The Hamilton Tiger-Cats allowed an 11-point lead to slip away on Saturday night, losing 27-14 to the Montreal Alouettes at Tim Hortons Field. Below are my thoughts on the game.
Second-half defensive debacle
It was a putrid second half for the Ticats’ defence as they surrendered 13 first downs, 24 points, including 18 in the fourth quarter, and 223 yards of net offence.
Austin Mack had another massive game as did William Stanback, but role players also got in on the fun such as Canadian Regis Cibasu scoring his first career touchdown on a 37-yard catch to ice the game.
The play that defined this defence’s effort in the second half was when the Alouettes went for two following their go-ahead touchdown, with Mack standing alone in the end zone for the easy pitch-and-catch. The receiver seemed to break more of a sweat jogging back to the Als’ bench than he did on the play.
That coverage was emblematic of Hamilton’s defensive issues. They play well enough for stretches but offer little resistance at critical times. It has been the defining characteristic of Mark Washington’s unit during his Hamilton tenure.
These issues were ignored when the team went 15-3 in his first year but since that time this defence has coughed up numerous leads late in games and Saturday was just another example of it.
Second-half offensive ineptitude
Hamilton’s offence does not escape criticism either, as they produced just one first down, scored only three points, and massed an unfathomable 40 yards of net offence over the last two quarters.
Tommy Condell earns a lot of scorn, some warranted and some not, but Saturday’s showing is one of the reasons he is so loathed amongst the Tiger-Cats faithful.
As a play-caller, one of Condell’s biggest weaknesses is his ability to adjust in-game. Montreal defensive coordinator Noel Thorpe saw what the Ticats were doing in the first half and took it away in the second. When that happened, Condell had no answers and the offence sputtered.
Coaching was not the only issue, however. Once again, the Tabbies suffered from a failure to execute simple plays. A screen pass to James Butler that could have gone for a long gain went for naught when Taylor Powell underthrew the ball and Butler could not haul it in. Powell also missed a couple of deep shots, with passes to Kai Locksley and Tim White standing out as potential big plays that fell incomplete.
The most egregious miss occurred near the end of the first quarter. Powell escaped a collapsing pocket and fired a dart into the chest of a streaking Kiondre Smith. Instead of the play connecting and setting the Ticats up inside Montreal’s 25, Smith let the ball bounce off his chest and fall to the turf. Instead of at least a field goal try, Hamilton punted two plays later.
When you are struggling to score, everyone needs to step their game up. From coaching on down to the players, no one on offence really did that on Saturday.
Undisciplined, thy name is Hamilton
While being the league’s most penalized team, the Tiger-Cats also have a knack for taking penalties at the worst possible times. It happened on numerous occasions on Saturday.
Brandon Kemp inexplicably took back-to-back procedure calls that halted what was a good Tiger-Cats’ drive. Two plays later, Taylor Powell tossed his first of two interceptions.
On the drive after Simoni Lawrence stripped Cody Fajardo, the Ticats were forced to settle for a field goal after Kendrick Sartor took a procedure penalty inside Montreal’s five-yard line. Hamilton was up 11-3 at the time and a major to make it 18-3 might have changed the outcome.
With the Ticats down just six, Anthony Federico took a roughing-the-punter flag when he came nowhere near blocking a punt. On the very next play, Fajardo hit Cibasu for the touchdown that sent many of those left in attendance heading towards the exits.
You have to live with some penalties but the ones the Tabbies routinely take at the most inopportune times are the types that will drive a coach nuts.
Powell’d down
Taylor Powell’s second start was a mixed bag that mostly produced poor results as he completed 65 percent of his passes for 202 yards and a pair of interceptions. In two starts, Powell has yet to throw a touchdown pass with his lone TD toss coming in his relief appearance against Edmonton.
Despite his struggles, I do believe the Tiger-Cats would be smart to ride with Powell for the remainder of Bo Levi Mitchell’s tenure on the six-game injured list. The team knows what they have in Matthew Shiltz and I think they would be better off in the long run by letting Powell play and finding out what they have in the Eastern Michigan alum.
Broken bookends
I think we have seen enough to know that Brandon Kemp and Kendrick Sartor are not CFL-calibre tackles. Kemp was routinely getting beat by Shawn Lemon and Sartor did not fare much better on the other side. Both are only playing due to injuries but when you are starting two Americans on the offensive line they need to be better than what we have seen from those two as of late.
Perhaps the line will get better when Joel Figueroa and Tyrone Riley return, hopefully following this upcoming bye week, but the longer the team has to rely on the Kemp-Sartor duo at tackle, the more this offence is going to struggle.
Lazin’ on a Saturday evening
Tim White was targeted just four times, catching two passes for 21 yards and at times looked completely disinterested out on the field.
One such play saw Taylor Powell escape the pocket and scramble to his right looking for an open receiver. Instead of attempting to get open or take his defender deep to clear out a path for Powell to run, White just stood there watching the play happen around him. I get that the game was out of reach at that point but the star receiver making big money should at least attempt to do something more than being an expensive spectator.
White started last season slow but we are near the midway point of this year and he has just a single 100-yard game to his name. That is not the type of production you expect out of your highest-paid pass catcher.
Challenge rebuked
One change the recent incarnation of the XFL got right was deciding to let the viewer in on what goes into ruling on a coach’s challenge.
Such a system would have been helpful on Saturday when what seemed like an obvious pass interference challenge by Orlondo Steinauer was unsuccessful.
It certainly looked like Terry Godwin was impeded from catching the ball by Kordell Rodgers, yet the call on the field stood. An argument was made by Duane Forde on the broadcast that perhaps it was simple hand fighting between two players that did not meet the standard of pass interference.
Instead of wondering, we could have been told if we had access to the command centre like XFL viewers did this season. While some people clamour for a rules expert on CFL broadcasts, adding a live feed into how a challenge is ruled on would be a much better use of resources.
All the good in one place
There were not a lot of great moments for the Tiger-Cats on Saturday, so I decided to bunch them up.
It was nice to see James Butler be so heavily involved. After a pair of poor outings, Butler had 17 touches for 112 total yards and scored the team’s only touchdown. The offence is better when Butler is more active.
Carthell Flowers-Lloyd continues to make his case as the league’s top special teams player. He added another four tackles on kick coverage and was the player who made the tackle on Chandler Worthy to secure the single point after Marc Liegghio missed his first field goal as a Tiger-Cat. He already has my team vote and I’m leaning towards the divisional nod as well.
Terry Godwin continued his recent run of strong play, catching six passes for a team-high 89 yards. Godwin is starting to emerge as Hamilton’s best receiver, which is both a tip of the cap to him and a condemnation of Tim White and Duke Williams.
Simoni Lawrence had a solid outing, leading the way with 11 defensive tackles and notching one of Hamilton’s two sacks on the night. His came via a strip sack of Cody Fajardo early in the third quarter that set the Ticats up deep in Montreal territory.
Chris Edwards was Hamilton’s best defender on Saturday. He finished with five tackles, two tackles for loss and picked up Hamilton’s other sack. He was flying around the field and did all he could to keep the Ticats in the game for as long as possible.
Richard Leonard snagged his second and third interceptions of the year. The team moved Leonard to field corner a few weeks ago in a secondary shuffle but he has been just as effective there as he was at field halfback and was stellar against the Als on Saturday night.
Series conceded
The Tiger-Cats have now lost the season series to the Alouettes, meaning they are in dire straits in their hopes of hosting a playoff game this year.
With the season series basically already lost to the Toronto Argonauts, that means the likelihood of non-Grey Cup playoff football being played in Hamilton is slim. Not the type of season the team thought they were in for when camp opened in May.
Up next
The Tiger-Cats will have time to lick their wounds as they are idle next week before returning to take on the Edmonton Elks on August 17.
While the Elks game is winnable, the road after is a treacherous one. Four of the following five come against the CFL’s elite with a road trip to B.C., a pair of matchups with the Argos and a home clash with the Blue Bombers awaiting. Sandwiched in there is a road trip to Ottawa on a short week. If they don’t get their act together quickly, Hamilton’s five losses could balloon to nine or 10 before we see the leaves change.
