The Hamilton Tiger-Cats may not be a good football team but they’ve beaten the Toronto Argonauts twice this season and deserved both wins.
After getting out to a 17-0 lead in their first matchup back in July, the Ticats jumped out to a 21-3 lead in Monday’s Labour Day Classic, which was once again too much to overcome for the Boatmen.
Below are my thoughts on Toronto’s 31-28 loss in Hamilton.
Kelly keeps improving
A lot went wrong for the Argonauts on Monday afternoon, but the game wasn’t entirely without positives as Chad Kelly’s play continued to improve in his second game back following a nine-game suspension.
He threw for 322 yards for the second week in a row, only this time he connected on 80 percent of his passes, had a touchdown pass, and carried the ball six times for 39 yards and a touchdown.
What I was most impressed with was Kelly’s pocket presence. The protection from his offensive line was fine, but not quite to their usual standard. Without panicking or getting happy feet, Kelly navigated the pocket well, stepped up at the right times, scrambled to buy time while keeping his eyes downfield, and knew when to take off.
More Polk-a dots
Since his return, Chad Kelly has given new life to his receivers. This was DaVaris Daniels’ best game of the season with seven catches for 74 yards and a touchdown, while Damonte Coxie had his best game of the year in Kelly’s recent season debut. However, the player whose production I thought we’d see explode hasn’t.
Makai Polk is an exciting young receiver with a high ceiling and he stood out enough with Cam Dukes and Nick Arbuckle at quarterback that the team felt comfortable moving on from Rasheed Bailey, their leading receiver at the time. On Labour Day, Polk caught only one pass for seven yards on three targets, but there were two moments where he could have made a big difference.
On the first play of the game, Kelly launched a deep ball up the seam for Polk, who had gotten in behind the Hamilton secondary but was looking for the pass over his inside shoulder when Kelly threw it to the outside. Kelly was intercepted on the next play.
On the last play of the third quarter, Kelly scrambled to his left with Polk sitting on the left sideline and only cornerback Will Sunderland there to contend with them both. Kelly clearly wanted Polk to take off deep, forcing Sunderland to either follow, which would have allowed Kelly to run, or try to tackle Kelly, which would have left Polk open for a potential touchdown.
Polk is the only starting receiver on the Argos that Kelly didn’t work with last season, so it shouldn’t be a surprise that their chemistry isn’t quite there yet, but if these two talented players can work out those kinks, the team’s offensive production will increase significantly.
Pistol plunge
After struggling last week against Saskatchewan, Ka’Deem Carey returned to form with 78 yards on 12 carries, for a 6.5 yard per carry average.
Toronto used Carey out of pistol formation more than I’m used to seeing, which I think worked well for him. Carey is a tough back to stop when he’s at full speed and with a running start prior to receiving the handoff, he hits the hole quickly, yet his elite decision-making speed allows him to read and follow his blocks correctly.
There was only one occasion where he appeared to lose his footing as he tried to reroute himself too aggressively for the speed at which he was travelling.
Peters pesters again
Boundary cornerback Jamal Peters would be an obvious all-star selection if he only played against his former team. He had an amazing game the last time these teams met and he was even better in this one. Despite Tim White’s tremendous day, Peters was probably the best player on the field for either team.
He had a game-high eight tackles, including a tackle for a loss, and a knockdown. He was all over the field.
I’m still not quite sure how this particular play happened, but on a Chad Kelly run up the middle, the quarterback was upended by Peters who must have come flying over from his cornerback spot. What was missing in Toronto’s offensive attack was picking on Peters via the deep ball, the one area in which he may have been vulnerable.
Peters is known as an aggressive corner who loves to attack the line of scrimmage and was nursing an injured hamstring all week. Double moves and shot plays off fake receiver screens seem like obvious missed opportunities Toronto never dialed up.
The one time Toronto sent Coxie out wide to the boundary side on his own, Peters lined up with him in man coverage, and Kelly hit him for a five-yard pass. I thought for sure this was to set up one of the above-mentioned plays, but they never went back to it.
No sneakers
A week after failing to convert multiple short-yardage opportunities, Toronto didn’t take a single short-yardage snap on Monday. The Argos faced one third-and-one situation, but they took a delay of game penalty prior to being able to get the ball off.
They did attempt to run a play a few seconds earlier, but the officials hadn’t blown the play in yet, so it was whistled dead. Interestingly, the called play was a handoff to Ka’Deem Carey — not a sneak from Kelly. We’ll have to wait for next week to see if the Argos were able to correct the short yardage issues they experienced a week ago.
Bombs away
The Toronto secondary allowed a surprising number of explosive passing plays against the Tiger-Cats. Coming into this game, they had allowed only two passing plays of 48 yards or more all season, but on this day they allowed Bo Levi Mitchell to complete passes of 48, 57, and 70 yards, two of which went for touchdowns.
One of the biggest factors leading to these big completions was Toronto’s inability to generate consistent pressure from their front four, another thing that hasn’t been an issue for this team for much of the year. Mitchell had time in the pocket to survey the field and his receivers had time to run longer-developing routes such as Tim White’s deep post route and out-and-up, both of which went for touchdowns.
Stuck in the middle
Through the first 12 weeks of the season, the Argonauts led the league in fewest rushing yards allowed with 71.6 yards per game. In this contest, Hamilton virtually doubled that number with 142 rushing yards. Most of that yardage came right up the middle.
This was the first time in four games without injured middle linebacker Wynton McManis that Toronto simply didn’t have an answer for the opposition’s rushing attack. Jonathan Jones has filled in well for McManis and rookie nose tackle Ralph Holley has done a fantastic job plugging up the middle along the line, but Hamilton did well to neutralize them both on the ground through double teams and climbing effectively to the next level.
Injury concerns
On the third-last play of the game, halfback DaShaun Amos suffered what appeared to be a serious injury to his arm or shoulder. It looked like his left arm got caught up as he and receiver Brendan O’Leary-Orange came to the ground together following a completed pass that essentially ended the game.
Though this wasn’t his best game, Amos has been one of the bright lights on Toronto’s defence this season. The Argonauts released halfback Mason Pierce two days before this game, leaving fans to wonder if they’ll attempt to bring Pierce back should Amos be out for an extended period of time.
Turnovers
Toronto came into this game second in the league in creating turnovers, while Hamilton had committed the second most turnovers, but this game didn’t follow either of those trends. Hamilton protected the football and won the turnover battle 1-0 on Chad Kelly’s first-series interception.
Upon further review
As a coach of over 20 years, I love breaking down Xs and Os, analyzing plays, and looking at coaching decisions. I hate talking about the CFL command centre or officiating in general, so I hope this will be the last time I do so this season. I believe CFL officials are the best in football and I think the command centre is almost always correct, though a number of high-profile calls have put the review process under the microscope over the past few weeks.
I’m at a loss to explain what happened when the command centre reviewed the second offensive play of the game. Chad Kelly threw a pass to DaVaris Daniels on an out-breaking route but was intercepted by Richard Leonard. As soon as Leonard stepped out of bounds, Toronto head coach Ryan Dinwiddie threw his challenge flag. The play occurred right in front of him and to use his challenge flag that early in the game suggested he was convinced he’d win. I remain surprised he didn’t. To my eye, Leonard pushed Daniels in the back, which led to him stumbling forward, allowing Leonard to intercept the pass.
To be fair to the command centre, I thought they made the correct ruling on the other two plays they reviewed (Chad Kelly’s successful two-point conversion where the ball never crossed the plane, and a missed no-yards penalty on a Toronto punt). All three plays went against the Argos.
Toronto didn’t lose the game because of officiating — in fact, I thought the Argos actually got a few breaks — but that early interception was a huge momentum-shifting play. Instead of Toronto’s opening drive continuing into Hamilton territory, Bo Levi Mitchell hit Tim White for a deep touchdown two plays later.
Next up
The Toronto Argonauts (6-5) travel to the nation’s capital to take on the Ottawa Redblacks (7-3-1) on Saturday, Sept. 7 at 1:00 pm EDT.
