CFL Beat: Week 18

With four weeks left in the regular season, there’s still a final playoff spot up for grabs. Will it be the Saskatchewan Roughriders? Probably. Will it be the Stampeders or Elks? Almost definitely not. Will it be the Ottawa REDBLACKS making history and earning the CFL’s first-ever East to West crossover playoff spot in history? When pigs fly. But boy, there sure are a lot of bad teams duking it out for that third seed in the West.

In league news this week:

• Longtime Saskatchewan Roughrider and legendary running back George Reed died on the weekend at the age of 83. One of the greatest CFL players of all time, Reed spent his entire career from 1963-1975 with the Roughriders, and retired as the league’s all-time rushing yards leader (held until 2004, when he was passed by Mike Pringle) and rushing TDs leader (a record he still owns today). To say that Reed was a beloved figure in his adopted province of Regina is an understatement – he overcame the hurdles of moving from rural Mississippi to a great college career at Washington State, and in permanently adopting Canada as his new nation, earned himself an Order of Canada in 1978 – the highest civilian award available in this nation. He also was inducted into the Canadian Football Hall of Fame in 1979 the minute he became eligible for the award.
• The CFL announced that Green Day will be the halftime show at the Grey Cup this year. 12-year-old me is stoked. 30-something me doesn’t quite know how to feel about this just yet. I’m just a Canadian Idiot, though.
• The Toronto Argonauts celebrated their 150th anniversary yesterday at City Hall, where the team flew their flag for all to see. Cool to see – the Argos are the oldest professional sports franchise using the same nickname in all of North America, and their October 4th, 1873 founding makes them 25 years older than the NFL’s Arizona Cardinals.
• Former Argos WR Chad Owens, the CFL’s all-time single-season all-purpose yards record holder, will sign a one-day contract and officially retire with Toronto. Owens played with the Argos from 2010-2015, and had his best season in 2012, when won a Grey Cup and a Most Outstanding Player award and set a new single-season all-purpose yards record with 3863 total yards.

Onto the games!

WEEK 17 RECAPS

Toronto 21 vs. Winnipeg 31: The Bombers handed Toronto just their second loss of the season, but the Argos’ second-stringers put in an admirable showing in a tough contest that should prepare them well for postseason action. With head coach Ryan Dinwiddie electing to rest star QB Chad Kelly against a strong Winnipeg D due to already having the division title locked up, it still took until extremely late in the fourth quarter for Winnipeg to take the lead for the first time in the contest and ultimately win the game. RB Brady Oliveira had another excellent game for the Bombers with 169 rush yards and a TD, while backup QB Cameron Dukes led the way for Toronto with 211 pass yards and a score.

PICK: Winnipeg

RESULT: Winnipeg

Saskatchewan 26 vs. BC 33: Talk about a game of passing yards. Vernon Adams, Jr. set the 2023 season high for QBs with 458 yards and three TDs, while WR Keon Hatcher also had a huge night, with ten grabs for 172 yards and two scores to give the Lions the win and also ensure they’ll host at least one playoff game this season. Saskatchewan scored two late TDs to help make the score look a little more respectable, but Jake Dolegala, despite throwing for over 400 yards himself, couldn’t find the endzone at all and tossed two picks on the night to boot. The Riders are struggling, but may still find themselves in the playoffs thanks to a war of attrition with the other crappy teams that sit below them still in the standings.

PICK: BC

RESULT: BC

Montreal 32 vs. Ottawa 15: Ottawa’s a bad team, that’s had some bad luck over the course of the year. They should be better than their record indicates. They’ve lost a series of incredibly close games since Bob Dyce took over as head coach. However, for this one, the score doesn’t really indicated just how truly one-sided this game was for almost all of it; the Alouettes had the run of the show in a completely listless showing for the REDBLACKS in what should have been a do-or-die situation. Montreal roared to a 22-0 lead by the early third quarter, with Dustin Crum throwing a disastrous pick-six that DB Marc-Antoine Dequoy took 109 yards to the house to score for Montreal. This game also featured one of the craziest CFL rules in action: a one-yard onside punt by RB Jeshrun Antwi. Since he punted behind the line of scrimmage and was the first person to pounce on the ball after it crossed the line of scrimmage, the downs re-set and Montreal maintained possession. It’s crazy. Seriously, check this out:

PICK: Montreal

RESULT: Montreal

Calgary 15 vs. Hamilton 22: The Tiger-Cats were down early but battled back to win at home and clinch a playoff spot in a game that saw QB Matthew Shiltz finally make his return to the field after spending time on the six-game injured list. The Stamps’ offence sputtered once again, with Jake Maier failing to throw a touchdown to any of his receivers; luckily for Calgary, thanks to Rene Paredes, the league’s top kicker year in and year out, they managed to somehow hang around in this one despite the Tabbies rattling off 16 unanswered points in the second quarter. Calgary’s playoff hopes now dangle by an absolute thread, much as they do in Edmonton and Ottawa.

PICK: Hamilton

RESULT: Hamilton

BYE: Edmonton (4-11)

WEEK 18 PREVIEWS

Edmonton (4-11) vs. Toronto (12-2), Friday, October 6th, 7:00 PM EDT (TSN, CBSSN, CFL+): After a brief vacation last week, Chad Kelly will return to the lineup to ensure he stays sharp ahead of the East Final in just over a month from now. The Elks have made significant strides since the start of the season but of course remain an incredibly flawed team – they’re still, miraculously in the playoff hunt, but they’ll need to win, at the very least, two of their final three games, while also seeing Saskatchewan lose out. At least they’re much more fun to watch than a couple of months ago. Toronto continues to have the strongest D in the league – and an especially suited front seven to stopping the run – so Tre Ford, as shifty as he is when leaving the pocket, is not going to have a lot of lanes open for him.

PICK: Toronto

Winnipeg (11-4) vs. BC (11-4), Friday, October 6th, 10:00 PM EDT (TSN, CFL+): This is a humungous game and may likely be the difference maker in who wins the division. The Lions spanked the Bombers in their first meeting of the year at IG Field, while the Bombers responded by hanging a 50-burger on BC back in early August. This rubber match is for pretty well all the marbles; Winnipeg’s just 2-2 in their last four weeks, while BC’s won four straight. My own personal pick aside, this is gearing up to be a spectacularly entertaining matchup between the two clear Western favourites. That first-round bye is an incredibly important prize on the road to the Grey Cup.

PICK: BC

Hamilton (7-8) vs. Saskatchewan (6-9), Saturday, October 7th, 7:00 PM EDT (TSN, CBSSN, CFL+): The Ti-Cats have Matt Shiltz back in the lineup, and Bo Levi Mitchell is also back at practise after having broken his ankle back in early August. He’s not quite ready to go just yet, but his return is a great sign for a team that’s getting healthy at exactly the right time. The Tiger-Cats have clinched a playoff spot for the ninth season in a row, even with their rocky start to the year – this sure has been a recurring trend for them as of recent, so I guess in reflection, I’m not sure why all the pundits, myself included, were so worried at the start of the season. Still, to get by Montreal, let alone the Argos, in the postseason will be a big task. They’ll have to just simply focus on this current week’s opponent, and how fortunate for fans clamouring for a hometown Grey Cup appearance that Saskatchewan is imploding at an opportune time. That defence couldn’t stop a fart right now.

PICK: Hamilton

Ottawa (4-11) vs. Montreal (8-7), Monday, October 9th, 1:00 PM EDT (TSN, CFL+): With any combination of Ottawa loss and Saskatchewan win, the REDBLACKS are done. The only way to the playoffs now is a miraculous East to West crossover bid, which has never been done in the history of the league since the rule was introduced in 1996. Last week was arguably the REDBLACKS’ worst game of the year, and another lost season should prompt a ton of soul-searching from the organization about where it all went wrong. It’s true that losing a starting QB two seasons in a row hurts, no question, but good teams are resilient and can rebound from that. The REDBLACKS’ win totals over the last four seasons are, respectively, 3, 3, 4, and 4. That’s not good enough. Going into Montreal, who want to stay ahead of Hamilton and maintain that East semifinal host duty, just need to play another smart game like they did last week. At home, that’s also looking extremely possible right now.

PICK: Montreal

BYE: Calgary (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. Adams, Jr., BC – 4005
2. Maier, CGY – 3820
3. Collaros, WPG – 3738

Passing TDs

1. Collaros, WPG – 30
2. Adams, Jr., BC – 28
3. Kelly, TOR – 21

Rushing Yards

1. Oliveira, WPG – 1359
2. Brown, EDM – 1022
3. Butler, HAM – 942

Receiving Yards

1. Schoen, WPG – 1136
2. Hatcher, BC – 1103
3. Mack, MTL – 1057

Defensive Tackles

1. Awe, CGY – 107
2. Pickett, TOR – 103
3. Morgan, EDM – 98

Sacks

1. Betts, BC – 15
2. Carter, OTT – 11
3. Leonard, EDM – 10

Interceptions

1. Houston, WPG – 7
2. Dequoy, MTL – 5
3. Marshall, SSK – 4

Field Goals

1. Paredes, CGY – 47
2. Whyte, BC – 41
3. Cote, MTL – 37

PICK POOL

Whole bunch of perfect weeks out there. Time’s running out to gain any ground on BC Dick, who’s still got a five-point lead on the rest of the field. Might have to break into his house and destroy his phone and laptop to pull off the upset.

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Enjoy the games, everyone.