‘If that happens again, he won’t be here’: Ryan Dinwiddie rips Redblacks punter for missed tackle

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It’s been several days since Ottawa Redblacks head coach and general manager Ryan Dinwiddie ripped his team in the immediate aftermath of a 27-22 loss to the Saskatchewan Roughriders.

The veteran bench boss cited concerns about ball security, discipline, and football I.Q. He was also upset about giving up a punt return touchdown.

It seems Dinwiddie’s frustration has only grown in the time since the game — particularly with punter Noah Gettman, who missed what should have been a routine tackle on the play.

“The punter’s gotta make that tackle. He couldn’t have been in a better situation. The sideline was right there,” Dinwiddie told the media on Monday.

“It’s almost like he didn’t want to touch the guy. I’ve never seen anything like that before, so we watched it as a whole team. He was called out for it. You’ve gotta punt, but there’s times to make tackles and you can’t turn it down. You couldn’t have even won a patty-cake award with that technique, so it’s tough for him to look all those guys in the eye after that. We handled that the proper way but if that happens again, he won’t be here.”

Dinwiddie made similar threats last season when he was the head coach of the Toronto Argonauts. After a 39-32 loss to Saskatchewan in Week 3, he told the media he felt embarrassed about his players taking “selfish penalties.”

“I told those guys, ‘Someone’s going home tomorrow,’” Dinwiddie declared at the time. “Heads are rolling. I ain’t putting up with that stuff no more.”

This turned out to be an empty threat, as the Argonauts didn’t cut any players following the loss. Toronto never fixed its penalty problem, finishing the year with a league-worst 157 infractions and a disappointing 5-13 record.

Now in Ottawa, it appears Dinwiddie is close to reaching the same breaking point with his team’s penalty issues.

“For a few guys (they’re close to getting cut, but) you’ve gotta have guys to replace them with, too, at the same time. You’ve got injuries and you can’t just move on from guys. Hopefully, that won’t have to be the case — guys start getting my approach when it comes to that, but we can’t go out there and play it for them,” he said.

“We can talk about it, we can show examples in the meeting room and things like that, but when the lights are on, we’ve gotta find ways to avoid penalties and all just having a little bit of mental focus.

“We’ve gotta be able to go on two and change our cadence on offence. If we’re going on one every time, the defence is gonna be pinning their ears back. It’s trying to help out the O-line by going on multiple cadences, but they seem to be the ones that jump offside, so we’re just trying to help them slow down the pass rush.”

The Redblacks have taken 34 penalties for 268 yards through their first four games, which are fairly average numbers. The infractions against Saskatchewan were actually pretty limited — six flags for 37 yards.

Regardless, Dinwiddie indicated the team spent more time than they typically would on a short week breaking down the film in a concerted effort to limit penalties moving forward.

“We sat down and we watched a bunch of clips in front of everybody, all three sides of the ball. Those were the little details — these penalties, this is what’s killing us,” he said.

“Certain guys probably got embarrassed but they were not necessarily called out, they were used as examples. I told the guys it’s not a finger-point — that’s not what we’re doing, we’re trying to find answers and solutions, that’s what we’re doing.”

The Redblacks will look to get their first win of the season against the Edmonton Elks on Thursday night, team that’s off to a 3-1 start despite taking more penalties (36) for more yards (323) than Ottawa has so far this year.

The Ottawa Redblacks (0-4) will visit the Edmonton Elks (3-1) at Commonwealth Stadium on Thursday, July 9 with kickoff scheduled for 9:00 p.m. EDT. The Redblacks are coming off a 27-22 loss to the Saskatchewan Roughriders, while the Elks suffered their first loss of the season against the B.C. Lions in Kelowna.

The weather forecast in Edmonton calls for a high of 22 degrees with a mix of sun and cloud. The game will be broadcast on TSN and RDS in Canada and CFL+ internationally. Radio listeners can tune in on TSN 1200 in Ottawa or 880 CHED in Edmonton.

John Hodge is a longtime Canadian football reporter, insider, and podcaster for 3DownNation. Based in Winnipeg, Hodge is also a freelance television and radio broadcaster and curling reporter for Rock Channel.