If you ask Bryan Hall, he’ll be quick to tell you exactly why he’d rather be playing on the defensive line than anywhere else on the football field.
“You can have whatever you’re doing up there,” Hall says, “we want the quarterback though.”
Line play can be easy for the casual football fan to ignore, due to its’ gritty nature and the relative lack of flashy plays that characterize the skilled positions. Yet the battles in the trenches often end up being the difference between a win and a loss, and the Tiger-Cats defensive line is poised to win those battles in 2015.
“I think we’re a little ahead of where we were last year,” says defensive line coach Dennis McPhee, “we’ve got some great leadership from the returning guys, there’s no question.”
Bryan Hall has emerged as one of those veteran leaders, entering his second season on the Ticats line. Hall is a vocal leader, and he keeps his teammates accountable on every play, but most importantly, he keeps things light out on the practice field.
“Everybody knows how hard football is already, we come out and we’re dogging it” says Hall. “I try to keep it as fun and as light as possible.”
Hall is one of a number of talented Ticats linemen returning for this season, including 2014 standout Ted Laurent, 2011 CFL sack leader Justin Hickman, and emerging star Eric Norwood.
Ted Laurent, like Hall, is returning for his second season in Hamilton. After three seasons with the Edmonton Eskimos, Laurent played his first season in the Black and Gold in 2014, emerging as a candidate for the East Division’s Most Outstanding Canadian.
Laurent and Hall have developed a strong friendship in Hamilton, driving each other to be better on every single snap.
“Even when I do right, he [Hall] always finds a way to critique me,” explains Laurent, “but I love it, I use it as motivation because I want to be perfect.”
The coaching and motivation doesn’t stop in the off-season— the two trained together in Orlando this winter— and it doesn’t just go in one direction; Laurent provides Hall with just as much feedback, although he’s not quite as loud about it. As their coach will tell you, the two are like ‘twins that are total opposites.’
“Bryan Hall is very vocal and animated, and Teddy’s very stoic,” he says, “but together they’re a wonderful combination.”
Leadership all over the line
Along with the return of Hall and Laurent, the Ticats welcome back Justin Hickman for his first full season in the Black and Gold since his 2011 All-Star season. Hickman spent the majority of the last three seasons with the NFL’s Indianapolis Colts, before returning to the Ticats down the stretch in 2014.
Hickman has set lofty goals for himself to accomplish in 2015, and while he won’t give away the specific number of sacks that he has in mind, he says that the cohesiveness and continuity on the line should make it an easier goal to reach.
“When you guys that have played together and grown together, you don’t have to teach a lot of new things,” explains Hickman, “we can pick up where we left off at the end of last year.”
Generating a productive pass rush is often dependent on the ability of the line to rush together, knowing each other’s assignments and the ways that their teammates work. Hickman explains that with all of the starters returning, the Ticats pass rushers are in a unique situation in the sense that they already know each other’s play styles.
According to the four-year CFL veteran, the consistency should allow the line to take more chances and feed off of each other as a unit.
Continuity and consistency along the line starts with Hall, Laurent, Hickman and Norwood, but it continues through Canadian linemen Brian Bulcke and Hasan Hazime, says coach McPhee.
Bulcke and Hazime are both working their way back from injuries, but the two national linemen should both play key roles in the rotation this season.
Stability allows for better depth evaluation
While the Ticats have plenty of depth throughout the roster, and a number of positional groups that require many players to be evaluated, there may be none deeper than the defensive line.
Along with the aforementioned leaders, there are a number of talented players who are working for a spot on the team.
“I think that our personnel department has done a wonderful job of locating some really strong Americans to create competition,” says coach McPhee, “and the Canadian content is excellent.”
When asked if having so many starters returning at the position allowed for him to get a better look at the younger defensive linemen, head coach Kent Austin mentions that it’s important for the starters to get work in, but that it does provide some flexibility for the coaching staff.
