Grey Cup Rewind: Redemption for Burris, Redblacks

The story of the 104^th Grey Cup is a story about redemption.

But to tell the story of the 104^th Grey Cup, you first must go back to the previous fall’s Canadian Football League title game.

Minutes after the his team had fallen to the Edmonton Eskimos, 26-20, at Investors Group Field in Winnipeg, Henry Burris and the Ottawa Redblacks sat crestfallen in the locker room, wondering where it went wrong.

“It could have been the moment,” Burris said. Maybe it got too big for us. But for all we had put in and how confident we were that something was going to happen and go our way and we were going to win that Grey Cup versus Edmonton, it just didn’t happen. Everybody kinda had that puzzled look on their face. I was down because, offensively, all we had to do was score one more time and it seemed throughout the season we could always find a way to make it happen, but we didn’t. I felt disappointed. I was very down about the fact that we didn’t get it done and you could see that puzzled look on everybody’s faces in that locker room.”

What followed was a long offseason for Burris for a number of reasons: the bitter taste of defeat after having come so close to the Grey Cup, the arrival of Trevor Harris in Ottawa as a free agent from the Toronto Argonauts and the realization that his career was coming to an end. All of these things fueled Burris’s drive for redemption and it was one shared by his teammates heading into training camp.

“It was all about redemption,” Burris said. “It was about overcoming and finding a way to eliminate the mistakes that we made that [kept] us from winning the Grey Cup because that’s the ultimate title. No matter what you do, no matter how many yards, the MOP – none of that matters because when you make it that far in the end, all that matters is everybody can celebrate, not just a select few guys on the team. So we wanted to find out was it our leadership, was it our youth that we had on the team, was it our lack of playmaking ability – what was it?”

Rick Campbell and the rest of the Redblacks’ coaching staff quickly got everybody on the same page.

“The thing was we had to find a way to get over that hump and that was the best message that Rick could throw out there because the leadership, the locker room was intact,” Burris said. “We had such great rapport between the guys. We had a family of guys that wanted to help each other and find ways to make it happen in the end.”

With this renewed sense of resolve, Burris’s 2016 campaign couldn’t have gotten off to a worse start.

In the third quarter of the team’s season-opening 43-37 win over the Eskimos in a Grey Cup rematch, Burris injured the pinky on his throwing hand.

“The play before when I took the snap, I felt my finger breaking, it felt like,” Burris said of the injury. “On the play before, I did hit a helmet, but how many helmets have I hit in my career? I’ve probably hit over 10,000 helmets when I’m releasing a pass or making a throw or whatever. But I didn’t expect it to have the type of response, that I would break my finger off of somebody’s facemask, which I later saw when watching film. On that next play when I went to squeeze the ball on play action, it felt like my finger was falling off my hand. Just through the pain, I shot through and saw my finger bend in a way that it’s not supposed to. I knew that something was wrong and I tried to hold onto the ball, but I just couldn’t.”

In the twilight of his two decade-long professional career, the 42-year-old Burris was incredulous that his dream of redemption could be sidelined before it even really started.

“I knew this was it and I’m thinking, man, this can’t be happening to me right now in my final season as a professional quarterback,” Burris said.

Burris knew the writing was on the wall when it came to his Redblacks career. Harris’s deal with the Redblacks was predicated on the Marion County, Ohio native becoming Ottawa’s starting quarterback in the 2017 season. Time was of the essence for Burris.

But as he remained on the sidelines injured, Burris saw that his team was in good hands with Harris, a player who immediately earned his respect.

“Trevor was always a good player and I knew he’d have a bright future and was always a great guy,” Burris said. “When he came in and maintained that humble approach, that’s what I, as a vet, look forward to seeing because if you’ve got some pompous young kid or rookie coming in saying, ‘I’m gonna do this, I’m gonna do that,’ the relationship probably wouldn’t have gone as well between myself and whoever that young man would have been. Trevor is a humble, down-to-earth guy who’s easy to deal with. He’s a team guy and the fact that he came in with that attitude made our relationship and us getting to know each other that much easier and that much better because he’s the type of guy you want to see be successful.”

It was a shared mindset amongst the Ottawa pivots no matter who was behind centre.

“That’s why I’ve always stood behind the words that I said when it came to our relationship,” Burris said. “Regardless of whether it’s Trevor, myself, Danny O’Brien or Brock Jensen leading that team last year to the Grey Cup and winning a Grey Cup, that all I wanted was another chance to enjoy with my family, ultimately it didn’t matter who was at quarterback because I just wanted to enjoy it.”

Burris would get back to action in Week 6, but it was Week 7 where the Temple Owls product announced his return.

At the half of the team’s 23-20 win over the Eskimos at TD Place, Burris spoke to TSN’s Matthew Scianitti and didn’t hold back on what Burris believed was undue criticism leveled at him by the TSN panel during the season’s opening weeks.

“There’s these guys at TSN that always want to jump on me every week,” Burris told Scianitti. “So all the people talking junk out there, you can take that and shove it. All right? That’s all I have to say.”

Burris says he got caught up in the moment.

“I didn’t even think about it and to be honest, with me knowing it was my last year, I said emotionally and physically, everything I felt inside of me and I was going to leave it out there on the field this entire season,” Burris recalled. “I had dealt with so much stuff from GMs to media and things I had been hearing, I had to deliver at some point and it just all came to a crest at that moment.”

Burris didn’t expect to raise the stir that he did, but he knew he needed to say his piece and doesn’t regret anything.

“Honestly, I didn’t care because I was finally able to get my point across and say my part,” Burris said. “I didn’t hold back, I didn’t sugarcoat it, I just let it go. I didn’t care about whose feelings I hurt – I was being respectful when I did say it – but when it did [make] headlines and caught people’s attention, I was glad it did because the things they were saying about me caught other people’s attention, so I wanted to make sure that my point was finally heard and I’m glad I said it.”

With his dander raised, Burris and Harris split time down the stretch that saw the Redblacks emerge from a dogfight with the Hamilton Tiger-Cats to grab first place in the East Division, despite a below .500 record at 8-9-1. Winning the division would prove invaluable and allow for a first-round bye.

“We didn’t have the success at home that we had years prior,” Burris said, “but going into the playoffs and just knowing that you had to win one game was better than knowing you had to win two games and then having to go on the road for that second game after getting beat up in Week 1.”

The East Final would feature the Redblacks hosting a crossover team from the West. As any good script would have it, the team was the Eskimos. The backdrop was also a dramatic one. There were gale-winds, flurries and a temperature of -12 or colder with the windchill.

Perhaps the Redblacks were a little better prepared than their Albertan counterparts. The Eskimos beat the Ticats the previous weekend and traveled back to an unseasonably balmy Edmonton before returning to Ontario for the East Final. While they were doing that, the Redblacks remained in Ottawa and were practicing and acclimatizing themselves to the bitter cold.

“With all those young guys that we had that had never played in a snow game, for us to practice in it that week so they could at least get used it, get their footing and understand what type of clothing they could wear, it was essential to have that kind of preparation,” Burris said. “That’s opposed to a team who may not have had guys [used to it] and all of a sudden it pops up on game day and, mentally, they’re approaching a whole new animal on top of trying to play against a team that has a lot of weapons. That’s why it was so important for us to get over the mental struggle of playing in those types of cold conditions.”

And it worked. With a monster game on the ground from Kienan Lafrance to the tune of 157 yards rushing, the Redblacks buried their nemesis with a 35-23 victory to advance to the Grey Cup at Toronto’s BMO Field.

With the dragon that was the Edmonton Eskimos slayed, Burris and the Redblacks could focus on completing their redemption story and a date against Bo Levi Mitchell and the juggernaut Calgary Stampeders, but – almost unbelievably – the turf at BMO Field had other plans.

In the minutes leading up to the kick-off of the 104^th Grey Cup, something happened to Burris’s knee during warmups. To this day, Burris still doesn’t know what happened.

“I was jogging back following warmups prior to getting to throwing the ball around in the pregame warmup,” Burris explained. “As I was jogging back to the huddle, we start throwing the ball around and I don’t know if I stepped in like a divot or anything like that, but I just felt my knee jar and felt a pop and a grind. For those who’ve been through cartilage injuries and knee injuries at some point understand when you feel a pop, it’s never a good thing – especially a grind. Every time I would push off to drop back to extend my knee all the way, that’s when I’d feel a burning sensation. I’d feel pain and that wasn’t good. Finally, I asked the doctor – like this isn’t right – and I tried to go at it again and it kept doing the same thing, so I told Trevor, ‘Hey, make sure you’re ready to go because I don’t know if I’m going to be ready to go right now.’ Even Trevor mentioned that he saw a sense of fear in my eyes, but really there was.”

Burris credits the quick thinking of the Redblacks’ training staff with getting him out there on the field.

“I got into where the doctors were and they all huddled and one of the doctors was trying to manipulate, move the knee around and get the piece of cartilage to lay back down that had flipped up and was causing the issue,” Burris said. “Dr. Andrew Marshall, he emerged from the group with a needle with some liquid squirting out of it just like in a movie and he said, ‘Hey, I can put this in there and you won’t feel it until about 3am in the morning.’ I looked back at Dr. Marshall and said, ‘Well, hopefully by then I’ll be drinking champagne and chardonnay at that time.’  I said let’s do it because I’ll never get this moment back for the rest of my life. They gave me some Toradol (an anti-inflammatory) and adjusted my brace to where I couldn’t extend it to the last 10 degrees of extension and I was ready to play at that point.”

Burris played and played well with the Redblacks jumping out to a 20-7 lead at the half. The talk in the dressing room, Burris says, was straightforward.

“Just keep turning it on because we knew Calgary was going to come back,” Burris said. “They had won 15 games during the regular season for a reason. So we knew they weren’t going to hit the off switch. They were going to come out and keep plugging at us, trying to find ways to beat us with all of that firepower on the offensive side with Bo Levi [Mitchell] and all those weapons, we knew they were going to find a way to get back into the game and their defence was very good, also. But for us, it was all about being opportunistic, making the plays we were supposed to and continually taking care of the ball.”

The Redblacks extended their lead to 27-7 minutes into the third quarter on a Burris touchdown pass to Brad Sinopoli.

Just as the Redblacks expected, the Stamps would chip away. A one-yard rush from back-up QB Andrew Buckley would pull the Stamps within four at 27-23 with 13:53 remaining, but Burris led the team down field and called his own number at the goal line for a major and a 10-point lead with just over six minutes remaining.

Redemption for the Redblacks was in sight, but the game would prove to be far from over.

“I thought we were close,” Burris said. “I felt that after Forest Hightower got the interception with around four minutes to go in the game, we had that drive there where we had the chance to extend the drive with a first down. When we lined up, we had something happen in the lining up of our formation and we were late getting the play run, but we didn’t want to use our timeout there. So I got the ball snapped, but unfortunately we came up short. If we could have extended that drive there, we felt that we could’ve run that clock out.

“But it allowed Calgary to get Bo back on the field into their two-minute, three-minute drill offence and eventually they scored a touchdown. For us, we felt it was our fault that gave Calgary that opportunity. But they made plays themselves as far as it put them back into position. Honestly, in my mind and each and every one of our guys’ minds knew it, get the offence the ball back because if we do, we’re gonna win this game, we’re going to end this game.”

With just 22 seconds remaining on the clock, Rene Paredes hit his second field goal from 10 yards out to force overtime at 33-33. The Grey Cup was headed to an extra frame for just the second time ever and the first time in 11 years.

The Stamps won the toss, but elected to defer, sending Burris and the Redblacks offence out to start OT. Ottawa turned to a familiar play to strike first blood.

“That was one of the plays that we had run all week in practice over the past few weeks leading up to that moment,” Burris said.  “We knew we could pull that play out at the right time.”

Burris lays out the play.

“[Offensive coordinator] Jamie Elizondo made the appropriate call at the right time with play action to Kienan Lafrance, who had been chewing up a lot of yards on the ground which froze their middle linebacker [Alex] Singleton, allowed Ernest Jackson time to slip inside their strongest outside linebacker because whenever we ran that bunch formation the way we did, everything was always out-breaking and that allowed their defence to expand outwards more than worry about the inside,” Burris said. “We showed the same formation with the same action all game long and we ran a similar route combination all out-breaking, but now we ran our first two receivers out-breaking and here came E-Jax sliding inside now and you see their safety #11 [Joshua Bell] over-pursued to the outside on the corner route and E-Jax slid inside between the backs and the thing timed up perfectly.”

Nobody was happier than Burris with the TD and not simply because it put his team in the driver’s seat to capture the Grey Cup.

“Honestly, you’ll see that I didn’t move my left leg that far because that probably would have been the last play I ran in the game if it had to go to another overtime,” Burris said. “My leg was getting stiff and swollen. But to see Ernest Jackson be able to slide into that hole there and have the confidence where he almost tried to score without the ball, but E-Jax didn’t drop passes all year and he made the most important catch at the right time.”

Now it was the defence’s turn.

The smothering Redblacks defence forced Mitchell into three straight incomplete passes and the Redblacks were finally Grey Cup champions.

Redblacks 39, Stamps 33.

It was the city of Ottawa’s first professional sports title in four decades.

“It was 40 years and a lot of guys didn’t realize that,” Burris said. “I know for us, it was probably one of the more spectacular moments we had ever experienced.”

For Burris, personally, it was his third Grey Cup triumph, but it was easily the most special for him.

“I think it was the best championship on both sides of the border ever played,” Burris said. “I even know people back home who just finished watching the Dallas Cowboys game and they were calling to postgame shows on the radio saying, ‘I don’t know why you guys are talking about NFL games, you need to turn on the CFL Grey Cup game that’s on right now.’ But for the viewership all over the world, people tuned in to see the best game that they’ll ever see. To see two teams go at it the way they did and it came down to that final drive, the final gun, and for it to end in a dramatic fashion, the way it did just showed you how important, how intense that game was until the end.”

The game also marked another end – Burris’s playing career. While Burris wouldn’t confirm that he was calling time on his playing days during the postgame celebration, that was always the plan.

“Once they promised Trevor the starting job, for me there was no need to step back and look for another place because Ottawa was where we wanted to make our home – my family, my wife and my kids – and for us, it was all about going out the best way we could,” Burris said. “So I knew before the season that was it. There was no way I was going to back-up when I had an opportunity to continue progressing ahead into the future and finally using my degree in broadcasting communications. That’s something  I had prepared for at some point for the last decade, so there was no way I was going to take a step back and put the rest of my life on hold just to play football for one more year and hold on. For me, it was all about moving forward and moving on. The ability to finish it the way I did, it felt great.”

But the Grey Cup was about the Ottawa Redblacks and not just Henry Burris. He could wait for another time.

“I wasn’t going to dim the moment by talking about my retirement,” Burris said. “I wanted to enjoy it and party with the city. That’s why I said it the way I did because that wasn’t the moment to say something. You don’t dampen the moment by singling yourself out because it was all about our city, all about our team and that’s what I wanted to maintain in that celebration.”

On January 24, Burris announced his retirement. Weeks later, he was announced at the co-host of CTV Morning Live in Ottawa.

Henry Burris was an ex-football player.

With the new CFL season underway, Burris is at peace with his decision.

“Leading up to training camp, I had to count it down because I was eager to see how I was going to react,” Burris said. “Honestly, there was no itch. There was no want to be back out there on the field… I’m ready to experience the game from a fan perspective because I am a fan of the game, I am a fan of the teams all over the league, but I’m ready to be a spectator and enjoy the world’s best sport.”

With his redemption story completed, Burris now has plenty of time to do just that.

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This article originally ran as part of TSN.ca's Canada 150 project in July.