How an off night for QB Dru Brown played into the Ottawa Redblacks' fifth loss of CFL season
The normally consistent Dru Brown picked a bad time to have his worst half of football as the Ottawa Redblacks' starting quarterback Saturday night in Hamilton.
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It was more than just the two interceptions he underthrew into the hands of Tiger-Cats defensive back Jamal Peters in quarters three and four — the second of which was particularly untimely as it came at the Ottawa 43 and on the first play after a Kalil Pimpleton 105-yard punt return for a touchdown was wiped out by an illegal block penalty when Ottawa was in front 20-13 with a little more than 13 minutes left in the game.
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While the Redblacks held the Tiger-Cats to a field goal off that turnover, they did relinquish the lead they had held since scoring on their opening drive when a roughing the passer penalty moved the ball from the Redblacks' 30 to their 15, setting the stage for a Kenny Lawler TD catch just three snaps later.
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The puzzling decision to put William Stanback in place for his first kick return since 2018 backfired when the big running back failed to make a clean catch of Marc Liegghio's offering. Stanback had to retreat to pick up the loose ball, then could only advance it 12 yards to the Ottawa 19.
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That's when Brown's play became uncharacteristic beyond his first two interceptions of the season.
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Entering the game with a CFL-best 77.4 completion percentage, he connected on just one of five passes, and even that one would have landed on the ground had Justin Hardy not made a great grab.
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Of the four misfires, the first was intended for rookie Keelan White and the other three were headed towards Eugene Lewis, who wound up with seven catches for 128 yards but should have had better numbers considering he was targeted 14 times.
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Brown wound up completing 24 of 38 passes (63.2 per cent) for 283 yards, but was only 11-of-19 (57.8 per cent) for 146 yards in the second half.
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'It's tough to lead most of (the game) and then not be able to execute at the end,' he told TSN1200's A.J. Jakubec, before addressing the interceptions. 'If stuff like that happens in the second quarter, it kind of blows over. But there's certain times where you've got to be really focused on what your job is. I think even before the last one, we had an opportunity to get the ball out on the perimeter, and I could have thrown a more catchable (pass) so (the receiver) could get north versus someone outside being involved. So I've look at all those things.'
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