During the 2019-2021 CFL off-season the Ottawa Redblacks had shifted their entire identity, if they even had one after going 3-15 in the 2019 CFL season. A number of changes were made, the staff for this season was almost full of new faces with the exception of both Bob Dyce and Patrick Bourgon and the roster had a whole new look to it as well. From quarterback to defensive back there were new names across the roster, and the league expected to see Matt Nichols, Timothy Flanders, RJ Harris, Nolan MacMillan to lead the Redblacks offence and Avery Ellis, Don Unamba, Cleyon Laing, Abdul Kanneh and Antoine Pruneau to lead the defence this season, however a lot has changed since the beginning of the season.
Starting at quarterback, both Matt Nichols and Dominique Davis who came into the season as the Redblacks’ 1 and 2 quarterbacks have suffered injuries, giving 23 year old rookie quarterback Caleb Evans the opportunity to play early on in his career.
At running back Timothy Flanders has been on the injury report a couple of times this season, giving Justin Davis the start twice before he suffered an injury of his own. De’Lance Turner has most recently went for 71 yards on just 10 carries in his CFL debut, replacing the two other backs.
As for the receiver position, both R.J Harris and Ryan Davis has led the pack, both have over 400 yards receiving on the season while Nate Behar has 271 yards of his own, Daniel Petermann is at 148, Anthony Coombs has 186 and Kenny Stafford has 119 yards in three games.
On the offensive line the Ottawa Redblacks have seen the most changes, having seen injuries from Nolan MacMillan throughout the season and trying to balance the Canadian, American ratio the team has seen Jamar McGloster, Juwann Bushell-Beatty, Na’Ty Rodgers, Trevon Tate, Jakub Szott, Andrew Pickett and Christopher Ferguson on the line alongside Mark Korte who has played pretty much every position on the line at this point of the season.
For Mike Benevides’ defence it has been a good run for the most part of the season except for the defensive secondary. Early in the season the team was hit with injuries to both Sherrod Baltimore and Abdul Kanneh, sidelining them both for 6 games each, and have also lost both Brad Muhammad and Gump Hayes to injuries recently. This has made way for a number of other players to get opportunities with the Ottawa Redblacks, and so have the injuries on the defensive line of Stansly Maponga and Frank Beltre.
This week, though among all of the roster changes having to be made already this season the Ottawa Redblacks announced the signings of both defensive end Tre Hornbuckle of Duke University as well as defensive back Douglas Coleman ii. Coleman is a Texas Tech product who had 8 interceptions in his final season with the Red Raiders. Global draft pick Anthony Mahoungou, a 6-foot-3 wide receiver from France has also flew into Ottawa to play for the Redblacks and newly signed offensive lineman Dino Boyd is expected to make his first start with the Ottawa Redblacks this upcoming weekend as the Redblacks kickoff yet again against the Montreal Alouettes at TD Place on Saturday at 4:00.
JZ MEDIA 