THE CANADIAN PRESS
Ottawa enters the 103rd Grey Cup presented by Shaw as decided underdogs with the betting line installing Edmonton as large favourites – a touchdown or more in some spots.
Many people are looking at the regular season games that the REDBLACKS and Eskimos played to try and get a sense of what might happen on Sunday in the CFL’s championship game. But the truth is each team looks different from those early-season meetings.
| 19 weeks later |
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A lot has changed for both the REDBLACKS and Eskimos since the last time they met, which means Sunday’s matchup could be a whole different ball game. |
Edmonton’s defensive unit has largely remained unchanged since Week’s 3 and 4. But the Eskimos’ starting offensive lineup has faces that Ottawa didn’t see back in July: Quarterback Mike Reilly, offensive linemen Chris Greaves and Matt O’Donnell and receiving revelation Derel Walker.
More tweaks have been made to Ottawa’s depth chart since the summertime. The REDBLACKS have shuffled around players on the back end: Abdul Kanneh moved from boundary halfback to boundary corner, Jerrell Gavins field halfback to boundary halfback, Brandyn Thompson free safety to field halfback and Jermaine Robinson has been inserted as the starter at free safety.
The linebacker group lost Malik Jackson to injury and Damaso Munoz slid into the middle spot with David Hinds starting on the weakside, while pass rusher Shawn Lemon was added in September and he’s been a force at defensive end. On offence William Powell has assumed the feature running back role and provided a tough presence at the position.
Most importantly for Ottawa the offence has evolved as Jason Maas and Henry Burris joined forces for the first time in 2015. It took time for a new coordinator to figure out how to best utilize the athletes he had.
Ottawa’s offence endured a slow start to the season scoring less than 20 points in two of the team’s first four games. After that the REDBLACKS put up 20 or more points in 12 of the last 14 regular season tilts and they dropped 35 in winning the Eastern Final.
Maas wanted Burris to progress through his reads like a robot and as the season wore on you could see Hank becoming more comfortable doing that. Plus, Burris had a bunch of new receivers to get in sync with and that only comes with live game reps.
Each of those two factors meant that the 40-year-old pivot was not even anywhere close to operating at a high level in Maas’ scheme in July. Edmonton held Burris and Co. to 17 and 12 points in their only two regular season matchups – Hank was pulled from the Week 3 meeting and he wasn’t able to complete a pass longer than 29 yards against the Eskimos’ defence in either game.
This time around in the 103rd Grey Cup, Edmonton will see a much more cohesive Ottawa offence. Burris has been decisive and spread the ball around to a variety of weapons with four REDBLACKS receivers recording 1,000-yard campaigns. Chris Williams, Greg Ellingson, Ernest Jackson and Brad Sinopoli are Hank’s main targets and they’ve mixed together well. It seems as though none of Ottawa’s receivers take a play off because they know they’re either getting the football or helping one of their teammates get open.
The REDBLACKS are executing Maas’ offence at a high level and that’s where the main difference could come in the CFL title game. Burris should have a feel for Chris Jones’ defence because the players Edmonton used back in July are largely the same. Since that time, Ottawa’s offence has evolved into a dangerous unit that can strike at any moment – see Ellingson’s 93-yard touchdown to win the Eastern Final as a prime example among many others.
Strength meets strength on Sunday evening with the REDBLACKS featuring the CFL’s best passing offence (322.6 yards per game) going against the top pass defence (245.2 yards par game). Not many people who watched Ottawa and Edmonton over four months ago could’ve believed that the REDBLACKS would eventually lead the league in yards through the air. That’s a credit to Burris and the offensive group trusting Maas and believing that the offence could be prolific when the players became comfortable in it.
Hank and Maas versus Jones and all his elaborate defensive schemes will be the most intriguing chess match within the Grey Cup game. And just because Edmonton’s defensive mastermind shut down Ottawa’s offence when these teams met early in the season, don’t just assume it happens again.
