A season of struggle for the Ottawa Redblacks

The CFL regular season has only four weeks left, and there has been one constant all year long: The Ottawa Redblacks have been at the bottom of the league since opening kickoff.

On Friday’s Halloween edition of The Rod Pedersen Show, AJ Jakubec, the voice of the Ottawa Redblacks stopped by to discuss the Redblacks 2-9 record and the struggles they have had this season.

“Unfortunately for Ottawa, two of the three phases have been good this year,” said Jakubec. “The defense gave up 96 points in two games against Montreal and BC and other than that they have been really good, and the special teams under Bob Dyce have been the best in the league.

“There’s one face where it has been inept and that’s on offense. Right now, they have 9 offensive touchdowns in 11 games. Less than 0.9 a game which is second worst in CFL history,” said Jakubec.

The offense has struggled to put up points all year, and have had very little consistency at the quarterback position. For Jakubec however, what has really hurt the Redblacks is the offensive line.

“Every week it’s been a new group of five which is incredible to me,” said Jakubec. “The year they first went to the Grey Cup in 2015 they used the same five guys in all 18 regular season games and this year it’s a different combo every week.”

On top of offensive line struggles, the number of big names at skill positions such as wide receiver or running back is very low compared to the rest of the teams in the east, and the entire CFL.

“Everything on the offensive side of the ball, compared to the rest of the league, isn’t good enough.”

Tonight’s game against the Calgary Stampeders comes just four days after the Redblacks fired  general manager Marcel Desjardins. A decision Jakubec said was not an easy one for anyone in the organization.

“They did agonize over the decision, but in the end, they have lost 24 of their last 27 games and the common denominator is the same management,” said Jakubec.

For many fans including Jakubec, Desjardins was a big reason why the team was able to be reformed in the first place, and the Redblacks had a number of successful season with him in the manager role.

“He was their first employee back in 2013 working in an office by himself,” said Jakubec. “I’m 46 years old and the only Ottawa football that I can ever remember that has been good was under Marcel Desjardins with Rick Campbell as head coach in a four-year span where they went to three Grey Cups and won one in 2016.”

It will be interesting to see how the Redblacks play in their first game after the big organization shakeup. They battle the Calgary Stampeders in Ottawa, with a chance to finally win a game and move off their 2-9 record.