On Saturday night, the Toronto Argonauts defeated the Montreal Alouettes 37-31 at BMO Field. They rushed for an astonishing 234 yards, threw for almost 300 more, and the defence played a strong game, yet Montreal was driving for the win in the final seconds.
Here are my thoughts on this crucial Argos win.
Truth and Reconciliation
As all CFL teams did this weekend, the Argonauts wore an Indigenous-designed reimagining of their logo and sported orange jerseys throughout their pregame warm-up to commemorate the National Day of Truth and Reconciliation. The Argos logo, designed by Anishnaabe artist and visual storyteller, Emily Kewageshig, from Saugeen First Nation No. 29, is stunningly beautiful, and chock full of meaningful symbolism representing past, present, and future generations of Indigenous peoples.
Multiple First Nations community groups attended the game and the crowd at BMO field was treated to halftime performances from a variety of talented Indigenous artists. They also received a moving welcome at the start of the game from Chief Claire Sault of the Mississaugas of the Credit.
This league-wide initiative to honour First Nations communities is truly a special part of the CFL season, and both the league and the Toronto Argonauts have improved every year in doing so.
A nice pair of work gloves
Quarterback Chad Kelly continues to play well as an important part of the offence without trying to put the team on his back. In rainy conditions, Kelly completed 19 of 30 passes for 287 yards with an interception.
My Xs and Argos cohost, JB, once referred to Chad Kelly and McLeod Bethel-Thompson as a sports car and a nice pair of work gloves respectively. There’s nothing bad at all about a nice pair of work gloves, but it’s much easier to get excited about a sports car — even if there’s a degree of risk involved. Over the last few games, we’ve seen some of those sports car flashes but for the most part, he’s played smart, safe, work-glove football.
On Saturday night, Kelly took what the defence gave him, firing passes to nine different receivers while stretching the field both horizontally and vertically. What impressed me the most though was his willingness to throw the ball away when nothing materialized instead of trying to force it into a narrow window. That’s something we haven’t seen the gunslinger do much in his almost season and a half as a starter.
His best pass of the day was a gorgeous 77-yard bomb to Makai Polk, where Kelly saw the safety set his feet, opening up the deep middle of the field for Polk’s skinny post. His one interception looks to me to have been a badly thrown ball. Initially, I thought there might have been a miscommunication between him and Dejon Brissett where he expected the Canadian receiver to break inside based on the coverage, but having now seen a replay, it looks instead like he simply overthrew Dave Ungerer III on a bang route. After that pick, Brissett and Kelly both sat with quarterbacks coach Mike Miller to go over the play together on a tablet, which is usually a sign there was a miscommunication.
The Committee
The Argos ran the ball 30 times against Montreal. That’s surprising in itself, even with the rainy, muddy conditions at BMO Field, but the most shocking part is that Ka’Deem Carey took fewer than half of those carries with 13 for 90 yards and a touchdown. With 966 yards, Carey is on pace to run for 1,159 yards, which would be his best season ever. He’s only surpassed 1,000 yards once in his career when he ran for 1,088 in 2022 with the Stampeders. He currently leads all running backs in rushing touchdowns and total touchdowns.
Head coach Ryan Dinwiddie may have elected to lighten Carey’s load in this game due to a calf injury he sustained last week, but he could look at continuing this trend going forward. Carey didn’t get the ball in the second half of last week’s game and was limited in practice leading up to this matchup. Against the Alouettes, Dan Adeboboye had eight carries for 39 yards, and Deonta McMahon took five handoffs for 67 yards and a touchdown. All three running backs have different approaches to rushing the football and keeping them all fresh appeared to pay dividends late in the game.
The commitment
Dinwiddie’s commitment to the running game over the past few weeks has been impressive. As a general rule, I’m not a fan of running the ball a lot in the CFL — I don’t believe it’s conducive to success in the three-down game. But when it’s something you do extremely well, it affords you strategic advantages.
I was highly critical of Dinwiddie a few weeks ago when the Argos gave Carey the ball only three times in the opening half and ran a total of eight times in that game. In the three games since then, Toronto has averaged 30 carries per game, scoring 33, 31, and 37 points in the process.
Argonaut Polklore
It’s possible that Makai Polk has become Toronto’s most dangerous receiver. Opposing defences are still paying more attention to Damonte Coxie and DaVaris Daniels, but Polk’s numbers over the past four weeks are among the CFL’s best. In that stretch, he’s brought in 20 receptions for 366 yards and two touchdowns. As teams start paying more attention to Toronto’s rookie sensation, more opportunities should open up for Coxie and Daniels.
The Argos’ ground game has contributed to Polk’s success as well. As a boundary slot receiver, he’s benefited from the extra space he’s been afforded to the inside, given opposing linebackers’ reluctance to fan out into coverage quickly as they keep their eyes in the backfield.
Better and better
The Argos’ last five games have been their five most successful of the season in terms of offensive yardage. After averaging 433 yards per game over their previous four outings, the Argonauts unloaded on the Alouettes with their highest output of the season with 517 yards of net offence. It’s not a coincidence that their increase in offensive production coincided with the return of quarterback Chad Kelly.
Sneaky D’s
I’ve been waiting for three years to title a paragraph after Sneaky Dee’s, one of my favourite Toronto haunts from my teen years. On Saturday night, Toronto’s D(ee) was sneaky good.
They only registered one sack, their only interception came on Montreal’s final offensive play, their fumble recovery was the result of a slippery ball on a fumbled snap, and the Alouettes scored 31 points, but the defence was actually good. Two of Montreal’s scores were due to offensive and special teams mistakes, the Toronto defence forced two turnovers on downs with great tight coverage, and they held the Alouettes to 288 net yards of offence.
Next men up
A week ago, Mark Milton was backing up at boundary halfback and Tunde Adeleke was backing up at safety. Due to two injuries, both were suddenly thrust into the starting lineup and were arguably the two best players on Toronto’s defence against Montreal.
Toronto’s starting strong-side linebacker, Quincy Mauger suffered what appeared to be a serious knee injury last week, forcing starting halfback Robert Priester to move to SAM and Milton stepping once again into the starting boundary halfback role. On Thursday, Priester appeared to suffer an injury at practice and was listed as a game-time decision. He was declared out during pregame warmup, with Tunde Adeleke taking his place, and rookie Tyshon Blackburn dressing as a backup safety in his place.
Adeleke and Milton were all over the field Saturday night. Milton led the team in tackles and had two knockdowns, both of which could have been used as teach-tape for defensive backs. Adeleke had a tackle for a loss and a knockdown, but more impressively, looked like a defensive captain out there, barking instructions to his teammates, getting defenders lined up correctly, and even appeared to be calling out Montreal’s plays pre-snap. On a night when huge plays were made by the unexpected contributors on Toronto’s defence, it was fitting that their final play was an interception by Blackburn with Cody Fajardo going after Milton.
Worth noting
If you watched the game on TV, you probably didn’t notice this, and you may not have if you were in the stands either, but the Argos had two busts in coverage down the sideline — both of which would have resulted in touchdowns had Cody Fajardo noticed. On both occasions, there appeared to me to be a mix-up in communication, with Toronto corners believing they had help overtop when they didn’t. Busts have been a problem at times for the Argos this season, and though it didn’t cost them on this night, it needs to be monitored going forward.
Kicked into the history books
I don’t talk a lot about field goals in this column because they don’t usually require much thought or analysis, but they certainly deserve mentioning when something historic happens.
Against the Alouettes, Lirim Hajrullahu hit all eight of his field goal attempts, setting a new Argos record. Justin Medlock and Lance Chomyc had both hit seven previously, Chomyc doing it twice, and it was fitting that Lance was in attendance for this game to see his shared record broken.
Hajrullahu is no stranger to breaking records. He currently holds the record for most made field goals in Western Mustangs history with 77.
…and down the stretch they come!
With Ottawa’s loss to Saskatchewan on Saturday afternoon, the Montreal Alouettes clinched first place in the East Division, but there are still questions to be answered in the East. Hamilton’s win over B.C. on Friday night brought them briefly to within two points of the Argonauts, but Toronto’s win over Montreal pushed the gap back to four points. It also brought the Argos to within a point of the second-place Ottawa Redblacks.
With three games remaining, it’s looking more and more likely that Toronto’s last home game on October 19 against the Redblacks will decide which team finishes second in the division and hosts the third-place team in the first round of the playoffs.
The cheap seats
Due to a programming conflict with the Toronto Maple Leafs radio broadcast, there was no Argos home radio broadcast for this game, but that gave my play-by-play partner Mike Hogan and me a chance to venture down into the stands for the first time in years. We secured a pair of seats behind the Toronto bench and probably drove fans sitting around us to the beer concessions en masse with our incessant yapping and analysis.
In truth, it was a wonderful experience to be part of the action in the crowd and we had a great time with the fans around us. I’ll vouch for the passion of Argos fans, who have to be considered the loudest and most enthusiastic per capita in the CFL.
Not so sweet
For the first time in recent memory, Sweet Caroline didn’t play at BMO Field. This classic generally comes on in the fourth quarter, and while I’m personally fine with it never playing again, fans definitely love singing those “ba ba ba’s.” Have the days of Niel Diamond’s best-known tune come and gone, or was this an oversight?
Next up
The Toronto Argonauts (8-7) head into their third and final bye week of the season. Their next game is against the Winnipeg Blue Bombers (9-6) on Friday, October 11 at 8:30 pm EDT.
