With five weeks to go in the regular season, we have half of our playoff spots still up for grabs right now. While the third seeds may possibly get shuffled around, the biggest remaining question at this point in the year is to see which of two very good teams in BC and Winnipeg will finish strong and clinch the West division title and the extremely valuable first-round playoff bye. Whatever the case may be, we’re in the stretch run now.

In league news this week:

• Canada is planning to steal Carrie Underwood… temporarily. SNF’s intro song artist and country superstar will perform at the Grey Cup Festival in Hamilton on November 17th in the leadup to the Grey Cup championship game two days later; the weeklong celebration will definitely bring in some other star power soon enough, I’m sure. General admission tickets for the festival, including the concert, go on sale Sept. 30th.
• Hamilton signed two veteran CFL players this week in their late-season playoff push; veteran DE Jamal Davis II, who was released by Montreal on Monday after holding a starting role for the season, apparently asked to be let go. In 14 games this year, he’s had 23 total tackles and three sacks – and with some NFL experience on his resume, he’ll be a useful depth pickup. The Tabbies also signed receiver Derel Walker, who was released last month by Saskatchewan after coming back from a knee injury earlier in the season. Walker’s a four-time West All-Star who also won a Grey Cup and a Most Outstanding Rookie award back in 2015 when he was with Edmonton, and he was the league’s highest-paid non-quarterback in his 2019 season with Toronto. As a depth guy, rather than as a starter, he’ll be a real boost to the receiving corps.
• Calgary released longtime CFL receiver Markeith Ambles, who signed with the team back in early August after being released from Toronto earlier this season. While he spent the first three seasons of his career in Calgary, he had a career year last year with the Argos, catching 117 balls for 1399 yards and seven TDs. After originally being placed on the one-game injured list, being instead released seems slightly strange – he’s 31, but perhaps there might be a team willing to take a flyer on him for the remainder of the year as we get into the nastiest stretch of the playoff drive.

Onto the games!

WEEK 16 RECAPS

Saskatchewan 28 vs. Ottawa 36: The REDBLACKS… won? At home? Wow. Against all odds, they came on top, snapping a seven-game slide and keeping their still infinitesimally small playoff hopes alive for another week. Ottawa did well to capitalize on five costly Saskatchewan turnovers, taking advantage of good field position to make the visitors pay the price; Dustin Crum threw for 243 yards and two TDs on 21-27 passing, and also ran for a major on the ground. Backup Tyrrell Pigrome ran for another, and DB DeAndre Lamont had two interceptions on Saskatchewan QB Jake Dolegala. Saskatchewan did put together a furious fourth-quarter push – return man Mario Alford had a 107-yard punt return TD late in the game, cutting the Ottawa lead to 36-20 with 90 seconds left in the contest. After a quick REDBLACKS two-and-out, Dolegala found WR Kian Schaffer for a big connection to the one-yard line, where backup QB Antonio Pipkin punched the ball in on a QB sneak; a two-point attempt later and the lead was now down to 8. Ottawa successfully protected the football for the final minute, stopping things dead in their tracks.

PICK: Saskatchewan

RESULT: Ottawa

BC 37 vs. Edmonton 29: The Lions swept the Elks in their season series, but at least Edmonton didn’t get shut out like they did the previous two times. In fact, this game was a pretty entertaining and competitive one – Leos RB Taquan Mizzell had two rushing TDs, including a big 48-yard score in the second half that broke things open for BC, and QB Vernon Adams, Jr. threw for two others but also threw two interceptions. Edmonton won the turnover battle on the night but still faced relentless pressure from DE Mathieu Betts and the Lions’ front seven, who got to young QB Tre Ford multiple times on the night. Ford threw two touchdown passes to WR Dillon Mitchell, and battled hard to keep Edmonton in it, but despite a late drive and being down by just six to BC, couldn’t make the most of their final possessions and turned it over on downs, then missed a field goal. With the win, BC becomes the second team in the West to punch their ticket to the playoffs. Edmonton remains an extreme longshot to be in the postseason picture with this most recent loss.

PICK: BC

RESULT: BC

Montreal 28 vs. Calgary 11: Tough night for the Stamps, who badly needed a win to try and gain some ground on Saskatchewan for the third and final playoff spot in the West. Montreal played one of their best games of the entire season; the O-line kept Calgary’s pass rush from touching Cody Fajardo for the entire game, while Als DL Shawn Lemon, a longtime CFL vet, had an interception and two sacks to lead the way on the other side of the ball. Cody Fajardo threw for 252 yards, a TD and an interception, while RB William Stanback, who’s re-discovered his game as of late, had 18 total touches for 100 yards and a TD grab. Calgary really couldn’t get anything going at all on the offensive side of the ball; the Als D, and in particular the secondary, clamped down hard on Jake Maier and his receivers, picking off the Stamps’ QB twice. At 4-10, Calgary will need some serious miracles to happen to try and salvage this year. It may already be too late.

PICK: Calgary

RESULT: Montreal

Hamilton 14 vs. Toronto 29: The Argos continue to dominate the league and swept their season series with their arch-rivals. Chad Kelly had 242 pass yards, two TDs and two picks, but he was also helped out tremendously by his defence; in particular, LB Wynton McManis had a big pick-six on Hamilton rookie QB Taylor Powell very early in the game to set the tone for the home side. Hamilton couldn’t make anything out of their own turnovers, and left Toronto without a ton of offence to show for it once again; stacked up against the league’s best defence, it was always going to be an uphill battle. Their only TD of the night happened late in the fourth quarter, after the game was already mostly out of reach. Even with the loss, the Tiger-Cats are still in decent shape in the East postseason picture, but the job’s not yet done – Ottawa’s hopes are slilm but still alive, and Hamilton still potentially has the chance to overtake Montreal in the next few weeks if a few things shake out the correct way. Hosting a home playoff game should be the goal now with Toronto having run away with the division title.

PICK: Toronto

RESULT: Toronto

BYE: Winnipeg (10-4)

WEEK 17 PREVIEWS

Toronto (12-1) vs. Winnipeg (10-4), Friday, September 29th, 7:00 PM EDT (TSN, CFL+): With the division already wrapped up a few weeks previous, the Argos will rest QB1 Chad Kelly for this game against the ever-dangerous Bombers in a Grey Cup rematch from last year. Cameron Dukes gets the nod as the starter for this week, and while he’s proven himself effective in short-yardage situations so far this year, I think both player and team will both appreciate the chance to see him in some proper first-team reps for the first time this year. Winnipeg is starting everyone, of course – they sit tied with BC in the standings, but need to try and finish strong to wrap up that ever-important first-round bye. Winnipeg’s played a lot of post-season football over these past few years – something they want to continue doing – but a playoff bye would help a lot. Coming into this game freshly rested off a bye week will probably also help a ton, too.

PICK: Winnipeg

Saskatchewan (6-8) vs. BC (10-4), Friday, September 29th, 10:30 PM EDT (TSN, CFL+): The Riders are having another tough season – but they sure are fortunate that Edmonton floundered for so long and Calgary has seemingly imploded that they still have a small buffer on that final playoff spot. Last week against Ottawa was a textbook example of the bad things that happen when you don’t protect the football – the turnovers absolutely killed them. That’s going to be the main message going into this one – I wouldn’t be surprised to see some pretty conservative football from the Riders this weekend. That said, I don’t think that’s necessarily a wise choice, especially if they find themselves down by two scores or more at an early stage in the game. The confidence certainly isn’t there… but at least your rivals are in tough too. If BC can get their pass rush going again like last week, this could be ugly. A lot has happened since that unexpected Saskatchewan win back in Week 11.

PICK: BC

Montreal (7-7) vs. Ottawa (4-10), Saturday, September 30th, 4:00 PM EDT (TSN, CFL+): If Montreal wins, they’ll clinch a playoff spot. Ottawa needs a victory to have any real chance of staying alive – yes, they’re not mathematically eliminated even if they do lose, but I sure don’t like the odds. Something to note about the REDBLACKS: they have to learn how to finish. It’s been consecutive weeks of getting badly outplayed in the fourth quarter and giving up (or almost giving up) leads – they need to do something about the playcalling here to just stop going into prevent mode in this final frame. Montreal’s receivers have the potential to wreak havoc on the REDBLACKS’ porous secondary – but so too do Ottawa’s strong D-line to make Montreal QB Cody Fajardo miserable. The Als have given up 50 sacks on the season, and we still have four games to go. Yeesh. Ottawa will have LB Jovan Santos-Knox and DB Money Hunter back in the lineup for this one as both come off the six-game IL.

PICK: Montreal

Calgary (4-10) vs. Hamilton (6-8), Saturday, September 30th, 7:00 PM EDT (TSN, CFL+): Hamilton’s loss last week was annoying to the team’s fans, sure, but the Stamps’ loss was just a microcosm of how pretty much everything has gone wrong for them this year. They’ll need to win out and have Saskatchewan collapse too if they want to sneak in to the playoffs – but with the way the team played last week, I don’t think anyone’s predicting much of anything. The Tiger-Cats remain in the thick of it, and while it’s hard to be convinced they’ll somehow leapfrog Montreal, clinch the second seed in the East, host the East semifinal, and then somehow magically defeat the juggernaut Argos and play in the Grey Cup as the host city… that whole series of events somehow remains more plausible than the Stamps turning things around. At least Hamilton is doing an OK job of balancing the present – this current playoff race – and the future – with the emergence of rookie QB Taylor Powell – with more effectiveness than I thought possible a few weeks ago.

PICK: Hamilton

BYE: Edmonton (4-11)

STANDINGS AND STATS

East Division Standings

West Division Standings

x – clinched playoff spot
y – clinched division
e – eliminated from playoff contention

Passing Yards 

1. Maier, CGY – 3581
2. Adams, Jr., BC – 3547
3. Collaros, WPG – 3480

Passing TDs

1. Collaros, WPG – 29
2. Adams, Jr., BC – 25
3. Kelly, TOR – 21

Rushing Yards

1. Oliveira, WPG – 1190
2. Brown, EDM – 1022
3. Ouellette, TOR – 868

Receiving Yards

1. Mack, MTL – 1057
2. Schoen, WPG – 1035
3. Begelton, CGY – 1028

Defensive Tackles

1. Awe, CGY – 102
2. Morgan, EDM – 98
3. Pickett, TOR – 98

Sacks

1. Betts, BC – 14
2. Carter, OTT – 11
3. Ceresna, EDM – 10

Interceptions

1. Houston, WPG – 7
2. Katsantonis, HAM – 4
3. Dandridge, OTT – 4

Field Goals

1. Paredes, CGY – 42
2. Whyte, BC – 37
3. Cote, MTL – 36

PICK POOL

Congrats to Gumbygirl on having the best week of all of us – making a nice late season push up the ladder there, though still much too early to get the Christmas lights up in the same manner!

Remember to submit your picks here! https://www.pooltracker.com/join.asp?poolid=205786

Enjoy the games, everyone.