Johany Jutras/CFL.ca
Henry Burris was having a bit of a chuckle at the other end of the line.
Maybe it was because he was contemplating the changes in the Ottawa REDBLACKS’ offence from one season to the next. Or maybe he just thought asking about contentment was a funny way of starting a conversation about football.
Or maybe it’s because “contentment” is the wrong word to describe what the veteran quarterback is feeling as the 2015 season gets underway, even after a Week 1 win in Montreal. Because over the course of a rather long conversation, the almost always amiable 40-year-old leader of the REDBLACKS focused on a continuing endeavour; that of pulling Ottawa into contender status in the east this year as he gets familiar with a slew of new receivers and a new way of attacking a defence.
“I’m excited to have access to all these guys and it’s really gonna help make our team a team that can continually get better,” says Burris after Canada Day niceties were set aside and he was asked about his level of quarterback contentment. No time for that right now, with work ahead. No time for Canada Day fireworks on The Hill, either. “No, no, I’m into my playbook tonight,” Burris laughs. Hank may be smilin’ after last week’s 20-16 win over the Alouettes but he is not resting.
Burris must be happier because the Ottawa offence is already better. Better on paper and so far, better on the field, even though the sample size that represents prosperity is admittedly small. Just the one game, although it came with a nice big cherry of optimism on top – a game clinching, ball-controlling drive that salted away the final three minutes and marched the REDBLACKS out from just in front of their own end zone.
There is much more to come, Burris thinks, as he learns a different kind of offence; one that has him reforming his game a little, the way Ricky Ray had to in Toronto and the way Anthony Calvillo had to in Montreal.
In taking time out from his homework, the veteran pivot had thoughts on his new receivers, new offensive coordinator Jason Maas, and the kind of personal execution needed to make Maas’ vision a masterpiece on the field.
Burris doesn’t mind looking in the rearview, as long as you don’t spend too much time lingering and don’t go too far back. Of last week’s road win he says: “It was huge.” Of last season’s lamentable 2 and 16 record he says: “We’re never gonna look back on that again because right now the future’s bright and that’s what we’ve been focusing on.”
The Ottawa offence has been remade. The off-season receiving additions include free agents Chris Williams, Brad Sinopoli, Ernest Jackson and Greg Ellingson. Maurice Price came over in a trade with Calgary. They all got their hands on the ball in that Montreal win, all of them immersing themselves in Maas’ designs, which have their genesis in the schemes that brought both Calvillo and Ray Grey Cup championships.
| Burris’ mental fortitude remains an intangible |
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“If it’s all about making people eat their words because I’m a forty-year-old guy … I still have the mental ability to understand the game, know the opponents that I’m up against. It’s all about being smart when you do whichever it is, whether it’s tucking the ball and running or dropping back, reading the defences and knowing where to go with the ball.” – Ottawa QB Henry Burris |
Burris has a nice fleet of receivers who’ve all shown they can make plays. As good as that is the fresh start they provide for an offence that was dead last in just about every single offensive category you can think of, in 2014. “None of those guys were here last year,” says Burris. “So they have no idea when people talk about last year, what it was all about.” It’s caught on, he says. “The best part is, even the guys that were here last year, we don’t even know what people are talking about.”
It’s a buoyant Burris, then, with teammates new and old, who can see more wins ahead. Not that there won’t be growing pains. In fact, there were a few of those in the first half in Montreal. The difference, Burris declares, is in the attitude found in the huddle and on the sidelines. “There was nobody panicking,” he says. “There was nobody going ‘oh here we go again.’ You never heard any of that.”
“It’s going to be a steps process,” Burris says of what he hopes is an offence that will improve with every passing week. “Each guy learning each and every week.”
That includes Burris, himself. Although he may have played in something similar in high school, he is far removed from those days and that offence would have shown only a shadow of what he needs to execute now. This is pro football and the complications are multiplied. But so far, he loves what
Maas is selling and likes the coach’s aggressive nature. “You never know what he’s gonna pull out of that bag at any given time,” Burris says.
Maas cut his teeth as a coach with the Toronto Argonauts, beginning as a receivers coach, in 2011. In 2012, he was made quarterbacks coach and helped Ray get familiar with the offensive ins and outs of the designs that Argos’ Head Coach Scott Milanovich had, himself, brought over after his time as an assistant, in Montreal. Ray, it has been said, needed a good half season or more to really get familiar and comfortable with what amounts to a quarterback progressing through his defensive reads in a specific way. “I can’t say I have this offence down to a tee right now,” Burris admits, “but as the season progresses, we’re definitely gonna get a lot better.”
“This (offence) does present a more detailed way of reading defences,” he explains, “and, of course, it’s a lot different than what I’ve done in the past as far as in the CFL, because everything is based on your drop – as far as your route depth – and everything is based on timing and progression.”
“The thing is just trying to get used to the progression, sometimes. It takes you from one side to the other, (you need to know) if you’re facing a blitz, where your (primary) route is. You’ve gotta be able to find that whereas, in the past, a lot of the routes that you were throwing to were in your face. And now you’ve gotta spin around and throw it in the other direction.”
Sounds complicated and it is. For a quarterback who is in his 16th season, you might wonder if that’s a bit much to take in and spit out in constructive fashion, but Burris insists it is not, naysayers be damned.
“If it’s all about making people eat their words because I’m a forty year old guy” – he pauses and resets like he’s just verbally pump-faked – “I still have the mental ability to understand the game, know the opponents that I’m up against. It’s all about being smart when you do whichever it is, whether it’s tucking the ball and running or dropping back, reading the defences and knowing where to go with the ball.”
Now, when you think of a Ricky Ray or Anthony Calvillo offence, you do not think much of the roll out style. Nor do you think of running quarterbacks. That is where this Ottawa offence can and will occasionally depart from its predecessors. If Burris does spend more time in the pocket, he will remain perfectly willing to find an escape hatch, or as he says: “If it’s not there I’m definitely gonna use my feet.”
“During the game the other night, I went to scramble and then I pulled up and I threw a kind of half-pass that got intercepted. When I got to the sidelines Jason was like ‘hey, I told you to use your feet. Don’t be second-guessing, use your feet.’ To hear him restate that, I was kinda like ‘yeah, what are you holding back for? Just play your game.’”
A coach who gets him. A squadron of playmaking receivers. A locker room that, in his words, “has definitely changed.” The memories of a difficult expansion season left behind, things seem to be looking up in Ottawa.
Contentment might best be a word to describe those who’ve arrived at a comfortable place. For Burris and the REDBLACKS’ offence, that place is not yet at hand. But they think they can see it from here.
