Isaac Owusu
Ticats.ca
The Tiger-Cats next opponent, the BC Lions, boasts the league’s most productive offensive player, a fact that defensive co-captain Simoni Lawrence is well aware of.
“We know what we have to do to stop (running back) Andrew Harris. He is a good running back, when he has the ball in his hands. We just have to hit him every time we have the chance,” linebacker Simoni Lawrence said candidly following Tuesday’s practice.
“Whether he’s back there trying to block or not, we just have to punish him. Every time we can get our hands on him, we’ll hit him,” he added.
The Ticats bring their fourth-ranked run defence, which gives up just 97 rushing yards per game, with them to BC Place this Friday night. Their objective is to stop the league’s leading rusher, Harris, and the rest of his BC Lions offence.
“He’s a good back, but they have a lot of weapons so we can’t just focus solely on Andrew Harris.”
“They have another good running back, number 10 (Stefan Logan). They got a good receiver number 84 (Emmanuel Arceneaux). They have a good group of guys,” Lawrence said.
While Hamilton has not surrendered 100 yards to a single running back since week one, Harris presents arguably their biggest test thus far. He has displayed the ability to get it done on the ground and as a receiver, rushing for 381 yards and collecting 341 through the air, good for first and second in each category.
“I’ve noticed that this year he’s bouncing off a lot of tackles. He’s fighting more, he looks more aggressive than last year. He’s not going down on first contact, he’s just running harder,” Lawrence said.
The linebacker credits the team’s own triple threat running back CJ Gable in getting the defence tuned up for Friday.
“I can’t compare CJ to any back around the league, because he does things that a lot of backs can’t do, especially within the blocking game.”
“CJ is an all around player, whether he’s back there blocking the linebackers, or running routes, or just running the ball. We go against him everyday in practice and he’s the best at what he does in the league,” he said.
The head of the defence, Orlondo Steinauer insists that his unit has an idea of how they will take on Harris.
“He does really well for what they ask him to do. He’s proven, he can get outside, he’s a good cut back runner. He can get in between the tackles,” he said. “All I can say is we have a plan for B.C. We have a plan, and I’m just really looking forward to the men executing to its fullest.”
“I feel that if you empathize one thing too much then sometimes other things get overlooked. We’re just looking to get better at different phases of the game. they present different challenges than other teams and I’m looking forward to seeing how our guys respond,” Steinauer continued.
The Ticats defence played a solid game last Thursday, holding Winnipeg offence to just 20 points until quarterback Drew Willy connected with running back Nic Grigsby in the endzone to steal the victory on the game’s final play. Lawrence finds motivation from that game’s heartbreaking result.
“It was a hard loss, especially if we executed different on a couple of plays things. We see ourselves as the dominant team, and we feel like if we’re in that position again we would bet everything in the bank that we would win that game,” he said.
