A great effort in Winnipeg to secure the team’s first road win… talk about your thoughts on last Friday’s victory.
MB: Well it was important on three levels. We wanted to accomplish three things and we did it win one win. Those were; get a win on the road, win the series against Winnipeg and beat an East division opponent. So we accomplished all those things with one win.
You were facing some significant injuries that required four changes to the starting defence… how nice was it to see that unit play well despite several changes?
MB: It was very nice. We talked about before the game, that guys were here for a reason, that if they were here then they were here because I felt like they could help us win. We don’t believe in role players, we believe that everyone is a football player and whatever you’re asked to do from week to week is your job. We told those guys that we were going to win because they were on the roster, not with them, and they did a good job of stepping up and playing well.
Looking ahead to this week, the Argos have been a bit of a surprise team in the league this year, what will the team need to do to hand them their first home loss of the season?
MB: They’re an excellent football team and to have the best chance of success against them you have to play a sound football game. You have to take care of the football. You have to eliminate the big plays and play for 60 minutes. That’s the best way to play against these guys if you want to have some success against them.
Special Teams has been arguably the most dangerous area of Toronto’s team, how do you help the cover teams prepare for such dynamic returners?
MB: You have to play disciplined football and stay disciplined in your lanes. When you cover kicks you have to be disciplined with your assignments and play with some intensity.
This will be the first time your team will face the league’s leading rusher Cory Boyd. What are the keys to stopping him?
MB: First of all, everyone’s got to stay in their gaps. The second thing you have to do is tackle. You need to get guys around the ball and when they get there they need to wrap him up and get him down.
What kinds of things will the defence have to do to disrupt the timing of Argonauts QB Cleo Lemon, who seems to be getting better?
MB: I think he’s no different than any other athletic quarterback, we’ve go to make sure we know who’s playing the boot. A lot of the damage he does is in the boot game and when he’s moving around, getting on the edge. We have to take care of our responsibilities in terms of the pocket and we have to give him some different looks, can’t give him a steady diet of one thing or another and give him some things to think about.
Is there any advantage to having some Hamilton fans in the building to offset the home crowd?
MB: I think it’s still going to be loud. Their fans make a lot of noise, I was in there last week for the game against Montreal and it was loud in there. You’re going to have to deal with crowd noise and on offence, timing up the snap along the line and timing your waggles and thing like that. The one positive is that you don’t have to get on a plane the day before the game and you get to sleep in your own bed which is nice.
What do you tell players that are new to the team/league about the Toronto-Hamilton rivalry to help them prepare for the atmosphere Friday?
MB: You try to make them understand that it’s going to be intense football, both teams get up to play these games. Irregardless of what the records are, at these times it’s a tough QEW rivalry and sometimes young guys have to play in the game to get a true sense of it. Luckily we have some older guys here that have been in these battles and understand.
The offensive line has protected Kevin remarkably well the last few weeks, what challenges will they face going against Toronto’s front seven?
MB: Well they have a good front seven, they do a good job of getting a push on the inside which is always tough on the quarterbacks. They’ll give you a number of cover zero blitzes and you have to be able to handle those.
Canadian receiver Matt Carter has been a key part of the offence over the last couple weeks… talks about his play so far this season…
MB: His growth has been good, he’s one of those guys who’s gotten an opportunity because we weren’t as consistent with other people and he did a good job of taking advantage of that opportunity. He’s made the plays he’s been given an opportunity to make. The first week he caught one ball, the next he caught three so that obviously gives the coaches confidence to get him more involved and to create different things to make him part of the offence, and it probably will make the quarterbacks more confident when throwing the ball out there. What it does for us as an offence is it makes everyone a threat and the wide-side guy is now a threat and teams need to pay more attention to him.
