CFL Beat: Week 15

September may honestly be the perfect month. With the back-to-school routine now established and with football Sundays in session, I can also now fill out my Fridays and Saturdays perfectly. Some people tell me the weekend weather is beautiful, but as all good football fans know, I have no idea if that’s actually true or not. The start of Week 15 marks the final third of the CFL’s regular-season schedule – and while we have one playoff-bound team thus far in the year (Montreal), we have another (Ottawa) poised to join them soon in clinching a berth… outside of that, we’re in for a wild finish, especially in the West Division. A lighter slate of games this week with three Western teams on bye, but a good line up for us all the same.

In league news this week:

• The CFL has inexplicably opted to rename its long-running All-Stars designation for players voted on by fans and media to be “All-CFL” rather than “All-Stars”, as it has been for decades now. At first glance, this appears to be insignificant, but what makes it weird to me is the fact that the league has awarded both Divisional All-Star and league-wide All-Star designations each season. How is an “East Division All-CFL” truly a reputable award if the moniker deliberately frames it as not including the entire CFL? Seems counterintuitive to me.
• With the loss of QB Chris Streveler for the year due to a catastrophic knee injury suffered last week, the Winnipeg Blue Bombers signed QBs Jake Dolegala and Bryan Scott to vie for the backup job behind veteran Zack Collaros for the remainder of the year. Both have been around the league for a while, with Dolegala’s ten career CFL starts giving him the edge on experience, but with the season wearing on and options wearing thin, the team needs an insurance policy for the stretch drive.
• Alouettes receiver Austin Mack is on the six-game injured list after getting hurt in practise last week just before Montreal’s game against the BC Lions; too bad, as he’d just returned from NFL training camp and had played in a single game before signing a four-year contract extension. We’ll see him back for sure – he’ll be in Montreal long-term – but important for him to get healthy for the playoffs for the league-leading Alouettes.

Onto the games!

WEEK 14 RECAPS

BC 37 vs. Montreal 23: In a matchup of the league’s hottest team versus the league’s best team, the visiting Lions kept their win streak going, and continue to come on strong in the return of Nathan Rourke to the CFL. William Stanback, making his return to Montreal after leaving the team in free agency this past off-season, ran roughshod over his teammates, racking up another huge game on the ground with 22 touches for 156 yards and a TD; Nathan Rourke also found a lot of different receivers and spread the ball around well all game long. The Als have an excellent defence, but any team is going to struggle against a passing attack led by Nathan Rourke. Cody Fajardo had a relatively average on offence himself, but with so many receivers injured right now, it’s no wonder that he’s looked a bit more average as of late. Better for a loss at this stage in the season rather than in the playoffs, I think.

PICK: BC

RESULT: BC

Toronto 27 vs. Ottawa 41: Let’s be clear: this game was not as close as the score indicated. Indeed, the REDBLACKS clearly took their foot off the gas in the second half of this matchup, but could afford to, as the first 30 minutes were some of the most dominant football I’ve seen this team play in the decade since their re-introduction to the CFL. DB Damon Webb stole the show for Ottawa, racking up TWO pick-sixes on embattled Argos QB Chad Kelly; that makes him just the ninth player in the history of the CFL, and the first in Ottawa’s combined franchise history, to ever record two interception return TDs in a single game. These REDBLACKS are something special this year; the win takes them to 6-0-1 at home this season.

PICK: Ottawa

RESULT: Ottawa

Saskatchewan 21 vs. Winnipeg 26: The Blue Bombers completed the back-to-back sweep of their prairie rivals – but the victory came at a cost. Backup QB Chris Streveler tore three knee ligaments and is done for the year after a hit from Riders DT Miles Brown – the same guy who took out Zach Collaros the week before last with a headshot. Bombers fans want to see him drawn and quartered by now; while the hit was pretty bad, the team was able to rebound well; Bombers DB Tyrell Ford picked off Saskatchewan QB Trevor Harris twice in the contest, including late in the fourth quarter which helped to stop the Riders’ attempted comeback in its tracks for good. With the 103rd victory of his career in Winnipeg, head coach Mike O’Shea is now the winningest coach in franchise history – topping the record set by Winnipeg and Minnesota Vikings legend Bud Grant.

PICK: Winnipeg

RESULT: Winnipeg

Calgary 16 vs. Edmonton 37: In a surprising move, the Stampeders elect to bench starting QB Jake Maier in favour of young backup Logan Bonner – and boy, did it not go well for them. The Stamps pivot threw five interceptions on the night, and almost had a sixth, and the Elks just stomped all over their provincial rivals for the second week in a row, sweeping their September season series for the first time in twenty years. Despite the loss, one cool bright spot for Calgary was big man DT Mike Rose snagging an interception and running it back 83 yards for the pick-six; that’s a beefy touchdown right there. The Elks are now nipping at the Roughriders’ heels for the third playoff spot in the West Division following their big win and are poised to return to Tre Ford as their starting QB, as McLeod Bethel-Thompson left this game shortly after throwing his pick-six.

PICK: Edmonton

RESULT: Edmonton

BYE: Hamilton (3-9)

WEEK 15 PREVIEWS

Toronto (6-6) vs. BC (7-6), Friday, September 13th, 10:00 PM EDT (TSN, CFL+): The Argos are in a tough spot right now. While they remain comfortably in the third spot in the East, there is a small risk that a West team could possibly cross over and claim the third and final playoff spot in the division if things continue to slide for the Double Blue. Furthermore, facing a Lions side that’s heating up at the exact right time in the season – and having to face them on the road – is a similarly tough task for a team that looked a shell of themselves last week. Not all is lost, but Chad Kelly, in words of Ottawa LB Adarius Pickett, was “seeing ghosts out there” last week against the REDBLACKS. He definitely doesn’t look like the 2023 Most Outstanding Player he was last season, but that’s likely because his soul is also generally diseased as well. If he can’t turn it around, that’s a lot of money that the team will need to figure out if it can be better spent elsewhere rather than paying him to sexually harass team employees.

PICK: BC

Ottawa (8-3-1) vs. Hamilton (3-9), Saturday, September 14th, 3:00 PM EDT (CTV, CFL+): The Tiger-Cats continue to have no defence. It was cool to see them get the win a couple weeks ago in the Labour Day Classic against their hated Toronto rivals, but there’s no denying this has been a really bad year for them. Even at home this week, I don’t like their chances against a REDBLACKS team that put the clamps on the Argos’ offence for much of last week’s game. If the REDBLACKS win this week, I believe they clinch a playoff spot – added incentive for the team to go hard.

PICK: Ottawa

Montreal (10-2) vs. Calgary (4-8), Saturday, September 14th, 7:00 PM EDT (TSN, CFL+): Hard to believe that the Calgary Stampeders haven’t missed the playoffs since 2004. It’s true that it’s only a nine-team league, but that streak is quite remarkable all the same. I mention it because fans of the Stamps are going to need to start to reckon with the notion that it’s very likely this team is going to miss the playoffs this year. Jake Maier will get the start again after sitting last week in what turned out to be a decisively failed experiment – but it’s not likely to do much good. Despite the loss, the Als remain the league’s best team, and I expect them to come into this one with their heads on straight after getting outworked last week by the Lions. That bodes poorly for Calgary fans in the immediate future and in the season aftermath.

PICK: Montreal

BYE: Edmonton (5-8); Saskatchewan (5-7-1); Winnipeg (7-6)

STANDINGS AND STATS

East Division Standings

West Division Standings

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

Passing Yards

1. Mitchell, HAM – 3383
2. Bethel-Thompson, EDM – 3098
3. Collaros, WPG – 2932

Passing TDs

1. Mitchell, HAM – 21
2. Bethel-Thompson, EDM – 19
3. Harris, SSK – 15

Rushing Yards

1. Stanback, BC – 938
2. Oliveira, WPG – 894
3. Carey, TOR – 770

Receiving Yards

1. McInnis, BC – 1074
2. Hardy, OTT – 910
3. Hollins, BC – 881

Defensive Tackles

1. Morgan, EDM – 85
2. Milligan, SSK – 80
3. Anderson, EDM – 78

Sacks

1. Teuhema, BC – 6
2. Wakefield, OTT – 6
3. Jefferson, WPG – 6

Interceptions

1. Ford, WPG – 6
2. Milligan, SSK – 6
3. Bynum, EDM – 5

Field Goals

1. Ward, OTT – 41
2. Castillo, WPG – 40
3. Whyte, BC – 36

PICK POOL

So I technically had a good week, as evidenced by picks above… but apparently I hadn’t clicked the “submit picks” button the first time I’d loaded last week’s picks… yikes. Kudos to BC Dick for winning last week.

Remember to submit your picks here! https://www.pooltracker.com/join.asp?poolid=231808

Enjoy the games, everyone.