If you want to be the best, you have to beat the best.
Sure, it’s a cliché.
But for the Hamilton Tiger-Cats, the next two weeks will show us if the real Tiger-Cats have arrived on scene after a horrible 0-5 start to the season.
The Tiger-Cats went on a bye week after getting crushed by the BC Lions 44-28. They promised to find the answers and come back better, and they immediately proved themselves against their rivals, the Toronto Argonauts. Then last week they followed it up with a dominating performance on the road against the Edmonton Elks.
So here we are with a two game winning streak for the Tiger-Cats after the bye week and you wonder if this is the norm for a team being led by Bo Levi Mitchell.
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Mitchell’s season is a curious one. He’s on pace to have the best statistical year of his career. But the record looks like a team whose quarterback would be nowhere near that mark. History shows us the two seasons where he surpassed the 5,000 yard/30TD barrier the Stampeders made it to the Grey Cup.
A Grey Cup appearance seems so far into the horizon to even speak about right now but, the conversation might be a fair one to have if they make it to the midpoint with a 4-5 record and beating the defending Cup champions in back-to-back games.
That’s why we are all very curious to see what Hamilton puts on the field this Friday at home against Montreal and then the following week in Montreal.
The reason Bo’s numbers were pretty good and the team was still 0-5 was the giant changeover on defence.
Hamilton is without Dylan Wynn, Ted Laurent, Simoni Lawrence, Malik Carney, Jameer Thurman, and Tunde Adeleke. I’d love to see any team lose half your starting lineup and not have a hiccup to start the season.
The defence gave up over 30 points in four of five games. And that doesn’t include some special teams gaffes that led to the dismissal of their coordinator a few weeks into the season.
It was clear for Hamilton what needed to improve.
Defensive coordinator Mark Washington has to be much more impressed with the group coming out of the bye week. They’ve clamped down on both Cameron Dukes and McLeod Bethel-Thompson and actually forced quarterback changes in their first two games coming out the bye.
The defence appears more aggressive with far fewer assignment break downs. The team has five sacks in the last two games after getting to quarterbacks just nine times in the first five games of the season.
They are also more disciplined. They’ve cut their penalties in half from 10 penalties per game in the first five games and have just nine in the last two games.
Oh, and I haven’t even mentioned James Butler yet.
He’s had back-to-back games of over 100-yards from scrimmage and is being used in the pass game effectively with 53 yards against Toronto two weeks ago.
The offence has to go through Butler. Yes, Bo is on a historic passing pace but there is no way he succeeds if he doesn’t have an effective play action to slow down pass rushers and pick apart defences. The only way you have an effective play action is having an effective run game.
There are clear signs across the board of the improvement for the team since the bye week but if you can’t beat the best in your division, you’re not going very far.
Just ask the 2023 Hamilton Tiger-Cats.
They lost ALL EIGHT games vs. Toronto and Montreal last season, including their loss to Montreal in the playoffs.
They 0-8 against Toronto and Montreal. They were 8-3 against everyone else.
Sure they’ve already beat Toronto this season, but Montreal is still the class of the division. No one will believe Hamilton has truly turned a corner until they win one — or both — of the next two games.