CFL Beat: Week 4

School is finally out for me, and I’m headed out into fourteen months of parental leave from work – woohoo! Now, technically, I guess there’s a masters program that’s being thrown in there too, and being the father of a seven-month-old is not exactly an activity for the highly sedentary… but I guess it all leaves me too tired to get into any other ludicrous ideas.

In league news this week:

• The Ottawa REDBLACKS traded away former starting QB Dru Brown back to the Winnipeg Blue Bombers, as well as a second-round pick in next year’s CFL Draft, in exchange for Winnipeg’s first-rounder and a second-rounder in 2028. This is absolutely ludicrous to me, as Jake Maier, the man who stole Brown’s job, has not proven in any way, shape or form that he legitimately deserves the position. Yes, Brown had a down season last year, but I still like him much more than I do Maier. Ending back up with the Bombers gives Winnipeg two good options behind Zach Collaros, as Taylor Elgersma, a rookie and Canadian, could well one day become a starting QB himself, and he’ll likely drop to the #3 job now that Brown has come back into the fold. With Brown gone, Ottawa signed longtime CFL vet McLeod Bethel-Thompson to be Jake Maier’s new backup, which I similarly don’t like, as he has all the pocket mobility of an old Soviet tank.
• Longtime CFL return man and wide receiver Brandon Banks will get his flowers this September, as he was named to this year’s CFL Hall of Fame class of 2026. An incredibly shifty player with the ability to absolutely burn with the ball in his hands, Banks was a six-time All-CFL player, a Grey Cup champion in 2022 with Toronto, and won the 2019 CFL Most Outstanding Player award as the league’s best receiver that year, with 1550 yards on 112 catches and 13 TDs. Banks also holds the league record for most missed field goal return TDs (five) and racked up 13 kick-return scores, good for third all-time on CFL lists. Speedy B is an incredibly worthy inductee – congrats to him.

Onto the games!

WEEK 3 RECAPS

BC 27 vs. Hamilton 41: Have a day, Bo Levi Mitchell. The Tabbies QB absolutely slaughtered the Lions’ D and tied his career high of five pass TDs in a single game; this game was never close. The Lions, down a few key receivers, tried to push the ball downfield to try and counter being down by so much so quickly, but Nathan Rourke was kept under 300 yards and limited to just a single TD, to go along with an interception. With Justin McInnis and Kieran Poissant also dinged up in this game, the BC receivers room is looking mighty poorly right now…

PICK: Hamilton

RESULT: Hamilton

Toronto 44 vs. Ottawa 24: Can’t use the weather as an excuse this time. The REDBLACKS simply weren’t ready to play. Sex Pest Chad Kelly threw four TDs for Toronto, though he did also have four interceptions as well – and unfortunately for the home crowd, the Ottawa offence struggled to do much of anything with all those turnovers forced. Same old, same old… Jake Maier, inexplicably, now has the starting job firmly in grasp for quite some time ahead now, as key competition Dru Brown was traded away this week… which is completely mystifying to me, as he really stunk, even throwing a pick on literally his first pass of the game. For a team that had such high hopes going into the season, particularly with such a highly-respected and decorated head coach coming into the fold, it’s absolutely abysmal to me that the culture of losing still hasn’t abated at all, by the look of things.

PICK: Ottawa

RESULT: Toronto

Montreal 29 vs. Edmonton 32 (OT): The streak is over! At long last, Davis Alexander lost a regular-season game as a starting QB for the first time in his CFL career – but 13 straight wins is certainly nothing to sneeze at. It did also take OT for the Elks to pull this one out over the Als, and it was again RB Justin Rankin leading the way for Edmonton, with 179 total yards and two TDs in some wet and sloppy weather. The Elks were down by two scores in the second quarter, but former Alouette Austin Mack had a TD grab late to cut the Montreal lead to 13-7 at halftime. Rankin had two rush TDs in the third quarter to send Edmonton into the lead, but Montreal battled back in the fourth quarter to get a late TD from Alexander to WR Tyler Snead, and kicker Jose Maltos Diaz booted a late one to send it to the extra frame. However, after an Alouettes field goal on their opening OT possession, Cody Fajardo got the winning rush TD to put Edmonton up to 2-0 on the season for the first time since 2019.

PICK: Montreal

RESULT: Edmonton

Saskatchewan 40 vs. Calgary 37 (2OT): Not often we get two OT games in the same week, but the Riders won another thrilled to keep their perfect record going in this early season. Saskatchewan jumped out to a 10-0 lead early in the second quarter thanks to backup QB Tommy Stevens punching in a two-yard end zone scramble, but Calgary found life soon after from a strip sack by DL Clarence Hicks, which they turned into a TD of their own on the ensuing possession. Still, Saskatchewan was up 23-7 shortly before the half and looking like they were thoroughly in the drivers’ seat… And then Calgary had a 120-yard missed field goal return TD by Tyreik McAllister to cut the lead to 23-14. In the second half, the Stamps refused to fade away, chipping down the Roughriders’ lead bit by bit, with a late TD catch by Tevin Jones tying it for Calgary before sending it to the extra frame. In OT, each team kicked a field goal on their opening possession, but Sasaktchewan bested Calgary’s field goal in the second possession by driving down enough to send out Tommy Stevens to sneak it in again for the winning score.

PICK: Saskatchewan

RESULT: Saskatchewan

BYE: Winnipeg (1-1)

WEEK 4 PREVIEWS

Edmonton (2-0) vs. Winnipeg (1-1), Thursday, June 25th, 8:30 PM EDT (TSN, CFL+): The key to beating the Elks this year will be to shut down Justin Rankin. It’s early days yet this season, but it hasn’t happened yet. As the Bombers’ D is now old and decrepit compared to their perennial Grey Cup days from a few seasons prior, I have my doubts they’ll be able to do it as well. If the Alouettes – long considered to be one of the league’s top defences – couldn’t do it, don’t hold your breath about Winnipeg managing the same.

PICK: Edmonton

Toronto (1-1) vs. Saskatchewan (2-0), Friday, June 26th, 9:00 PM EDT (TSN, CFL+): Well, we know Sex Pest Chad Kelly can throw the ball – for better or for worse. The Argos need to stop turning over the ball, or they’re going to get absolutely smoked this week. The Roughriders, fresh off shutting down star QB Nathan Rourke, seem to have a defensive scheme that handles true dual-threat QBs extremely well – and while Kelly doesn’t run as much as Rourke, he also makes poorer decisions with the football leaving his hands.

PICK: Saskatchewan

Calgary (0-2) vs. BC (0-2), Saturday, June 27th, 7:00 PM EDT (TSN, CBSSN, CFL+): Two winless teams, both looking to get their year back on track after close losses. The Lions continue to have injury woes, most notably with receivers, and so may end up calling on Nathan Rourke and RB James Butler to carry the ball on the ground quite a bit in this one. The Stamps have a similar mindset offensively, and RB Dedrick Mills has done a lot of heavy lifting for the team in recent years. There’s a ton of parallels to draw between the structure of both squads, though Calgary is definitely the healthier side right now. And yet… something tells me that playing in Kelowna might do this BC team some good this week.

PICK: BC

Ottawa (0-2) vs. Montreal (2-1), Sunday, June 28th, 7:00 PM EDT (TSN, CBSSN, CFL+): It’s put up or shut up time for the REDBLACKS. If they drop to 0-3, you will see blood running in the streets. It’s incredibly perplexing to me that so much changed over the offseason, and yet so much has stayed the same – perhaps going on the road might do the team some good. We saw last week that the Alouettes are not invincible, and certainly not against the run – but they’ll have learned from last week’s loss and likely won’t give up too much on the ground moving forward. Unfortunately for Ottawa, RB Greg Bell hasn’t had a great start to the season, missing the first game due to neck stiffness and then not doing much with his touches in the second game. As such, don’t expect the REDBLACKS to run an offence similar to what we saw from the Elks – they don’t have the right guys to do it,  in my opinion.

PICK: Montreal

BYE: Hamilton (2-1)

STANDINGS AND STATS

East Division Standings

West Division Standings

Passing Yards

1. Alexander, MTL – 1133
2. Mitchell, HAM – 879
3. Kelly, TOR – 869

Passing TDs

1. Mitchell, HAM – 8
2. Kelly, TOR – 37
3. Alexander, MTL – 5

Rushing Yards

1. Rankin, EDM – 281
2. Rountree, HAM – 209
3. Oliveira, WPG– 145

Receiving Yards

1. Philpot, MTL – 389
2. Snead, MTL – 305
3. Mital, TOR – 287

Defensive Tackles

1. Cantin-Arku, MTL – 19
2. Hill, HAM – 19
3. Morgan, OTT – 17

Sacks

1. Ceresna, WPG – 3
2. Howsare, MTL – 2
3. Kendricks, Jr., HAM – 2

Interceptions

1. Kennedy III, WPG – 1
2. Morris-Brash, CGY – 1

Field Goals

1. Maltos Diaz, MTL – 11
2. Blanchard, EDM – 7
3. Lauther, OTT – 7

PICK POOL

We like a nice, tight pool race, don’t we, folks! Just two points separating first from eighth at this current juncture.

Remember to submit your picks here! https://www.officepooljunkie.com/picks-pickem.php?Pool=NFA9D4OXO6C2U0A1

CFL FANTASY

Well, a bunch of us finally got on the board with our first wins of the season last week!

Maestrottawa had a monster week, taking down Superfluous “U”s by a score of 157-89; Justin Rankin (39 points) and Kian Schaffer-Baker (33 points) were standouts in the winning lineup for me.

In the league’s second matchup, O Spamada took down Sacre Blew 108-90; these teams occupy the top spots in the league with matching 2-1 records, but it’s a tight race still in these early days.

Finally, RoughRougesGTD took down BC Dick’s Dead Horse with a score of 79-54; every single player in both lineups except for QB Cody Fajardo and WR Kevin Mital underperformed their projections. Some weeks, that’s just how things go…

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Enjoy the games, everyone.