By Kevin Thompson
Can you give us your thoughts on the overtime loss in Toronto last Friday?
MB – “I thought we played hard, the effort to win was there, we made some plays late in the game to take the lead but unfortunately there was too many plays we didn’t make on the field and what I call ‘ordinary type’ plays.”
In that game, we saw Quinton Porter take over the offence for a couple series in place of the starter, Kevin Glenn. Talk about why you did this…
MB – “He hadn’t played in a month and he was getting healthy again and at that point we knew we had to get him ready to play again. He needed to go in, get some reps and start to get the rust off to get back into game mode.”
Peter Dyakowski suffered an injury early in the first quarter against Toronto, which allowed this year’s first overall draft pick Simeon Rottier to enter the game. Can you comment on Rottier’s performance?
MB – “He did a good job. He was solid in the run game and obviously as a rookie, there are some things he needs to learn when you’re thrown in the fire against some pretty good defensive linemen… but he’s going to get better and that was some of the better playing time he’s had.”
Adam Tafralis has been successful on 14 of 15 attempts in short yardage situations, and has been successful on all five of the third-and-one conversions he’s attempted… can you comment on his performance when called upon?
MB – “He does a good job of managing what we are trying to do. He understands what we need and how to get it which is critical because those things are never important until you don’t get it so he does a good job.”
Over the last couple weeks, the team has added two Canadian players – DE Adrian Baird and LB Sasha Glavic. How will each player will contribute to the team?
MB – “They are important for us because we lost Agustin Barrenechea and we also lost Marc Beswick for a period of time so we needed to replace them with other Canadians. They both will contribute on special teams — that’s the main focus — but they both can do things defensively for us. Adrian gives us another defensive end that’s on our roster to help in injury situations so it’s good that they have the ability to play other positions.”
Your opponent this week, the Calgary Stampeders, have scored more points (328) than any other team so far. QB Henry Burris is leading the league in passing yards and WR Jeremaine Copeland is currently leading the league with 11 touchdown receptions. How you plan to contain these threats?
MB – “That’s the whole point — you have to try to contain them. It’s hard to stop players that are that productive and on that kind of roll so you have to limit them. Try not to give up any big plays, contain the running game as best we can, and keep them in the pocket. You have to do those three things to give yourself a chance.”
This Friday will be the first time this season that the Ticats will take on the defending Grey Cup champions. What does your team have to do to pull out a win?
MB – “We have to win the turnover battle, you have to do the little things and we’ve been harping on that as a coaching staff. We have to line up properly, we have to make sure we have our assignment every play and then we have to make plays when we get the chance. It’s kind of basic but it’s the reality. We need to limit turnovers, play smart football and take care of the little things.”
Receiver Chris Davis was recently released by the team… can you talk about the reasons behind this move?
MB – “Chris has done a lot of good things for us. He has played well for us, he’s a good person and it’s always a real challenging decision. At the end of the day he probably wasn’t as consistent as we needed him to be and we have some good young players here that have been consistent when they have played. We felt like we needed to make some room to give some of them an opportunity, unfortunately that was the situation.”
With Davis’ release opening up a spot in the receiving corps, which receivers do you expect to step up?
MB – “Marquay McDaniel will play in his position. Drisan James will get an opportunity and so will Airese Currie. They are all very capable. David Ball is hurt right now but he’s another guy we would like to see play at some point.”
