August 19, 2016

Landry: Argos’ defence prepared for dynamic Eskimo trio

Adam Gagnon/CFL.ca

The Toronto Argonauts’ defence has its work cut out for it. You don’t have to be a veteran, pass covering linebacker to know that.

But that’s just what Keon Raymond is and all that means is that – unlike a rookie defender – he knows exactly what he and his mates are up against when the Edmonton Eskimos bring the holy trinity of passing yards into town for a Week 9 game at BMO Field.

“They’re gonna get ten, fifteen balls a game,” says Raymond of receiver Derel Walker and Adarius Bowman. Of quarterback Mike Reilly he says: “He’s a tough S.O.B., I’ll tell you that, man.”

It’s kind of fitting that the Canadian National Exhibition will be underway for this game, its midway of amazing sights and sounds sprawling out on all sides from the field where the Argos will try to neutralize Reilly, Walker and Bowman.

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Jugglers, trapeze artists, contortionists, they can all leave an observer mystified but they’ve got nothing on three players who can make a defender feel like they’ve just stepped off sixty full minutes on the Tilt-a-Whirl.

Walker and Bowman are one-two on the list of CFL receiving yards after Week 8, with 800 and 789 yards respectively. Reilly tops the passing yards parade with 2,481.

Raymond, the 33-year-old veteran of nine CFL seasons, who is trying to help assemble a stout Toronto resistance after doing just that for eight years in Calgary, is completely aware of the qualities that each of Bowman, Walker and Reilly possess and how those qualities intersect to make them so lethal.

“Those guys play hand in hand together and they play off each other,” he says, first addressing the challenges of covering Walker and Bowman. “So we’ve definitely gotta make sure we come ready to work against numbers eighty-seven (Walker) and four (Bowman).”

“He’s a big body type,” Raymond says of Bowman. “He’s a possession type but he can blow the top of ya, too.”

As for Walker, it’s his razor sharp patterns and attitude that stand out.

“He’s fast and he’s such a good route runner,” Raymond says. “He doesn’t talk trash. But he comes out and he works so you can’t do nothin’ but respect a guy like that.

“They’re two different body types but they play well off each other.”

Taking on two receivers like Walker and Bowman is tough enough, but it’s the added element that Reilly brings to the equation that makes them even more productive. Last week’s foe, Winnipeg quarterback Matt Nichols, reads and releases fast, Raymond says. Reilly, he says, will hang in longer, faithful to the notion that an extra second or two will give the dynamic duo enough time to emerge in an open space. They often do.

“Mike will stand in that pocket and he’ll hold that ball to get it down the field to his guy. He’ll take one under the chin just to get them points. There’s not many quarterbacks in this league doin’ that.”

“We’ve gotta play him honest,” he continues, on Reilly, saluting the QB’s refusal to be intimidated. “Don’t think that you’re gonna hit him and he’s gonna go down, because Mike’s tough,” he says. “He’ll get hit, he’ll get up.”

Raymond, with two Grey Cups to his credit and a well earned reputation for making big plays at critical moments, has been rock solid for the Argos this season, if not obviously spectacular, with thirty tackles, a sack and an interception to his credit. As he helps lead a defence that has been blasted by injuries, especially in the secondary, he is still waiting for the pieces to all come together, though he is sure that they will.

“It’s coming along,” he offers. “I think we’re at the stage where we’re good but we have to come out and play like we’re good every single game every single snap.”

The Argonauts’ defence has had its moments this season – shutting down Jonathon Jennings and the BC Lions offence in the second half of a Week 3 win in Vancouver and holding the high-powered REDBLACKS points-scoring engine to a sputter in a Week 6 victory in Ottawa.

Raymond knows they’ll need another one of those efforts against the Eskimos in order for the Argos to be competitive in this game.

THE CANADIAN PRESS

The dynamic duo of Derel Walker and Adarius Bowman lead the pass attack in Edmonton (The Canadian Press)

That’s something that the Argonauts’ defence still struggles with as the maturing process churns on. Delivering those kinds of collective efforts on a usual basis. Surprisingly, Raymond says he may have been partially at fault in any early season struggling. Having played his eight previous seasons with a lot of the same guys and little turnover, he believes he didn’t take fully into account how his new teammates were reacting around him on the field.

“I told the guys I cheated on them,” he says and then explains further after I respond with “excuse me?”

“Me thinking they’re the guys I played with for the last couple of years,” Raymond says. “When you play with guys for so long, they know your movements. They know your patterns. They know why I’m doing something. And the guys I’m playing with now, they hadn’t played with me much so they didn’t know how I move, how I manoeuvre, how I see things.”

Once that light bulb illuminated, Raymond says he told his teammates that he was making some mental adjustments, going back to basics in a defence that he already has a handle on, having played for Argos’ defensive coordinator Rich Stubler when the two were Stampeders.

“I told them that ‘I have to take this defence as a beginner just like you guys so I can start to get you guys to trust in me. So I can be where I’m supposed to be and you guys’ll know that Keon’ll be there.’ The guys were very receptive.”

“I’ve gotta get those guys to trust in me,” he declares, exhibiting some of the leadership characteristics that made Raymond so valuable in Calgary and so attractive to the Argos during free agency.

It’s an ongoing thing, building trust, unity and consistency and now that Raymond has figured out his part of that bargain in Toronto, there is hope that the process will accelerate and that the Argos’ defence will have another one of those bright spot games against the Edmonton Eskimos.

“We’ve gotta make sure we play assignment, alignment football,” Raymond declares when asked to boil it down.

That’s especially true when Reilly, Bowman and Walker are in town with the abilities to make a football field as wild and frenetic a place as the midway on the other side of the stands.