Fraser Caldwell
Ticats.ca
Conditions are aligning in favour of the Ticats defence, and Jermaine McElveen is happily reaping the rewards.
With his downing of Anthony Calvillo on Friday, McElveen now has six sacks in his last four games. Hamilton’s pass rush as a whole has caught fire, notching 13 of its 23 sacks on the season over that same span.
The leader of the charge takes very little of the credit for himself, and instead heaps praise upon the Ticats secondary for its role in the sack tally.
He explains that the men patrolling the backfield have provided the coverage needed to keep the ball in opposing quarterbacks’ hands for a few crucial seconds longer.
“Our DBs are doing a good job of getting hands on receivers, and quarterbacks have just been holding on to the ball a lot more,” says McElveen.
“That’s all it comes down to, because our defensive linemen have been beating guys and now the quarterback’s giving us the time to get there.”
A quarterback’s ability to quickly find check-down or hot routes can nullify even the best pressure, but McElveen confirms that success on the line is being matched in coverage.
“I could be dominating a guy all game and not get a sack,” says the lineman.
“These last couple of weeks, we’ve been beating our man and our DBs have been doing a good job of messing up the quarterback’s timing.”
The Ticats defensive line has seen its fair share of tinkering this season, but has calmed in recent weeks with the discovery of a winning mixture of players in the trenches.
McElveen admits that the job has become much easier with stability in personnel, making timing easier to establish among he and his linemates.
“It’s good finally playing with the same guys consistently for the last couple of games,” says the lineman. “At the beginning of the season, it was something different every week.”
“It’s starting to show on the field that we’re getting comfortable with the guys that we’re rushing with.”
Familiarity is particularly valuable when employing stunts – the swapping of two players’ rushing responsibilities – according to McElveen.
“It’s a little different getting your timing down and running stunts [with new players], because every guy runs stunts differently,” says the lineman.
“I think we’ve been getting the timing down good with the new guys here, and it’s working out well for us right now.”
The Ticat offence has also played a large role in the improved defensive performance by swinging the time of possession decidedly in Hamilton’s favour.
Henry Burris and his fellow attackers enjoyed a 2-1 share of the football against the Alouettes on Friday, and won valuable recuperation time for their defensive teammates in the process.
“People don’t understand how big that is when your offence can keep the defence fresh and off the field,” says McElveen.
“When you’ve got an offence that can score the way that our offence can and keep the defence off the field, you’re going to be hard to beat.”
“Last game we had 38 plays on defence. That’s great. That’s the fewest plays I’ve ever had in a CFL game.”
McElveen and his linemates are hoping to have plenty of opportunities to add to their sack total in Edmonton.
That is, if they can force Kerry Joseph to pass the ball.
“The main thing is to stop the run,” says McElveen of his team’s priority against the Eskimos. “If we stop the run, we’ve got them exactly where we want them.”
“We feel that we can get at them with a four-man pass rush. The way our offence is scoring points, if we can get them off of the run and make them pass the ball, we’ve got them.”
Fans at Ivor Wynne Stadium had a good look three weeks ago at what happens to the Eskimo offence when it is unable to run the football.
The Ticats hope that the many facets which have brought their defence success can cause such problems yet again.
