As the only East teams not headed to the playoffs, the Toronto Argonauts and Ottawa Redblacks have been using the past couple of weeks and once more again today to assess the talent they do have to help determine who may – or may not be – part of their future moving forward.
The Argos improve to 4-13 — three of those victories have come against the Redblacks by a combined score of 113-47. Toronto sweeps the season series 3-0.
The biggest name getting some looks as Toronto cruised to a 39-9 win was national quarterback Michael O’Connor. He was picked in the third round, 20th overall by the Argos in the 2018 CFL draft. The Orleans, Ontario native put together a wonderful USports career at the University of British Columbia, winning the Vanier Cup in 2015 and has been touted as a legitimate future starter.
He put up video game numbers at UBC, completing 773 out of 1,197 attempts for 9,990 yards, 61 touchdowns and 22 interceptions in four seasons.
Out he came on the final play of the third, where he immediately connected with Armanti Edwards for 31 yards, the receiver had 126 of them in the game. Then, on his fourth straight completion he secured his first career touchdown pass, an 11-yard strike to Rodney Smith.
???????? First career TD for Michael O'Connor (@TheTrueQB)! ????????#CFLGameday | @TorontoArgos pic.twitter.com/ZGlz5H81Pq
— CFL (@CFL) October 26, 2019
O’Connor finished 5-of-9 for 61 yards and the touchdown in his quarter of play.
Before he came in however, some other players took care of business. McLeod Bethel-Thompson tossed for 198 yards and a couple touchdowns in his half of football, leading his Argonauts to a 15-8 score at the break. Those yards put him over 4,000 on the year, an impressive feat on a four-win team.
One of his passes went to S.J. Green who surpassed 1,000 receiving yards for the third straight year and sixth time in his long career.
Both Bethel-Thompson touchdowns came through the air. First to Edwards for 33 yards and then Chandler Worthy in their first drive after Ottawa’s touchdown. Worthy played just his third game this year, he played a week ago and made his debut in Week 7.
Easy as you like. #PullTogether pic.twitter.com/adbEOkc8F8
— Toronto Argonauts (@TorontoArgos) October 26, 2019
In the third Dakota Prukop, now in his third year with the Argonauts, took the field. His last regular season action came in Week 7 against the Eskimos, where he threw two interceptions on 8-of-13 tosses and 68 passing yards.
He fared quite better Saturday with a couple of touchdown drives as the lead stretched to 29-8.
On the Redblacks side of the ball, their punter Richie Leone was busy. He had 10 punts in this one as Ottawa’s offence continued to sputter with Wild Ardnt behind centre for the third straight week. He was sacked four times and threw for 194 yards on 21-of-32 completions and a touchdown.
Ottawa put up 261 net offensive yards to the Argos 450.
The Redblacks close the chapter on an abysmal 2019 season with lots of issues to address in the off-season against Montreal next week while the Argonauts do the same against Hamilton.
