Head coach Rick Campbell woke up on Monday perhaps a little less anxious than when his head hit the pillow on Saturday following his BC Lions’ latest victory. During an appearance on the Sekeres and Price podcast, Campbell gave the latest on quarterback Vernon Adams Jr. after the pivot went down with a left knee injury early in the 19-9 win over Saskatchewan. While it’s not yet known if Adams Jr. or Dane Evans gets the start in Edmonton on Saturday, the organization certainly dodged a bit of a bullet.
“We’re looking at a short-term injury. It’s nothing serious,” explained the head coach on Adams Jr.’s status.
“We have not determined whether he’s going to play this week but we’re going to make a decision here in the next 24 to 48 hours because I want to make sure whoever is starting for us gets a full week of practice. So, he’s feeling even much better than he thought.”
With the players not returning to the practice field until Tuesday afternoon, the luxury of giving it a bit more time to make the decision between Adams Jr. and Evans is paramount.
“I think we’ll have some pretty good clarity tomorrow (Tuesday), but if we’re talking about a week or two max. is what we’re looking at, that is good news,” added Campbell.
And should it end up coming down to giving Adams at least one week off, the decision to move out a conditional draft pick to Hamilton for the experienced Evans now makes even more and more sense. Given how much pressure Saskatchewan was bringing on defence even before Adams went down, the fact Evans came in and engineered a long scoring drive before doing just enough to win also spoke volumes.
“Saskatchewan was playing well, they were getting a lot of pressure on us. Yeah, that was good on him for coming in and stepping up against not an easy defence to play against. He did a great job,” said Campbell.
“It’s exactly why we traded for him was to get veteran QBs. It’s rare you go through any CFL season where you don’t need at least two quarterbacks to get it done and that rings true again this year. You never can have too many experienced quarterbacks and we’re lucky to have three of them.”
Experience will be key in all three facets as Campbell’s Lions look to keep their early-season success going with a trip to Edmonton on Saturday. The Elks may be searching for their first victory of the young campaign, but they won’t be coming up in any conversations once the game plans heat up on Tuesday.
“I fully understand that line of thinking. I don’t think it’s going to be a tough sell job on our players to say that they know that it’s going to be a tough game,” said Campbell.
“They’ve played Saskatchewan twice, and it’s come down to literally like the last play of the game. They played in Winnipeg last week and the score was 6-6 at halftime. So, when you throw on the film, you don’t really have to do a big sell job. Sometimes 0-7 teams are just not good. That can be a tough sell. But when you watch the game film, there is no question we’re going to have to go in there and play really well to beat them.
I always tell our guys too, the more confidence you get and the more it becomes about us and the BC Lions the less it is about who we’re playing. Of course, we’re going to game plan and study film, but we need to stay out of the business of trying to psychoanalyze the other teams on what’s going on with them.
They have a lot of really good players. Edmonton is going to make it tough on people and we need to make sure we’re worried about ourselves and making sure that we are fully ready to go for Saturday because like I said, no matter who you’re playing, it counts as a win. So again, another Western team and we want to try to find a way to get a win.”
The game will not be played on paper no matter if it’s Adams Jr. or Evans behind centre. It also represents a chance for the Lions to remain perfect in games against Western Division opponents.
Check out the entire interview HERE which also includes the coach’s thoughts on where his elite defence stacks up in the CFL plus some talk on an emerging young wide receiver with this squad.
Matt Baker: mbaker@bclions.com