Positional Preview: Defensive Line

Ed Tait

@EdTaitWFC

May 25, 2016

There are many number of ways to connect the statistical dots and link them to success in the Canadian Football League.

It’s a wide-open, three-down circuit so any team that passes the ball effectively tends to be at or near the standings. Ditto for offensive balance, for teams that get after the quarterback, and for those who are leaders in the turnover ratio.

And, if you really want to go old school, even in this pass-happy league teams still have to defend the run well and be stout at the defensive line of scrimmage in order to be in the championship discussion come late November.

The Ottawa REDBLACKS and Edmonton Eskimos, last year’s two Grey Cup finalists, finished in first and second in that category, both limiting opponents to less than 78 yards rushing per game.

All of this brings us to the fourth installment of our Winnipeg Blue Bombers positional analysis series leading to the opening of main training camp this weekend.

The Bomber defensive line has undergone a significant makeover in the wake of last year’s 5-13 record, jettisoning three popular veterans in Bryant Turner Jr., Zach Anderson and Greg Peach. Turner and Anderson have both found work elsewhere in the CFL – with B.C. and Hamilton, respectively – but one of the club’s offseason objectives was to get bigger, meaner and quicker up front.

[DESCRIPTION] Winnipeg Blue Bombers Jamaal Westerman #55 during warm up against the Saskatchewan Roughriders during CFL action in Winnipeg on Saturday, September 12, 2015. (CFL PHOTO - David Lipnowski )

And, it’s worth noting here, much nastier against the run. Winnipeg was seventh in rushing yardage against last season, yielding 112.8 yards per game, and ninth the year before at a whopping 135.9.

Two of those new pieces were found the minute the CFL free agent market opened, as the Bombers added Canadian veteran Keith Shologan and import Euclid Cummings, both tackles, to go along with the steady Jake Thomas and Jamaal Westerman, who finished second in the league in sacks with 17.

Shologan, 30, is coming off a year in which he posted a career-high seven sacks, yet it’s not just his passport that made him attractive to the Bombers, but his run-stopping skills and his durability – he has started 114 of the 122 games he dressed for and missed only six due to injury.

Cummings, meanwhile, might just be the best interior lineman in the entire league, although you will get healthy arguments from fans across the league trumpeting their best. Cummings had eight sacks from the tackle position last year with the Toronto Argonauts and flashed an ability to go beast mode and completely dominate play at the line of scrimmage.

The Bombers also feel they landed a pair of intriguing prospects in the CFL Draft, selecting the athletic freak that is Trent Corney with their first pick and then adding a massive man-mountain in Rupert Butcher (6-5, 320) later in the proceedings. They provide the necessary depth for the team to go from starting just one Canadian along the D-line to two.

Now, it’s what happens at the other end spot that figures to be one of the riveting subplots to Bomber camp over the next few weeks. The team has some holdover talent from a year ago in Justin Cole, Nate Collins and Derrell Johnson, and has also been active over the winter in finding pieces like Adrian Hubbard and Emmanuel Dieke – both soaring into the stratosphere at 6-6 – along with Shayon Green, while adding Sam Scott, who had a stint with the Hamilton Tiger-Cats last year.

All of this, of course, is just pre-camp hype. The battles for work begin Wednesday with the opening of rookie camp and Sunday when the vets report. The truest test starts June 24^th when the lights come on for real.

Gold SHADOWY