The Ottawa Redblacks are coming off their Week 9 bye with a 5-2 record, good for second place in the Canadian Football League’s East Division.
The team has won four consecutive contests for the first time since 2015, and are undefeated at home as they look to get back into the CFL playoffs after their last appearance five seasons ago.
General manager Shawn Burke joined TSN 1200 on Wednesday morning to discuss how the Redblacks have been able to find success after back-to-back disappointing 4-14 campaigns across his first two years with the team.
“It’s a multitude of things, but first it starts with health and consistent play at the quarterback position,” he said. “If you look at seven games in each of the previous two years, we’ve been on our second and third quarterbacks already, so whenever you can get some consistency out of that position, that’s great.”
Since the departure of Trevor Harris in 2019, the Redblacks have seemingly had a revolving door at the quarterback position, whether due to injury or poor play. Dominique Davis, Jonathan Jennings, William Arndt, Matt Nichols, Caleb Evans, Devlin Hodges, Jeremiah Masoli, Nick Arbuckle, Tyrie Adams, and Dustin Crum have all started under centre for Ottawa in the past four seasons.
Dru Brown has stepped into the starter’s role in his first year with the team, and has looked like a potential long-term answer for the Redblacks, throwing for 1,881 yards and six touchdowns in seven games.
“Dru has brought the day-in and day-out standard, the work ethic, what you have to do the other six days and how you have to prepare,” Burke said. “It’s not just Dru in regard to that, we were very intentional with the type of guys we wanted to bring in in the off-season.”
Burke, a native of Guelph, Ont., also credited the job done by Redblacks’ coaching staff for the team’s hot start to the year.
“Coach [Bob] Dyce and the coaching staff have just done a great job setting the standard, setting the blueprint for what they’re looking for,” he said. “Ultimately, it’s up to the players to execute but when a coaching staff puts together what they’re looking to do as an organization and how we’re looking to play, it makes it much easier for the players.”
Dyce, 58, joined the organization in 2015 as a special teams coordinator, and was named as interim head coach after the firing of Paul LaPolice towards the end of the 2022, before having the interim tagged removed that off-season.
In his second full year at the helm, Dyce has the Redblacks poised to be firmly in the hunt for a playoff spot as the weeks continue to tick down on the CFL calendar.
But with as good a start to the year Ottawa has had, Burke knows just how crucial the next run of games will be.
“Each and every week is a new challenge, I know that’s a cliché, but it really is true,” said Burke. “If you look at the schedule like you’re talking about, the reality is we’ve played a lot of West teams, right? So, when you talk about there still being a lot of schedule left, there’s a lot of schedule left against the East.
“We didn’t do a good job at all against the East last year. We have to change that because the reality is that those are four-point games that could change the standings very much. We have to focus on each week’s battle and only worry about it a week at a time.”