Ottawa Redblacks’ head coach Bob Dyce is rarely one to call out his team, but he won’t hide the fact that injuries have forced him to play several players that he might’ve otherwise chosen to bench — or worse — due to bad penalties.
“Yes, 100 percent. When you have to move a guy, possibly an American player, into safety, and you’ve lost all the Canadian safeties, and then it’s a shorter week for us this week, you’re exactly right. There are some people who are definitely getting the benefit of the fact that we’re down on bodies going forward,” he told TSN 1200 this week.
“I’m not able to do the things (I might have) done, but they know exactly where they’re at. It’s a very slippery slope that they’re on.”
Undisciplined play has been a “real concern” for Ottawa throughout their disappointing 1-4 start to the season. The team currently ranks last in the CFL with 50 penalties committed for 449 yards, trailing only Saskatchewan in terms of average penalty yards per game. It has been a three-phase problem, as they are last in terms of both offensive and defensive infractions and sit eighth on special teams.
The Redblacks fell 39-33 to the Edmonton Elks in Week 5 after committing another nine penalties for 118 yards. After the game, Dyce uncharacteristically singled out a couple of defensive players for their transgressions and threatened their jobs.
“Honestly, people won’t play. (Robert) Priester took the one and I sat him for that quarter. We have to evaluate whether he’ll have an opportunity going forward,” he told the post-game show. “Frankie (Griffin) took two penalties, two unnecessary roughnesses on the quarterback. At the end of the day, we have pretty stiff rules about that. I’ve got some decisions to make.”
Despite those strong statements, the Redblacks didn’t part ways with any member of their team this week, mostly out of necessity. Charlie Ringland will become the third Canadian safety to join the team’s expansive injury list, which could expand to a whopping 17 players despite the return of right tackle Zack Pelehos and linebacker Lucas Cormier.
Griffin will be one of those new additions after missing both practices this week with a knee injury, while an experienced veteran in the secondary, like Priester, is now indispensable under the circumstances.
“I’m never going to say I’m handcuffed, but… yeah, in some regards,” Dyce begrudgingly acknowledged. “Like I said, injuries are what injuries are. At the same time, you have to win games, but those penalties are stopping us from winning games too. It’s a delicate balance in that regard. Some of the guys down in the secondary really affect what you’re able to do.”
With Ottawa temporarily unable to drop the hammer on repeat offenders, it will be up to the franchise’s player leadership to ensure that culprits are held to account. Dyce says that’s how it should be, but will continue to emphasize the issue in team meetings.
“At the end of the day, we’ve got to be disciplined in what we do. We all know and talked about it again this morning — the implications. Things pretty much correlate,” he said. “Obviously, it’s not just one thing, but if we talk about penalties, and you look at the number of penalties we have, and you look at the game we won and the number of penalties we had, you can see it’s a big factor in what we do and our success.”
The Ottawa Redblacks (1-4) will visit the Hamilton Tiger-Cats (2-2) at Hamilton Stadium on Saturday, July 12 with kickoff slated for 7:00 p.m. EDT. The weather forecast calls for temperatures of 28 degrees with a 20 percent chance of showers.
The game will be broadcast on TSN, RDS, and CTV in Canada and on CFL+ internationally. Radio listeners can tune-in on TSN 1200 in Ottawa and the Ticats Audio Network in Hamilton.
