Teams regularly attack his side now. It’s over. Helluva run though.
Yep. Just not the same as past years. After seeing Montreal have success, teams are going to keep attacking him.
SSK did out of the gate and it hasn’t stopped.
And he just got beat again. Damn.
ya hard not to see it this year
DB is still a solid corner, but a step down from last year. I haven’t seen him get beat badly. Generally you need three minutes of super-slo-mo replays to find the flaws in his game.
He had a fumble recovery tonight that was nullified because Tracy thought it would be fun to play “guess the snap count”.
Yes it does. It is in Kansas with Dorothy. It is beautiful full of fresh fruits and vegetables. I love Breaux Island. I went there on a three hour cruise. Ta Ta toothy was the Mayor.
Breaux is super aggressive and teams are trying to exploit that by getting a PI call against him. It is working somewhat since Breaux has been flagged a few times this year.
Breaux was not the problem with the defence vs the Als. I watched Tuggle at MLB and if the man was guessing, he guessed wrong all night . Every big run up the middle had him in chase mode. I’m not sure if he made a tackle in the game .
He blitzed a lot but got caught up in the wash most times . He looked disinterested .
Maybe he just had a bad game(duh) but if this pattern continues, then we need a change at the position . Frey looked aggressive on the teams, perhaps he deserves more reps in the middle .
If we don’t have a middle linebacker who can tackle, then “We don’t got nothin’ !”
Pat Lynch (the old guy who remembers Stover, Zambiasi, Paterra, and Tiggle )
Thanks Pat, I hadn’t thought of Herb Paterra in some time. Man he was a stud.
Breaux hasn’t been tested in ages. He is a premier corner and he’ll make improvements. A few picks and QBs will start thinking twice again.
Total team loss yesterday. Banks didn’t get a 100 yards, but we know he is one of the best receivers in the league.
Any DB is going to struggle when our front 7 plays like it did last night.
Breaux’s time in the NFL helped him become a better cover guy and now is hurting him because of the way CFL referees call pass interference. Hand-fighting, leaning into an airborne receiver are very acceptable in the NFL and Breaux used these techniques to his advantage when he came back to Canada. But this year four games in, they’re flagging him like they have flagged every other CFL DB for many years. His play against Lewis in the endzone at the start of the 4th last night would have been called ‘perfect’ if he was still a Saint.
And I too will take every opportunity to throw dirt on the corpse formally known as Adrian Tracy…Westerman too if in fact he does exist.
Frank, sshhh! It’s still too early to talk about the Saints and PI calls! 
I heard on the radio this morning that they have him in a lot more zone coverage this season where in the past, they’ve basically let him do his own thing with man coverage.
Knowing this, teams have been able to get him to bite on one reciever then overload his zone with deeper ones.
So he’s not missed a step or anything. Just learning something he’s not used to
I saw that article too and immediately thought of this discussion as well. Here’s hoping he adjusts and starts making picks!
Breaux wasn’t the only Ham player having trouble with the Allwets, many were MIA for that game. I just wonder what Ham team will show up for this game tonight. :-[
When the eye test says he's getting more footballs thrown in his general direction, Delvin Breaux has a simple response:
Bring It On.
"I don't think it's a lot," says the Hamilton Tiger-Cats all-star shutdown cornerback. "But I actually like it. I want them to keep coming at me, so I have the opportunities to make plays and when I make them, eventually they're going to stop throwing that way.
"I'm getting better week in and week out at practice, starting to understand more what the coaches want me to."
Breaux has a wider range of assignments under new defensive co-ordinator Mark Washington than he did in his previous Ticat seasons: 2013 and '14 and when he returned last year from a successful tenure in the NFL.
By the latter parts of 2018 CFL teams, particularly Ottawa, were staying away from the short sideline because the menacing Breaux was always there, playing angry aggressive man-to-man. He usually locked down receivers so securely some offences eventually began dispatching someone his way to whom they had no intention of actually throwing the ball. A dummy receiver, essentially. That served to limit the offence's breadth and make it a bit more geographically predictable, but it also kept the Ticats' best defender away from the ball.
Mostly because he's been so good at discouraging action, the highly-paid Breaux has only one career CFL interception.
Under Washington and his assistants, Breaux is required to play more zone defence — and the Ticats use a lot of variations — than before. So it's not necessarily that he's targeted more often but that he's heading to the area where the larger targets are expected to be.
"Last year it was all man-to-man," he explains. "This year there's most definitely more responsibility and I welcome it, man. The coach wants us to be complete DBs, and I want to be a complete defensive back, I don't want to just play man. I want to go all over, I want to understand how to play zone. So I have to understand the pattern read, be at a certain spot, how to split the receivers, just play like that. I'm getting better day in and out."
Despite his deep pro experience, Breaux is still only 29 years old, so he's not an old dog unable to learn new tricks.
"He's been such a dominant player with the skill sets he's had and now we're like, 'OK, what else can you add to that?'" Washington says. "That's the challenge, that's what he means about being the complete DB.
"We're in the process of putting this whole thing together. We try to play 12-as-one, and he has to fit into us and we have to fit into him. We know his strengths. He's a very special football player and we're going to use every one of his gifts."
Both head coach Orlondo Steinauer and Breaux himself point out that shifting from solely head-to-head — "I've got you, you've got me" — coverage to a broader scope, requires Breaux to study film not just alone, but together with those closest to him on the field: boundary linebacker Simoni Lawrence and halfback Cariel Brooks. Breaux says he loves that communication and collaborative effort. He's being asked to pay far more attention to spaces to the left and right of him, not just the receiver directly in front of him, and Steinauer says "it's clicking for him."
Steinauer also confirms, "He's going to see more footballs."
Sweet music to the competitive Breaux's ears.
"It'll come," he says. "I want some interceptions, I want to be making some big plays."
Notes: The CFL has fined Ticats defensive lineman David Dean for a high hit on Montreal quarterback Vernon Adams Jr. last week . . . the Ticats will play the annual Canadian Football Hall of Fame Game Saturday Aug. 10 against B.C. The induction ceremony will take place the previous night at Tim Hortons Field for the class of 2019: Jon Cornish,Terry Greer, Mervyn Fernandez, Ernie Pitts, David Williams and builders Frank Smith and Jim Hopson. Tickets still available at Ticketmaster.ca.
smilton@thespec.com
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smilton@thespec.com
I was concerned that perhaps DB the DB had lost a step as Montreal seemed to be throwing his way a lot. After reading this article my faith has been restored. Here's hoping he has plenty of chances to make big plays against Calgary!
^^^^^ Great read! Thanks for posting Mike
As I said before, I have no doubts about Breaux at all, he is a Pro’s Pro