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<\/p>\nQuarterback Dru Brown has enjoyed success against the Winnipeg Blue Bombers when he\u2019s been able to start and actually finish the game against his former team.<\/p>\n
Unfortunately for the Ottawa Redblacks, that has happened just once in three tries.<\/p>\n
When the two teams meet Saturday afternoon (3 p.m.) at TD Place in a showdown with huge Canadian Football League playoff implications, Brown will make his first start since suffering a third-quarter knee injury Aug. 14 in Winnipeg.<\/p>\n
The Redblacks lost that game, 30-27, just as they fell (25-16) to the Blue Bombers last July 5 in Ottawa when Brown exited in the second quarter with a head injury.<\/p>\n
In the 2024 season opener \u2014 five months after acquiring the free agent rights to Brown from Winnipeg for a fifth-round pick \u2014 the Redblacks reaped immediate rewards in a 23-19 victory.<\/p>\n
Brown\u2019s numbers (20-for-33 for 238 yards and a touchdown) weren\u2019t spectacular, but he did have a better day than his close friend (and the guy he backed up for three seasons) Zach Collaros, who completed just 15 of 31 attempts for 285 yards, with two interceptions.<\/p>\n
Collaros\u2019 status for Saturday is in doubt as he recovers from his latest head injury.<\/p>\n
\u201cDru will be the starting quarterback this week and we\u2019re excited about it,\u201d Redblacks head coach Bob Dyce said. \u201cHe\u2019s done a good job of staying in it mentally while he\u2019s been recuperating.\u201d<\/p>\n
Dyce added that Brown had looked back to being 100 per cent at practice this week.<\/p>\n
\u201cProbably the biggest thing that I was looking at was to see how he was able to move around,\u201d Dyce said. \u201cThere are\u00a0 opportunities in practice where we do get pressure on the quarterback, and he slid around the pocket very well. If he had to move and take off, he was able to do that. So he looked very good to me.\u201d<\/p>\n
When it comes to moving around with the ball, Brown is certainly no Dustin Crum.<\/p>\n
The Redblacks\u2019 backup QB is the CFL\u2019s ninth leading rusher, with 69 carries for 385 yards and a CFL-leading 11 touchdowns.<\/p>\n
Brown is eighth in passing yards, with 1,842 in eight games, while Crum is ninth with 1,510 in 13 games, so the Redblacks will get a boost with the return of their No. 1 QB against a Winnipeg defence that is third-best against aerial attacks in the nine-team league.<\/p>\n
But Saturday\u2019s outcome could be dependent on what happens in the trenches.<\/p>\n
Ottawa\u2019s offensive line allowed the very durable Crum to be sacked 11 times in back-to-back games with the B.C. Lions, including last week\u2019s 38-27 loss in Vancouver.<\/p>\n
Despite the absence of American right tackle Parker Moorer (knee), the protection should be better against the Blue Bombers, whose 16 sacks through 13 games are second-fewest in the league, ahead of only Ottawa\u2019s 14.<\/p>\n
It will be up to the Ottawa O-Line to make sure Brown stays around to the end.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Redblacks punter Richie Leone has been away from the team and will miss Saturday\u2019s game against the Blue Bombers following the death of his mother.<\/p>\n
Can the Redbacks win one for their punter?<\/p>\n
Popular veteran ball booter Richie Leone will miss Saturday\u2019s game to attend the funeral of his mother in Atlanta.<\/p>\n
\u201cRichie is obviously in a very challenging situation in this life as his mother has passed away, and we really felt it\u2019s important for him to be with his family at this sad time,\u201d Dyce said after informing the media. \u201cI just wanted you guys to know that, and him to know that all of us here in the Redblacks miss him deeply. I know how much it hurts him to be away, but him to know that he\u2019s in our thoughts and prayers.\u201d<\/p>\n
Leone, who recently played in his 150th CFL game, will be replaced by American Noah Gettman, a 6-4, 202-pounder who will not only be making his CFL debut, but also playing his first game since 2022.<\/p>\n
Gettman, who attended Redblacks training camp this spring, spent the 2022 season with the University of Akron Zips after four years at Sacred Heart.<\/p>\n
He had a 40.6-yard average in 12 games with the Zips.<\/p>\n
Leone is averaging 45.84 yards per punt this season.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe saw Noah at training camp, and that\u2019s what made the transition for this game easier,\u201d Dyce said. \u201cHe knows our operations, he knows our adjustments. So I thought he did a good job when he was here, and now, through a regrettable situation, he\u2019s getting an opportunity to go out and show what he can do for the Redblacks.\u201d<\/p>\n
How are the Redblacks approaching the final five games of the season?<\/p>\n
The answer is with optimism, despite having the worst record in the CFL at 4-9 and being two games out of a playoff spot.<\/p>\n
\u201cI showed the guys the list of the standings, and took out the top three (Saskatchewan, Calgary and Hamilton),\u201d Dyce said. \u201cI said, essentially, there are six (other) teams (Winnipeg, B.C., Edmonton, Montreal, Toronto and Ottawa) and three of them are going to make the playoffs.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve put ourselves in this position. We have the toughest road, but, out of those games ahead of us, we play Winnipeg this week, and we play Montreal twice. We control our destiny and what we want to attain. So we\u2019ve just got to make sure, starting this week, that we\u2019re locked into focus.\u201d<\/p>\n
While the Blue Bombers (12 points), Lions (12) and Elks (10) are still vying for a spot in the West Division semifinal, one of them could crossover and play in the Eastern semifinal if it has more points than the third-place team on this side.<\/p>\n
The Alouettes (12 points) and Argos (10) square off in Toronto on Friday.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe talk about faith, and sometimes you have to build faith on something you can\u2019t see,\u201d Dyce said. \u201cBut they have the faith of seeing how they\u2019ve fought in the second half of games, and how they\u2019ve come back and played better than the opposition. You know that it\u2019s there inside of them. We\u2019ve just got to do it for 60 minutes.\u201d<\/p>\n
Running back Daniel Adebobye said the mood in the locker room was still positive.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen we look at our team and see the amount of skill that\u2019s on this team, we understand that we have everything that we need to win,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s just how the game works. Sometimes you just don\u2019t pull off the win.\u00a0 But we have the resilience, we have the fight. We have five more games left in the season and we\u2019re going to try and win every single game. We\u2019re just gonna leave it out there. There\u2019s nothing but optimism in the locker room.\u201d<\/p>\n
Cornerback C.J. Coldon echoed that sentiment.<\/p>\n
\u201cEverything we want is still in front of us,\u201d he said. \u201cWe\u2019ve just got to stay focused. It\u2019s the back end of the season and, when you hit that wall of fatigue, you have to focus on finishing through the season and just finishing everything that we do on the field.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe way our season has been going, every game has been a playoff game for us. So that\u2019s got to be our focus and our mindset, that every game is any given game. We have to come out prepared and be ready to win. Do anything to win. Scratch, claw, whatever we\u2019ve got to do, we\u2019ve got to win.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Quarterback Dru Brown has enjoyed success against the Winnipeg Blue Bombers when he\u2019s been able to start and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":153662,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[437],"tags":[51646,14969,49,48,521,522,520,14966,14971,14967,51648,4400,82,7504,52049],"class_list":["post-153661","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cfl","tag-bob-dyce","tag-brown","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-canadian-football-league","tag-canadianfootballleague","tag-cfl","tag-dru-brown","tag-dustin-crum","tag-ottawa-redblacks","tag-richie-leone","tag-saskatchewan-roughriders","tag-sports","tag-winnipeg-blue-bombers","tag-zach-collaros"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/153661","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=153661"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/153661\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/153662"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=153661"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=153661"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=153661"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}