lost 34-23 to the B.C. Lions, Johnson cracked that Willis dropped a potential interception for a touchdown.
Johnson, the Eskimos’ John Ojo and the Ticats’ Emanuel Davis tied for fourth in the CFL with five regular-season interceptions, one behind Kanneh, the Bombers’ Johnny Adams and the Lions’ Ryan Phillips.
Johnson acknowledged their 0-4 record against the Eskimos, “but, at the end of the day, they still have to go out and play the game, and we’ll let the chips fall where they may.”
Three interesting Eskimos stats: 16.9 points per game allowed, or a touchdown better than the Redblacks (23.6); 16 recoveries from 17 forced fumbles; 124 “two-and-out,” defensive series, meaning opponents ran two plays or less before punting or turning over the ball.
John Ojo’s interception return for a touchdown stunned the Redblacks in the first quarter of the first matchup of the season, but the Eskimos have to realize the offence they’ll face Sunday is much more proficient than it was then. Compressing the pocket to apply some pressure on Henry Burris worked well for the Eskimos in those earlier matchups and will be required on Sunday. Edmonton defensive backs have size, but so do most Ottawa receivers. Edmonton may not have linebacker Deon Lacey Sunday. He did not practice Friday.
Special Teams
Three interesting Redblacks stats: 6.3-yard punt-return average overall, but Jamill Smith averaged 8.9 yards after being re-signed; 6.5-yard punt-return average for Ticats special-teams star Brandon Banks last Sunday; 36.7-yard punting average for Chris Milo in the regular season, but 39.5 in the East final as he again replaced the injured Ronnie Pfeffer (41.8). Rick Campbell has decided that Milo will again do double duty in the Grey Cup game.
As Redblacks general manager Marcel Desjardins has said, CFL teams can win several games with the field-goal performances provided by Milo, who was 31-for-34 with Ottawa during the regular season and 4-for-4 in the East final. As a punter replacing Pfeffer, though, Milo must rely on placement and his ability to get the football to bounce unpredictably to compensate for a lack of consistent hang time.
Three interesting Eskimos stats: 24-for-26 record on field goals by Sean Whyte, who was signed after Grant Shaw was hurt in mid-season; 10.2-yard average on punt returns, including 10.4 for Kendial Lawrence; 33.7-yard net average on punts, seventh-best in the nine-team CFL.
Whyte was an emergency signing after Shaw was injured, and the former Alouette performed well as a field-goal kicker. Shaw resumed punting late in the season and could give the Eskimos a field-position advantage over the Redblacks, particularly if Milo is again assigned to replace Pfeffer.
Ottawa Redblacks head coach Rick Campbell is in his first Grey Cup as a head coach. But he’s been there before as an assistant.
Coaching
It should be agreed that no team gets this far if its coaches don’t know what they’re doing, and an argument can be made that the Redblacks’ best off-season acquisition was offensive co-ordinator Jason Maas.
It’s also worth repeating that the Redblacks were 2-16 a year ago, while the Eskimos were 4-14 in 2013.
Ottawa’s Rick Campbell and Edmonton’s Chris Jones will both appear in their first Grey Cup games as head coaches, but they’ve been there before as assistants with other teams. Campbell and Jones were colleagues on the staff of Stampeders head coach John Hufnagel in 2010.
Rick Campbell, Ottawa: “Be yourself. There’s a reason we’re here and you need to continue to do the things that got us here, and we need to continue to keep getting better. I’d tell you that whether it’s the second week of the regular season or it’s the Grey Cup. But you’ve got to remember that, just because the stage is different, it’s bigger, there’s more cameras, there’s more people, the recipe for winning the game doesn’t change whether it’s a regular-season game or its the Grey Cup. We’re going to continue to do what we do and try to play good football for 60 minutes and see what happens.”
Chris Jones, Edmonton: “Anytime you play with your back-up quarterback for about eight weeks, there’s some bumps in the road. That’s the one thing I can say that I’m proud of this coaching staff: I’m proud of our players, the fact that they stayed the course. They believed in what we were doing, and we were able to win six of them ball games, and that’s what allowed us to weather that until we got Mike (Reilly) back.”
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