10 thoughts on the Ottawa Redblacks opening their 2025 preseason with a win

By
Santino Filoso
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Photo courtesy: Gary Lavoie/Montreal Alouettes

For the first time since last November, the Ottawa Redblacks took the field to play a football game. While the outcome didn’t count for anything in the standings, the events that led to the result — a 23-7 victory over the Montreal Alouettes — meant plenty for the 75+ men vying for a spot on the roster.

Here are all my thoughts on Ottawa’s win in Montreal.

1) With Dru Brown firmly entrenched as the team’s starter, what R-Nation had hoped to see was an offence in rhythm. Unfortunately, that was not quite the case.

Brown didn’t play poorly per se, but given the fact that he was under centre for nearly the entire first half and had six possessions to work with, coming away with just two field goals was far from ideal. Brown finished by completing 56 percent of his passes for 65 yards, with no touchdowns or interceptions. Preseason performances should always be taken with a grain of salt — after all, it’s literally THE time to work out kinks and timing issues — but it was far from a polished performance.

As for the other quarterbacks, veteran Matthew Shiltz was given five possessions to work with in the second and third quarters. He completed 73 percent of his passes for 72 yards, also with no touchdowns or interceptions. The 32-year-old was a steady presence and used his legs well to avoid pressure when the pocket collapsed.

Third-year pro Dustin Crum came in during the third quarter and proceeded to throw the only passing touchdown of the game, a 14-yard strike to Sam Schnee. Crum went two-and-out on the only other possession he was given. He finished the game by completing 80 percent of his passes for 22 yards and a touchdown.

Finally, fourth-year pro Tyrie Adams was given the game’s final possession, and he completed one of the two passes he attempted for six yards.

Given that nobody was overly impressive, it’s likely that the battle for the backup position comes down to the team’s final preseason game next Friday at TD Place in Ottawa.

2) In the preseason, offensive coordinators keep things as vanilla as possible. It’s not worth diving too deep into the offensive stats, especially when you consider that in addition to trying to avoid tipping their hands, play-callers are working with a wide and rotating cast of characters on the field. Yet with all that said, some things are worth mentioning.

Ottawa mustered just 196 yards of total offence and moved the chains 11 times. No drive had more than two first downs or gained more than 23 yards. Nobody is expecting a Mona Lisa after just two weeks of training camp, but those numbers aren’t pretty. Neither is converting 28 percent of second-down opportunities (6/21). Again, the outcomes don’t matter at this time of year, but the process does. What you’d ideally like to see is solid execution, which was lacking.

3) With veteran William Stanback given a light workload — four carries that resulted in nine yards — it was the other American backs who had a chance to state their case for a roster spot. Given the offence’s general struggles to stay on the field, rushing opportunities were few and far between. Elijah Collins’ three carries resulted in -1 yards gained, while former Pittsburgh Steeler Jaylen Samuel turned two carries into 26 yards, including a nice 23-yard scamper to the end zone.

It’s hard to read too much into the backs’ performances because aside from Samuel’s touchdown run, the offensive line had a poor night opening lanes in the ground game and nobody was given that many touches.

4) With the starters given limited reps, rookie American receiver Same Schnee led the way with a team-high four catches for 54 yards and a touchdown. Perhaps most impressive was that three of the four catches made by the five-foot-10, 191-pounder resulted in a first down.

Canadian rookie Keelan White had his “Welcome to pro football” moment when he was walloped by Darnell Sankey. To his credit, the third overall pick in this year’s CFL draft hung onto the ball. He finished the night with two catches for ten yards.

5) Even taking into account that the team cycled through the depth chart on the offensive line, working in everyone they dressed for the game, 40 rushing yards on 12 attempts isn’t great. It’s worse when you consider that 23 of those yards came on a single play.

For an organization that has repeatedly stated its desire to be a physical team capable of imposing its will on opponents, they’ll need much more push and nastiness from their tone-setters up front.

6) Much like offensive coordinator Tommy Condell, new defensive coordinator Will Fields kept things simple in his Ottawa debut. The Redblacks’ defence didn’t do anything exotic but still stifled Montreal’s attack for the majority of the night. The Alouettes managed just 247 yards of total offence and of their 14 possessions, eight resulted in punts, two in field goals, one in an interception and three in turnovers-on-downs.

There were a number of positives on the defensive side of the ball, especially when you consider that Ottawa was rotating in backups and depth players almost from the start.

Canadian linebacker Lucas Cormier has struggled with injuries since being selected 10th overall in the 2023 CFL Draft, but it’s easy to see why the team remains high on the 24-year-old. Now fully healthy, Cormier is the kind of player who always seems to be by the ball. He finished the game with three solo tackles and assisted cleaning up on a few others.

Veteran weak-side linebacker Frankie Griffin had an impressive showing, notching three tackles and a sack. Bennett Williams got the start at strong-side linebacker in the place of Adarius Pickett (who didn’t dress for the game) and made a tackle and a sack.

In the secondary — where arguably four of five positions are up for grabs — there were a handful of notable performances. Rookie American Shakur Brown had a fantastic game. Not only did he make three tackles and knock down a trio of passes (including one in the end zone to prevent a touchdown), but he also would’ve had an interception if he could have hung onto a pass that hit him right in the hands. Despite being signed just before camp kicked off, it’s clear Brown hasn’t needed much time to adjust to the three-down game.

Craig James is also a CFL rookie, but boasts plenty of NFL experience. Despite not getting the start, James parlayed his playing time into four tackles and a knockdown. Amari Henderson got the start at field-side halfback and although he didn’t register a tackle, he did snag an interception which he returned for sixteen yards. Finally, Gavin Heslop nearly forced a fumble on a blitz and made three tackles, as did Alijah McGhee, who also registered a knockdown.

7) With regular long snapper Peter Adjey out, Desmond Pelto, former Ottawa Gee-Gee was signed to the roster to fulfill those duties. Overall, Pelto had a good game snapping, with his one iffy snap coming on the field goal attempt that was blocked.

Oh no!

Montreal gets pressure up the middle, and Lewis Ward’s 48Y Field Goal is blocked by Sankey! Their FG unit is struggling right now.

Lindsey gets 35 yards on the missed field goal return.
#CFL | #BetweenTheGoalposts

[image or embed]

— Between The Goalposts (@btgoalposts.bsky.social) May 24, 2025 at 6:20 PM

Kicker Lewis Ward only had his number called twice, splitting the uprights from 38 yards out and being credited with a miss on a 48-yard attempt that was blocked when pressure collapsed the middle of the protection unit. Punter Richie Leone punted three times before giving way to American Noah Gettman. The 24-year-old was busy, punting nine times. As a result of some shaky downfield kick coverage, Gettman only averaged a net field flip of 31 yards per punt.

In terms of kick coverage, linebacker Davion Taylor led the way with three special teams tackles.

8) I guess they forgot to tell DeVonte Dedmon it’s only the preseason, eh? The 29-year-old was his usual electric self and wasted no time fielding a punt and returning it 70 yards for a touchdown.

Dedmon is a dangerous game-changer, capable of flipping field position in an instant. Re-signed in the offseason with the expectation that he would be the team’s primary returner, if he can stay healthy, he should be in for a monster season.

Following Dedmon being pulled, Lincoln Victor took over return duties. The 24-year-old American rookie returned two punts for 38 yards, with his longest going for a gain of 32.

9) Often, the CFL is unfairly slagged as Mickey Mouse or second rate for things that happen regularly in other professional sports leagues. But sometimes, that criticism is justified, and yesterday was one of those times.

Despite having ALL offseason to come with a plan for the fact that they would be streaming their preseason games exclusively through the CFL+ service on their own website, the league’s site crashed out half an hour before yesterday’s games kicked off. It only began working towards the end of the first quarter.

I get that preseason football isn’t for everyone. But there is a significant portion of the fanbase who waited six long months to see their teams take the field, only for them to be unable to watch because of technical issues. How many of those fans stuck around for 45 minutes while the league sorted out their site’s issues? Talk about throwing a wet towel on any buzz that might have built up.

If the league can’t convince their broadcast partner that it’s worth the investment to air the preseason, then at a bare minimum, it needs to be absolutely certain they can handle the traffic on their site.

10) The Redblacks’ final preseason game takes place Friday night against these same Alouettes, this time at TD Place. Oddly enough, it’ll actually be the first chance for most of R-Nation to see the 2025 team in person, as training camp has been in Kingston, Ontario, about a two-hour drive away from Ottawa.

It’ll be interesting to see which veterans are rested, and which will be called upon to play. With a handful of jobs still up for grabs, and with those further down the depth chart looking to solidify a spot on the roster or on the practice squad, there will be plenty of storylines worth following.

Santino Filoso
Santino Filoso
Santino Filoso is originally from Ottawa and has written about the Redblacks since 2013. He is the only CFL writer currently living in Brazil (as far as we know).

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