The Toronto Argonauts took care of business in their final regular season home game of 2023, defeating the Ottawa Redblacks 40-27 at BMO Field on Saturday night.
Here are my thoughts on the game.
Home sweet home
With Saturday’s win over Ottawa, the Argos are a perfect 9-0 at home this season for the first time since 1997.
Over the past three seasons, the Argonauts have enjoyed a demonstrable home-field advantage with a 20-5 record. That does include two “home” wins in Atlantic Canada, but it also includes two meaningless end-of-season losses against Edmonton in 2021 and Montreal in 2022 when most of Toronto’s starters were resting. Obviously, they’ve been a good football team in general during this span, finishing first in the East Division all three years, but their road record is 14-9 as a point of comparison.
Record-setting day for the Toronto Sack Exchange
The Argonauts tied a club record for sacks in a game on Saturday with nine. Robbie Smith and Jared Brinkman each had two sacks, while Jonathan Jones, Thomas Costigan, Wynton McManis, Brandon Barlow, and Benoit Marion each added one.
The Argos lead the league in sacks with 63, which sets a new franchise record for pass rush production. On the flip side, they also lead the league with the fewest sacks allowed at 15 — three fewer than the franchise record set in 1996.
The CFL record for sack differential is +47, set by the Hamilton Tiger-Cats back in 1998. At +48, the Argos are currently on pace to break it but need to maintain their trench dominance over the last two games to officially set a new mark.
A scoop of Vanilla with sprinkles
Since clinching the East Division four weeks ago, the Argos have managed to show very little to future playoff opponents on either side of the ball, while still amassing a 3-1 record.
Against Ottawa, that trend continued offensively. There were a few new wrinkles in terms of plays and formation combinations I hadn’t seen yet this season, but nothing that would have had opposing coordinators madly scribbling notes. Defensively, recently extended defensive coordinator Corey Mace called a vanilla first half but opened up the playbook once Toronto fell behind on the scoreboard. They were still running base coverages on the back end but it was a different story up front, with Mace unleashing a variety of blitzes and line stunts with great success.
Explosive run run runs dry
Going into this weekend, Toronto’s defence had yet to give up an explosive run of 20 or more yards all season. Ottawa’s Devonte Williams did it twice in the second half, notching runs of 22 and 25 yards.
Williams was one of the few bright spots for Ottawa’s offence in the second half, finishing the day with 125 yards on 16 carries with a touchdown.
The Leakeshore Express
Javon Leake had one of his worst nights of the season returning punts, but his 12 yards on four returns were enough to give him the Argos’ single-season record for punt return yardage, surpassing his general manager, Michael Pinball Clemons.
Leake came into the game needing just two yards to tie Clemons and surpassed that on his first return. As with many individual records in football, this one is a reflection of both Toronto’s strong defence, which has forced so many punts for Leake to return, and effective special teams blocking, which has improved significantly over the past two seasons under the tutelage of special teams coordinator Mickey Donovan.
Six field goals in the Six
Boris Bede is quietly having one of the best seasons for a specialist in recent memory. With six successful field goals, including one from 53 yards out, Bede has now hit on 35 of 37 attempts this season. His 94.6 completion percentage leads the CFL.
What makes this season so special is that he’s also leading the CFL in yards per punt and yards per kickoff. Bede took over the punting duties for Toronto in Week 12 when John Haggerty suffered a knee injury. Haggerty stands second in the CFL behind Bede in yards per punt. Bede is the CFL’s all-time leader in kickoff average.
Kelly gets it done
Chad Kelly was quietly efficient against Ottawa completing 18 of 28 passes for 287 yards and a touchdown. He also added 45 yards on the ground on five carries.
With a 14-2 career record as a starter for the Argonauts, Chad Kelly is off to the best start in Argos history. Doug Flutie won 13 of his first 16 games in 1996.
No A.J. no problem
A.J. Ouellette got banged up a bit last week but, like many Argos who were given the night off, would have played if this were a meaningful game. With Andrew Harris also working his way back to health, Dan Adeboboye took the lead role in the backfield, supported by Deonta McMahon.
Adeboboye ran hard and decisively, logging 59 yards on nine carries for a 6.6 yards-per-carry average, almost a full yard-per-carry better than Ouellette’s season average. McMahon provided a change of pace with five carries for 19 yards and a touchdown.
Ouellette is clearly the lead horse in this backfield, but it must be comforting for the Toronto coaching staff to know there are options behind him on the depth chart.
Daniels sees Red(blacks)
The Ottawa Redblacks must have been a sight for sore eyes for DaVaris Daniels, who only registered two receptions over Toronto’s past two games. The receiver lit up the Redblacks in their first matchup earlier this season and scorched them once again this weekend.
In two games against Ottawa, Daniels has 12 catches on 15 targets for 321 yards and four touchdowns. The Argos opened the game with a deep ball on a double move that just went off his fingertips, so it could have been worse for Ottawa. Daniels’ 925 receiving yards is a new career high, surpassing his 885-yard rookie season in 2016, for which he was voted the CFL’s Most Outstanding Rookie.
Diet Coxie
Damonte Coxie hasn’t exactly been invisible over the past few games, but he hasn’t had a strong outing since the Argos clinched first place in the East against Montreal in Week 15.
Over his last four games, Coxie is averaging one-and-a-half receptions per game for 34.3 yards, far below the expectations for an outside boundary receiver. Matched up with Money Hunter for most of this game, Coxie drew only two targets from Chad Kelly on Saturday and didn’t really have a shot at either ball. He did manage to get wide open on a double move in the third quarter that could have been a touchdown, but Kelly hit Ungerer, his first read, for a 22-yard gain instead.
Coach Dinwiddie will likely look to get Coxie more involved over the final two weeks of the regular season, as he did with DaVaris Daniels against Ottawa.
Still a challenge
Head coach Ryan Dinwiddie has still not won a challenge this season after winning only two of 14 last season. His lost challenge in this game came when he looked to erase a sack on Chad Kelly due to a facemask. The replay appeared to show Kelly’s mask being grabbed, but the challenge was ruled unsuccessful.
I don’t know if I’ve ever seen Dinwiddie more enraged on the sideline. After the game, he still appeared bothered by the officiating, but knew not to talk about it, simply saying, “I don’t want to get fined.”
Rest rotation
As Ryan Dinwiddie continues to cycle players through rest days, the question remains as to what he’ll do with Chad Kelly over the final two games. The original plan seemed to have been to rest Kelly for one of the final two games, as he did in Winnipeg two weeks ago, but Dinwiddie was non-committal on this issue in his postgame media conference.
“I’m looking to treat them like preseason games, potentially all three quarterbacks playing, but Chad’s got to continue to play. We’ve got to get him going. He’s still a young kid, playing good football, but I also want to make sure he’s not rusty going into the playoffs.”
Up next
The Toronto Argonauts (14-2) travel to Regina to take on the Saskatchewan Roughriders (6-11) on Saturday. A victory for Toronto would tie a franchise record for wins in a season set in both 1996 and 1997 with Doug Flutie at quarterback. They still have a shot at tying the CFL record of 16-2 set by Edmonton in 1989.
