Advertisement

Can Henry Burris get the Redblacks back on track in his old stomping grounds in Calgary?

Andrew Bucholtz

Saturday's CFL clash between the Ottawa Redblacks and Calgary Stampeders (7:30 p.m. Eastern, TSN/ESPN3) sets up as an intriguing one. It's this Ottawa franchise's first game against Calgary, but there are plenty of familiar faces on each side. One is on the Redblacks' offensive line, where the team acquired Jon Gott from the Stampeders in exchange for the first-overall pick in this year's draft. Another is on the sidelines; Ottawa head coach Rick Campbell was the Stampeders' running backs coach in 2010 and their defensive coordinator from 2012-13. The most prominent returnee to Calgary may be a guy who's already been gone for a few years, though—Redblacks' quarterback Henry Burris.

While Burris spent the last couple of seasons in Hamilton and found great success with the Tiger-Cats, it's his time with the Calgary Stampeders that's most defined him as a CFL quarterback. He started as a backup to Jeff Garcia and Dave Dickenson with Calgary from 1997-1999, then moved on to Saskatchewan in 2000, went to the NFL and NFL Europe from 2001-2003, returned to the Roughriders for the 2003 and 2004 seasons and then spent 2005-2011 with the Stampeders before going to the Tiger-Cats. During Burris' second stint in Calgary, he threw for over 4,000 yards in six straight seasons (2005-2010), earned three West All-Star nods, one CFL all-star nod and the league MVP (in 2010) and won a Grey Cup in 2008. That's a lot of history with that franchise. Although Burris has returned to Calgary before with Hamilton, these homecomings still mean a lot for him, as he told Scott Fisher of The Calgary Sun Friday:

“It’s always exciting to come back to Calgary,” Burris said. “Especially because my family lived here for nine years.

“On approach to landing at the airport, I was gazing out to the northwest and seeing COP and knowing that’s where we lived — right there in Tuscany — there’s a lot of memories after spending so many years here.

“Calgary will always be home for me. Who knows, when my (playing) days are done, we may be moving back. I can’t say that. I don’t want to get in trouble with the wife. I gotta talk it over with the family.”

Will Burris be able to lead his new team to victory, though? The expansion Redblacks still have only one win on the season, a narrow 18-17 triumph over Toronto at home. While they showed off some great innovation last week against the Roughriders, they lost that game 38-14. As Burris told Rita Mingo of The Calgary Herald, some of the team's struggles to date have come from their expansion nature, which forces them to try and forge a wide group of players into a cohesive unit:

“It’s all about getting all the guys on the same page. There was no core unit that we built around. We have a lot of guys that are very new to the league. So we’re trying to expedite the process of teaching them what the offence is and what the reads are. Through all the things we’ve failed at, it’s going to make us a better team much faster.”

The Redblacks are going to have to be able to move the ball more consistently if they're going to find any success, though, and Burris will be a big part of that. He threw for just 217 yards last week with a 51.5 per cent completion rate, and tossed two interceptions and no touchdowns. That's not all on him, as the line wasn't able to protect him against Saskatchewan's pass rush, and his receivers didn't do a great job of getting open. Still, Burris will need to play more up to his standards if Ottawa's going to find any success. Can he get that started Saturday against his old team? We'll find out.