About Doug Brown:

Doug Brown, always a hard-hitting defensive lineman and frequently a hard-hitting columnist, appears Tuesdays in the Free Press.

• Playbooks missing giving-up-points section

  It's not a play I have ever seen in any of the defensive playbooks handed out to me by any of the 10 defensive co-ordinators I have had over the years, nor does it have its own section that you can easily reference in any offensive handbook. If Super Bowl XLVI was a showcase for anything this year, it was for how strategy has evolved alongside the players and the situations of the game.

  View Full Column | 02/7/2012 1:00 AM | 0

• Big-mouth DB has my Super Bowl dander up

  Normally, I think Canadians have a hard time choosing which team to root for on Super Bowl Sunday. We are, for the most part, hard pressed to identify ties or allegiances to a New York or New England NFL franchise and nothing deflates one's interest in a game than no team or cause to root for, or no villain to root against.

  View Full Column | 02/4/2012 1:00 AM | 0

• Bombers' new OC will bring fresh thinking

  Anytime a new coach is hired, there is a period of adjustment. When a new coach is hired to coach a style of game he has never seen before, that period of adjustment obviously lengthens, and there are obstacles and challenges that will have to be broached as well as positive potential spinoffs to be gained. As strange as it may sound, the first time I ever played Canadian football was my fifth year as a professional, or first year with Winnipeg in 2001. In both high school, university, and in the NFL obviously, I played exclusively American football. The challenges for a defensive lineman adjusting to the Canadian game aren't anywhere near as plentiful as for an offensive co-ordinator, like the Bombers new O.C. Gary Crowton, but it was still an unnerving process that took me well out of my comfort zone.

  View Full Column | 01/31/2012 1:00 AM | 0

• Giants, Pats aren't who we thought they were

  The New York Giants and the New England Patriots, who will meet in the Super Bowl on Feb. 5, have become pro football's version of the Transformers as a byproduct of their experiences en route to the NFL finale in Indianapolis. They are two teams that are dramatically different from who they were in the regular season, and they weren't the only franchises that had the identities of their teams and players made over in the playoffs.

  View Full Column | 01/24/2012 1:00 AM | 0

• You read it here first: 49ers, Pats in XLVI

  The NFL conference semifinals we witnessed this past weekend were a rudimentary example of the importance of football fundamentals. For the better part of three quarters the New Orleans Saints were all the San Francisco 49ers could handle. Their defence was playing better, their offence was playing better, but they turned the ball over five times and thereby kept the 49ers hanging around. Normally when a pivot like Alex Smith plays as poorly as he did for the majority of the game the lead would be insurmountable, but when he finally figured out that tight end Vernon Davis was the best player on the field, and because of all these turnovers, it was not too late for San Fran to pull this game out of the fire in spectacular fashion.

  View Full Column | 01/17/2012 1:00 AM | 0

• Storied pivots improve East's lot in CFL

  With the trade of Ricky Ray to Toronto early this off-season and another swap last week that brought Henry Burris to Hamilton, it is now fair to say the Eastern Division in the Canadian Football League just started bringing guns to what has traditionally been a knife fight. In the course of little more than a month, and off the back of two trades, there has been a paradigm shift in the balance of power in the CFL that has now found its way to the Eastern conference.

  View Full Column | 01/10/2012 1:00 AM | 0

• Lions will be thrown to Saints in wild-card

  IT’S time to start paying full attention to the National Football League again. After a season where recordbreaking offences and unprecedented pivot play were the themes of the year, expect a mixed bag of results in the wild-card games this Saturday and Sunday.

  View Full Column | 01/3/2012 1:00 AM | 0

• Lions will be thrown to Saints in wild-card

  It's time to start paying full attention to the National Football League again. After a season where record-breaking offences and unprecedented pivot play were the themes of the year, expect a mixed bag of results in the wild-card games this Saturday and Sunday.

  View Full Column | 01/3/2012 1:00 AM | 0

• Blue hoping to heck Ticats don't hire Burke

  One of the most frustrating things about playing any professional sport is that sometimes things appear very obvious to you, yet not so clear to others. For instance, lets look at the musical chairs procession in the CFL right now.

  View Full Column | 12/27/2011 1:00 AM | 0

• Sam's Christmas helps hundreds of people

  For the most part, professional athletes have their charitable opportunities and platforms to give back handed to them on a silver platter. The who, what, when, where, and why are pretty much figured out for us ahead of time, and all that is required of us is to show up in good spirits and with a big smile on our face. More often than not, our time is the biggest thing asked of us, and we are rarely challenged to invest ourselves and our money in whatever cause is laid out before us. This past weekend, not only did I find myself on the front lines of a charitable venture that I had bought into on multiple levels, but as a member of a different kind of team that encapsulated hundreds of different volunteers and organizations from around this city.

  View Full Column | 12/13/2011 1:00 AM | 0

• We tried to 'bring it home' to our fans

  Our Grey Cup disappointment is now nine days behind us, yet I still wish to share some of the notes I kept in a daily journal of our first four days in Vancouver. Day one, Tuesday

  View Full Column | 12/6/2011 1:00 AM | 0

• Warm welcome helps ease pain

  It is the most emotionally conflicted you will ever be as a football player. Walking off an airplane the day after a Grey Cup loss and being greeted by thunderous applause from several hundred of your most loyal supporters. Unfortunately, having done this twice before, I knew it was coming, yet there is still no way to prepare yourself for it.

  View Full Column | 11/29/2011 1:00 AM | 0

• A word of caution to Cup-bound Bombers

  And then there was one. One game that is.

  View Full Column | 11/22/2011 1:00 AM | 0

• We have Tabbies' number... or do they have ours?

  It is bizarre, when your career is winding down, how you start to notice things coming full circle. For instance, the first regular-season game I played in the CFL was in Calgary against the Stampeders in 2001, and the last regular-season game I played in my career was also in Calgary against the Stampeders in 2011.

  View Full Column | 11/15/2011 1:00 AM | 0

• Bye week not to be frittered away

  In my mind, it's not so much how you get first place, it's what you do with it once you have it. To recap, for the first time since 2001, and only the second time in my 11-year CFL career, we have finished first in a division, though the two teams went about it in very different ways.

  View Full Column | 11/8/2011 1:00 AM | 0

• Blue have been in Twilight Zone all season

  It is time to try and make sense of the nonsense. As professional sport evolves, statistics, facts and figures become more prominent. Extensive analysis and detailed breakdowns generate probabilities and likelihoods for every conceivable situation that can occur in a contest, and the results influence decisions being made with more regularity as organizations and sport move forward.

  View Full Column | 11/1/2011 1:00 AM | 0

• Win over Als will mean zilch if we don't gain bye

  To win the Eastern Division, earn a first-round bye and have one game at home to punch a ticket to the Grey Cup, this team is going to have to break free from our tendency in the second half of the season to play uninspired football the week after a colossal win. Not to dismiss the jubilation and euphoria in the locker-room after defeating the Montreal Alouettes by a point on Saturday -- it was easy to get swept up in the celebratory mood after the game -- the truth of the scenario we find ourselves in is very grounding.

  View Full Column | 10/25/2011 1:00 AM | 0

• Barker, Reed best CFL bets to lock horns

  When 26 teams in your sporting spectrum play games over the weekend and the biggest news is the fact that two of the coaches of these teams had an over-exuberant handshake at the end of one game, it further reinforces why many call the NFL the "No Fun League," and how any behaviour not construed as ultra-conservative will steal headlines south of our border. In case you missed it, after the San Francisco 49ers improved their record to 5-1 by going into Detroit and handing the Lions their first defeat, Jim Harbaugh, the 49ers head coach, was jumping, skipping and chest bumping his way over to mid-field for the obligatory handshake with the opposition field general, Jim Schwartz, when his enthusiasm got the best of him.

  View Full Column | 10/18/2011 1:00 AM | 0

• Playoffs are nice, bye would be nicer

  A football roster of some 60-odd players from all over North America is as diverse and multicultural as a team can get, but a day after Thanksgiving, I'm sure there was one common element that all of the athletes, both American and Canadian, were thankful for stemming from the win in Hamilton last Friday night: a berth in the 2011 CFL playoffs. Yes indeed, for the first time since 2008 when Doug Berry steered the team to an 8-10 record and a home playoff game against the crossover Edmonton Eskimos, your Blue and Gold have cemented their relevance on the football landscape once more. Friday night the Bombers became the first team in the CFL to qualify for the post-season this year, and now is the time to revel and celebrate this momentous occasion... (pause) ... All done? OK then, let's get back to business.

  View Full Column | 10/11/2011 1:00 AM | 0

• Yardsticks used, but game measured in inches

  It has been 12 years since the movie Any Given Sunday came out, but I assure you that professional football players on both sides of the border still get asked on occasion about its accuracy and validity. So to hopefully set the record straight once and for all, in 15 seasons I've never seen an eyeball pop out of someone's head and lie on the turf during a game, and no, players don't bring alligators into the shower and let them rinse off, and no, most of the head coaches I've had don't date escorts on a regular basis and their speeches are nowhere near as dramatic, moving, or as scripted as Al Pacino's was in the movie.

  View Full Column | 10/4/2011 5:39 PM | 0

• Blue died a good death

  There is not a lot to be proud of when you suffer a defeat. There are not as many moral victories to rest your hat on, or lessons to be learned. In a business where the livelihoods of many depend on success, consolation prizes are irrelevant and fools gold.

  View Full Column | 09/27/2011 1:00 AM | 0

• Whole CFL world's gone absolutely mad

  I'm one of those people that likes to think that the world he lives in makes perfect sense. My expectations for the most part are that things happen around us in a predictable fashion, and most of the time science and logic dictate these events and actions. What is happening right now in the CFL, however, subscribes to no trends, formulas, or logical assertions.

  View Full Column | 09/20/2011 1:00 AM | 0

• At least the hotel was nice

  The hotel we stayed in this year was a lot nicer than we are accustomed to, but in the end, the result, was unfortunately the same. Looking back though, since my first trip to the Labour Day Classic in 2001, much has changed about the weekend experience for the Blue Bombers and the fans of this rivalry grudge match against the Roughriders, and it's not just the standard of hotel we stay in.

  View Full Column | 09/6/2011 1:00 AM | 0

• Why some people hate 'Swaggerville'

  We are eight games into the 2011 Winnipeg Blue Bomber football season and I've come to notice that not everyone finds the spinoff of "Swaggerville" as amusing and entertaining as I do. In fact, after studying the population of dissent and disapproval that is out there, I have been able to come up with five plausible reasons why some are turned off by this national phenomenon. If you are not an advocate of "Swaggerville," or just put off by it, it is most likely because of one of these five reasons.

  View Full Column | 08/30/2011 1:00 AM | 0

• Call me biased, but Marshall deserved more leeway

  There is no doubt when it comes to the debate over Greg Marshall's dismissal as head coach of the Saskatchewan Roughriders, that I am biased. In the three years he served as the Bombers defensive co-ordinator, I came to not only respect his philosophies and ideologies, but how he commanded respect from his charges and how his players would lay it on the line for him. I have always been one of his biggest cheerleaders on and off the field, and though I have not played for him since 2008, that is not about to change now.

  View Full Column | 08/23/2011 1:00 AM | 0

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