Hello, Jovan Santos-Knox.
I don’t believe I’ve ever before seen a player elevate that much in order to block a field goal.
Tell me, could you see your house from up there? No, no, not the one in Ottawa. I mean your childhood home in Connecticut.
Here are this week’s takeaways.
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» MMQB: The rise of the east
DO NOT GO EAST, YOUNG MAN
With Ottawa, Toronto and Montreal sweeping Week 12 home games against Western opponents, that beat goes on for East Division teams.
The 2024 season has shown that it is a difficult proposition for teams in the West Division to get wins on the road when they venture east of the Ontario-Manitoba border.
With the Alouettes’ Sunday night win over Edmonton, Eastern home teams now have a record of 12-3-1 against the West.
If you move the boundary further East, from Kenora to, say, Burlington, Ontario, you’d find that the Argos, REDBLACKS and Alouettes are a combined 12-0-1, with all three West Division teams’ wins, so far, coming in Hamilton.
With their victory over the Saskatchewan Roughriders on Thursday night, the Toronto Argonauts ran their home streak against Western teams to 10, including five wins in 2024.
At home against East Division foes, The West is holding its own, with twelve games split right down the middle. Three of those wins have come at the expense of the Ticats.
IT’S TIME TO START TALKING ABOUT IT
The Montreal Alouettes won their tenth game of the season on Sunday night and with seven games remaining – and with the way they continue to play – it’s high time we started tossing around whether we think they can finish off the best regular season ever by winning all of those remaining games and going into the playoffs at 17-1.
And whether they’re likely to win the Grey Cup afterwards to cap what would be the greatest single season in CFL history.
In those seven games the Als have two with the BC Lions, two with the Ottawa REDBLACKS, and one against each of the Toronto Argonauts, Calgary Stampeders as well as a home finale against the Winnipeg Blue Bombers.
So where do you think the Als will finish? 17-1? 15-3?
Or… gasp… the dreaded 16-2. Which has been done by two teams in history who then went on to lose their respective division finals.
Of course, the Alouettes know all about that, having been apple cart upsetters in that scenario just last year.
GUY GOT SOME COACHING FROM JASON STREET DIDN’T HE?
Dang, that was an impressive touchdown throw Ottawa quarterback Dru Brown made to receiver Jaelon Acklin, firing a zipper down the seam for six during the second quarter of the REDBLACKS’ 34-27 win over the BC Lions.
On a rope, just over the shoulder of Lions’ linebacker Ryder Varga as he closed in on Acklin, who found the ball right in his chest as he hit the goal line.
Whenever I see passes like that, passes that are extra-special, I tend to think of the TV show Friday Night Lights, and that great, great scene where injured quarterback Jason Street takes his replacement, Matt Saracen, out on the field in the middle of the night, to coach the rookie up.
“You hit this pattern and they will fear you,” Street says to Saracen at one point.
It’s a testament to that show that I think of that great scene whenever I see a throw like Brown’s. And a testament to Brown’s abilities that I thought about that scene when I saw that throw.
Now, about that rolling out, cross-body and back to the middle of the field interception that came a little later….
TWO HEADS ARE BETTER THAN ONE, NOT BECAUSE EITHER IS INFALLIBLE, BUT BECAUSE THEY ARE UNLIKELY TO GO WRONG IN THE SAME DIRECTION
That headline, by the way, is a quote from well-known writer C.S. Lewis and it replaced the original headline I’d written for this takeaway.
It’s no secret as to why C.S. Lewis went on to great fame while I remain committed to Googling things like “How do I say ‘two heads might not necessarily be better than one but it sure seems like they ain’t no worse neither’ only way better?”
I don’t know about you but when the Toronto Argonauts announced during this past off-season that they were going ahead with not one defensive coordinator but instead two co-coordinators (Will Fields and Kevin Eiben), I was pretty skeptical about that working.
However, that Argo defence has performed pretty well in 2024, even through a spate of key injuries and at no time was that so apparent as it was during Thursday night’s 20-19 win over the visiting Saskatchewan Roughriders.
The Riders’ offence and quarterback Trevor Harris looked like one thing during the first quarter and a bit of that game, racing out to a 13-nothing lead, and then like something entirely different after that.
That suggests, strongly, that some pretty good scheme adjusting went on as the game progressed.
So far, it seems, Eiben & Fields are the Simon & Garfunkel of defences. No, wait. The Woody and Buzz Lightyear of defences. Hold up, I got it. The Jason Street and Matt Saracen of defences. Hey, Google, how do I say ‘the Rick & Morty of defences’ only way better?
PUT THAT ON SOME T-SHIRTS, HAMILTON DEFENCE
How long will it take for Chris Jones to make an imprint on that Ticat defence?
Not long, it appears, with the unit looking quite different than it had in a close, close loss to the Blue Bombers in Winnipeg. And that’s not just production-wise either. Style-wise, too.
“Yeah, it was all Chris’ stuff,” said Winnipeg quarterback Zach Collaros afterward, when asked how much the Ticat defensive unit resembled a Jones crew, considering he’d gotten the job just last Monday. “Vintage Chris Jones,” he added.
Collaros noted that the ‘Cats played double coverage on Winnipeg receiver Kenny Lawler a lot, with some – and I quote – “drop nine bulls**t,” forcing a lot of underneath throws. There’s your T-shirt slogan, Hamilton defence.
When an opposing quarterback calls your defence B.S., you’re doing something right to frustrate him.
AND FINALLY… We don’t talk enough about Justin Hardy.