{"id":241497,"date":"2025-10-26T14:15:15","date_gmt":"2025-10-26T14:15:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/241497\/"},"modified":"2025-10-26T14:15:15","modified_gmt":"2025-10-26T14:15:15","slug":"is-the-ottawa-redblacks-oft-injured-dru-brown-durable-enough-to-be-a-cfl-quarterback","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/241497\/","title":{"rendered":"Is the Ottawa Redblacks’ oft-injured Dru Brown durable enough to be a CFL quarterback?"},"content":{"rendered":"

The common belief inside the football locker room at TD Place is that the Ottawa Redblacks\u2019 failures<\/a> this season had more to do with the quarterbacking than the coaching.<\/p>\n

Not that Dustin Crum<\/a> didn\u2019t perform admirably \u2014 the players have plenty of respect and love for the gutsy backup signal caller \u2014 but that starter Dru Brown<\/a> was unable to live up to his end of the deal because of injuries.<\/p>\n

Brown, who started and finished less than half of the Canadian Football League team\u2019s 18 games, admitted on Saturday that he wasn\u2019t always at 100 per cent even when he was on the field<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf I choose to play, I feel like I can help us win,\u201d he said. \u201cBut, unfortunately, at times, I was limited. That\u2019s my decision, and I take responsibility for my performance when (I\u2019m) not healthy because (of) that decision.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s something that\u2019s kind of new to me personally,\u201d he added of having to deal with injuries. \u201cSo I just try to navigate that, I try to talk to people who kind of have been through that. It\u2019s very frustrating, obviously, just like everything was at times this year. But you grow through it. Unfortunately, there are going to be years like this that you have to endure and try to take a step back and have some perspective and learn from it.\u201d<\/p>\n

For their part, the Redblacks have to decide whether they\u2019ll continue to move forward with Brown, who has one year left on his deal.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve got to get him healthy, and we need to have a quarterback on the field for more games in the season,\u201d general manager Shawn Burke said Saturday. \u201cEight out of 18, it just isn\u2019t enough games for a starting quarterback. And that\u2019s that\u2019s not a Dru thing. That\u2019s an organizational thing. We have to look at how we do things and what we do, through practice, through media or through medical, and through the off-season. So we\u2019ll do that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Brown admitted the injuries were on his mind even when he was playing, and that distraction hindered his performance.<\/p>\n

\u201cFootball is a lot of reactionary, impulse movement,\u201d he began. \u201cSo I think, if someone told you that it doesn\u2019t bother them, they\u2019re full of s\u2014. That\u2019s just the reality. But, like I said, I made those decisions, and I\u2019ll take responsibility for my performance when I said I was good enough to go. But we\u2019re human beings, so, anytime something\u2019s wrong, there are things that in that moment, you realize probably you can\u2019t do to the best of your ability. That\u2019s just part of playing the game.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"<\/p>\n

Redblacks quarterback Dru Brown throws a pass in the first half of a CFL game against the Saskatchewan Roughriders in Ottawa on Oct. 3.<\/p>\n

Asked if, because he\u2019s dealt with so many injuries over his two years as a starting QB, he\u2019s questioned whether he\u2019s durable enough to play the position in the CFL, the 5-11, 200-pound Brown said:<\/p>\n

\u201cI wouldn\u2019t say I question it. Do I think about it? Yeah, but I don\u2019t question it. I\u2019ll continue to turn over every stone to control what I can control, trying different things, whether that\u2019s in the off-season or in season, to be able to withstand playing the position in this league. But I don\u2019t question it.\u201d<\/p>\n

While seven-year veteran Marco Dubois pointed at punt coverage as one of the Redblacks\u2019 downfalls this season, he also noted that the team was behind the eight-ball without Brown at his best.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you don\u2019t have a healthy quarterback, it\u2019s really hard to win games,\u201d said Dubois, a mainstay on special teams and a part-time receiver. \u201cI don\u2019t see a team with a backup quarterback playing in the playoffs. The guy who touches the ball every time, he\u2019s got to perform, he\u2019s got to be healthy, and I think we had bad luck with that this year. I think Dru showed that he can do it. He did it last year. But we had to do it this year, and it didn\u2019t happen.<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel bad for Dustin Crum sometimes because he\u2019s such a passionate guy, such a tough guy. He wants to win all the time. But he never really had a training camp to get chemistry with his receivers and his whole offence. It\u2019s really tough for a quarterback to perform in that context.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"<\/p>\n

Redblacks running back Anthony Gosselin says, \u201cIt wasn\u2019t just the quarterback, but we had a lot on special teams, so it\u2019s tough to make all those changes and be on the same page.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fullback Anthony Gosselin, who has been with the Redblacks since 2017, expressed remorse over Dyce losing his job before answering a question about what he thought was the main problem with the team.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was such a good mentor for me and a good coach \u2026 the best coach I ever had,\u201d Gosselin said. \u201cAnd it\u2019s gonna be, like, weird to not be with Coach Dyce the next couple of years. So it\u2019s challenging.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s tough when your quarterback is not healthy. It\u2019s tough to play with a backup quarterback for most of the season. It wasn\u2019t just the quarterback, but we had a lot on special teams, so it\u2019s tough to make all those changes and be on the same page.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dubois expressed shame about the team\u2019s record and how bad he felt for the fans.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s very frustrating because I\u2019m not used to that \u2026 I come from a winning program at Laval University,\u201d he said. \u201cWe play this game with such passion. We sacrifice so much, and the end goal is to win a Grey Cup. And, when every year you come up short, you don\u2019t even make the playoffs, and you have poor performances \u2026 If you\u2019re not ashamed to be 4-14, there\u2019s a problem with you.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s hard for me to shake hands with the fans right now and look them in the eyes because they give us their money, they come here, they come watch us play, and we give them poor performances like that. It\u2019s very frustrating, very disappointing.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"<\/p>\n

Ottawa Redblacks general manager and players held the team\u2019s end-of-season media availability at TD Place on Saturday, Oct. 25, 2025.<\/p>\n

Related<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The common belief inside the football locker room at TD Place is that the Ottawa Redblacks\u2019 failures this…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":241498,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[437],"tags":[113661,49,48,521,522,520,14966,14971,14967,7467,7338,82],"class_list":["post-241497","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cfl","tag-2025-cfl-season","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-canadian-football-league","tag-canadianfootballleague","tag-cfl","tag-dru-brown","tag-dustin-crum","tag-ottawa-redblacks","tag-performance","tag-quarterback","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/241497","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=241497"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/241497\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/241498"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=241497"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=241497"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=241497"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}