Argos’ fourth quarter collapse might not be a bad thing (& 12 other thoughts on Toronto’s win over Ottawa)

Photo courtesy: Andrew Lahodynskyj/CFL.ca

On Saturday afternoon, the Toronto Argonauts secured second place in the East Division with a 38-31 win over the Ottawa Redblacks. The win guarantees Toronto a home playoff game against these same Redblacks in two weeks’ time.

Here are my thoughts on the game.

Three-quarters of a game

There were two entirely different games played at BMO Field on Saturday afternoon – a 45-minute game with the Argonauts winning 38-6, and a 15-minute game (the fourth quarter) that the Redblacks won 25-0. It never felt at any point that the Argos were going to lose, but it’s still stunning that Ottawa was able to put themselves in a position to drive for the game-tying touchdown in the final minute of play.

In the first three quarters, the Argos played as well as they have all season, putting up 38 points. Chad Kelly completed 20-of-25 passes for 329 yards and three touchdowns, with 25 rushing yards and a touchdown on the ground. The Argos rushed for 100 yards as a team, with Ka’Deem Carey also scoring a major. Defensively, Toronto held Ottawa to 148 yards passing and a mere seven first downs.

In the fourth quarter, due to a fumbled kickoff return and two recovered onside kicks, the Argonauts ran only eight offensive plays resulting in 19 total yards. Chad Kelly completed his only pass attempt for two yards. The Redblacks, meanwhile, ran 26 offensive plays, almost equaling the number of plays they’d run through the first three quarters, and put up 25 points in the process. Ottawa quarterback, Dru Brown, threw for 252 fourth-quarter yards with three touchdowns.

The pie of blame

So, who is to blame for Toronto’s fourth-quarter meltdown? I don’t really see it like that.

If you’re set on blaming a unit, then you’d obviously point the finger at special teams with Janarion Grant fumbling a kickoff return and the team failing to recover back-to-back onside kicks. But Toronto’s special teams play is a strength, and the players on this unit make far more big plays than they do mistakes.

It sounds like a cop-out, but this was a perfect storm of unfortunate events for the Argos, one of those quarters you may never see again in your life. In fact, it wasn’t even a quarter, it was really the final three minutes where everything went bananas. When the three-minute warning hit, Toronto was still up by 26 points.

Think about that. Ottawa not only needed to score quickly on high-risk plays, they needed to recover two straight onside kicks. I’ve never seen that happen before in my life. Do you know why? Because teams rarely ever attempt two straight onside kicks, and there’s only a 0.27 percent chance of them recovering both. To put it another way, if a CFL team attempted back-to-back onside kicks every single game they played, the odds are they’d achieve this feat once every 20 seasons. If a team only attempted back-to-back onside kicks once a season, you’d see them recover both once every 370 years.

Even with those miraculous recoveries, to tie the game, Ottawa still needed a 98-yard touchdown drive in 29 seconds with no timeouts.

Was the offence conservative in the fourth quarter? Sure, but with only eight plays, they barely had time to be anything. Don’t forget, this is an offence that ran a flea-flicker up 28-0, so their conservative play didn’t come until late. Plus, with a huge lead like they had, keeping the clock running worked because Ottawa ultimately ran out of time.

Should the defence have come up with a stop late in the fourth quarter? Yes, but they did force two fourth-quarter turnovers, and those late touchdown drives were against a prevent defence with Toronto knowing time was on their side.

It’s a good thing

As a coach, I actually think Ottawa almost coming back in this game is a good thing for Toronto. Nothing good comes from blowing out an opponent two weeks before you face them in the playoffs and I’ve been on both sides of it.

Given how this game ended, there’s no chance now that the Argos take the Redblacks lightly when they next meet. There’s no chance of them looking ahead to Montreal. Instead, there are dozens of teaching moments in 15 minutes of excellent film for coaches to work with. If an absurd few minutes of chaotic football were to happen at any given time, leading by 32 points in a regular season game is exactly when you’d want it to occur.

Broadcast jinx

I don’t believe in jinxes like play-by-play announcers talking about no-hitters or how many consecutive field goals someone has hit but if you do, then you may want to blame me for Toronto’s collapse.

Up by 32 points at the start of the fourth quarter, my broadcast partner, Mike Hogan, asked me on air if he could “announce it.” What he meant by “it” was that tickets for the East Division semi-final were on sale and available for purchase on the team’s website. I said yes and that the game was over for all intents and purposes. There was no way Toronto would go on to lose this game.

And they didn’t, so I don’t believe in jinxes.

A slight rally for the exchange

The last time these teams met, the Toronto Sack Exchange failed to register a single sack, something that has only happened on one other occasion this season –- a Week 9 loss to the Calgary Stampeders.

While this may not have been the seven-sack performance we saw from the Boatmen last week in Winnipeg, Ottawa quarterback Dru Brown was under pressure all afternoon. The Argos registered three sacks, and Ralph Holley had a forced fumble that Wynton McManis recovered.

Taking hits

Chad Kelly is a difficult quarterback to sack. He’s had the benefit of playing behind a great offensive line throughout his season and a half as a starter, but he’s also shown an elite ability to sense pressure and either escape the pocket or get the ball off before it collapses.

Last season he was sacked the fewest number of times among starting quarterbacks, and this season, he’s been sacked two or fewer times in every game except one –- Toronto’s Week 14 loss to the Ottawa Redblacks where he was taken down six times.

On Saturday afternoon, he was sacked just once but took an alarming number of hits. He was tackled nine times and knocked to the ground six times, including once where he was clubbed in the face and got up holding his nose. In an effort to protect his quarterback, head coach Ryan Dinwiddie pulled him late in the fourth quarter in favour of Cameron Dukes but was forced to put Kelly back in for Toronto’s last drive because Ottawa had closed the gap.

Sevens for 70

Lirim Hajrullahu has been very quiet since hitting all eight of his field goal attempts a few weeks ago against Montreal. He hit both attempts last week as well as his only attempt on Saturday. Hajrullahu has 52 field goals on the year, three short of Lance Chomyc’s team record of 55 which he set back in 1991. He’s hit 37 of his last 39 field goals, and of those two misses, one went off the upright and the other was for a game-winning rouge against Saskatchewan when the priority was getting the ball out the back of the end zone.

As I always do before the game, I was watching Hajrullahu kick field goals to check his range. After watching him hit from midfield, I looked away for a minute and when I looked back, I saw him lying on the field, presumably from having lost his footing. He immediately got up and jogged over to his equipment bag and changed shoes on his plant foot. Mike Hogan went down to see what that was about and he told Mike the middle of the field was slippery and he had switched to the seven-studs he wore in Toronto’s win over Montreal. I can’t help but wonder if Ottawa’s Lewis Ward had issues with his footing, missing a 43-yard field goal.

Carrying the rock

With 55 yards on the ground, Ka’Deem Carey climbed to seventh all-time in Argos rushing yards in a season with 1060, passing former running backs Brandon Whitaker, Jamal Robertson, Michael Jenkins, and Doyle Orange in the process. Carey leads all running backs in touchdowns with seven, despite having 40 fewer carries than William Stanback and 37 fewer than Brady Oliviera.

Canadian line

Right tackle Dejon Allen came out of the game with just under six minutes remaining in the first quarter. Nothing in particular stood out about his last play. Allen stayed in uniform until the end of the game but never returned. In his postgame press conference, Ryan Dinwiddie called Allen’s injury a stinger, which is a common nerve injury in and around the shoulder. While often highly painful, stingers don’t generally keep players out long terms, and Dinwiddie didn’t appear to be concerned.

With left tackle Isiah Cage on the six-game injured list and Landon Rice replacing Allen, Toronto’s line featured five Canadians. With Ryan Hunter playing as well as he has at left tackle and capable players like veteran Landon Rice and rookie Sage Doxtater on the roster, I wonder if Toronto is strongly considering entering next season with four Canadian offensive linemen as starters.

Brinks guard

Up until Isiah Cage’s injury a few weeks ago, Toronto had been dressing seven offensive linemen. When Cage went down, six became the new norm, something most teams around the league had already been doing all season. The problem with only dressing six offensive linemen is that if one goes down, one of your defensive linemen needs to prepare to go in should there be another injury.

After Allen’s injury, a small team of men helped get defensive tackle Jared Brinkman into a number 69 jersey so that he could go in and play guard if need be. He was never needed in that capacity, but given how hard it is to get a big man in and out of a tight-fitting jersey, he stayed in his number 69 for the remainder of the game. Incidentally, Tyson Hergott would have thrown on a number 68 jersey should there have been another injury.

Best on best

The Argonauts haven’t had the most consistent season. They’ve secured second place in the East Division and won some tough games, but they’ve also lost three times to Hamilton and once to Calgary.

What is impressive is how well they’ve played against the better teams in the CFL. The Argos have won seven of their last eight games against playoff teams. They’ve also swept B.C. and Winnipeg, and have two wins against Montreal. For whatever reason, the Argos seem to play their best against the best, a trend that should work well for them in the playoffs.

Loud noises

On Saturday, the Argos welcomed 20,487 fans, which was their second-biggest regular season crowd since they made the move to BMO Field in 2016. The biggest crowd to see the Argos at BMO Field was their first-ever game in their new stadium, when 24,812 just about packed the house.

For this game against Ottawa, the upper deck on the east side of the stadium was open for the first time in a regular season game since the pandemic. The last time that deck was open was for last year’s East Final, which was played in front of 26,620 fans.

Career highs

After being held to a single catch for six yards last week in Winnipeg, Damonte Coxie hauled in all five of his targets for 80 yards — all of which went for first downs. Coxie now has 827 yards on the season, which is a new career high.

Robbie Smith tallied one of Toronto’s three sacks on the afternoon, giving him six, which ties a career-high.

Jack Cassar’s three special teams tackles gave him a career-high of 22 on the season, which leads the CFL. Cassar also alertly batted a ball out of bounds after Janarion Grant fumbled a return in the second quarter.

Tarvarus McFadden’s three tackles put him over the 100-mark for his career. McFadden also came up with one of the prettiest interceptions of the season when he stole the ball out of Nick Mardner’s hands deep in Toronto territory.

Royce Metchie’s two tackles put him over 300 for his career.

Next Up

The Toronto Argonauts (10-7) travel to Edmonton to take on the Elks (6-11) on Friday, October 25 at 9:30 pm EDT. This game is without playoff implications for either team, so Toronto will likely use this opportunity to rest a few key players while welcoming others back from injury and giving them a chance to get their legs under them before the Argos host Ottawa in the East Division semi-final on Saturday, November 3:00 pm EDT.

Ryan Dinwiddie didn’t want to commit to saying who might be resting next week given how difficult these situations can sometimes be in terms of the salary cap, but it’s likely he’s considering resting Chad Kelly, Ka’Deem Carey, Dejon Allen, and Wynton McManis, as well as a number of other players.

Ben Grant
Ben Grant has been the radio colour analyst for the Toronto Argonauts since 2023 on TSN 1050 (Toronto). He coached high school football at Lorne Park Secondary School 2003-2018 and semi-pro football for the Northern Football Conference's GTA All-Stars 2018-2023.