Betting News
CFL Week 20 predictions: best bets for Stamps at Ticats, Redblacks at Argos
There are two weeks left in the CFL season and while the playoff teams have been decided, playoff seeding and auditions for next year are keeping everyone motivated.
We are coming off of a 3-1 weekend putting us at 9-4 over the last four weeks. Why stop now? Let’s keep things rolling into Week 20.
Friday, Oct. 18: Calgary Stampeders at Hamilton Tiger-Cats — 7:00 p.m. EDT
We aren’t too far removed from these teams playing meaningless games in the standings in October because they had everything clinched. Now it is a completely different story, as they are two of the teams who won’t be playing November football this year.
It is the end of a very frustrating year for Calgary, who lost their home finale last week to Edmonton 23-18. Nothing about their game this year has inspired confidence that they will figure things out in the last couple of weeks.
The Stamps are bottom in the league in points for and second worst in net offence. On defence, they have allowed the second most points in the league and have the second-worst opponent net offence. The 4-11-1 record truly is a total team effort.
The Ticats’ exit from post-season contention came after a one-sided loss against Winnipeg, but at least we’ve seen competitive football from them recently. The loss to the West-leading Bombers snapped a four-game winning streak for Hamilton.
Regardless of who is in at QB for Calgary, the Ticats’ defence has proven to be a tough matchup for passers. While the team has given up a lot of points, they have held passers to under 300 yards in three straight games. It would be four but in Week 15, Ottawa brought Jeremiah Masoli in and he put up a lot of numbers in garbage time.
The big key for Hamilton’s late-season push was the play of Bo Levi Mitchell. During the four-game win streak, the two-time former M.O.P. threw for 299+ yards in every game and had seven passing touchdowns with just two interceptions. Winnipeg kept him in check but as we said before, the Stamps’ defence isn’t on the same level as the Bombers.
He’ll be facing a Stampeders defence that has given up 30+ points in 10 of their 16 games this year and six times during their eight-game winless skid. When the Stamps are away from McMahon Stadium their defence has given up 30+ points six times leading to a road record of 0-7.
Late-season motivation can be tough to gauge but there is nothing recently that indicates the Stamps are going to break out of their season-long slump. The Ticats may not be going to the playoffs but their late push at least gives you reason for optimism.
Pick: Hamilton -3.5 AND Hamilton team total over 28
Photo courtesy: Scott Grant/CFLPhotoArchive.com
Saturday, Oct. 19: Ottawa Redblacks at Toronto Argonauts — 3:00 p.m. EDT
Second place in the East Division is on the line when the Toronto Argonauts host the Ottawa Redblacks on Saturday afternoon.
Toronto beat Winnipeg last week to give them back-to-back wins and victories in three of their last four while the Redblacks have lost four straight to drop into the third seed in the East.
Ottawa got off to a quick start this year but I cautioned here that they were picking up wins during a favourable part of the schedule. As the schedule has become more difficult, we’ve faded the Redblacks and it has paid off.
Ottawa has gone 3-6-1 against the other five teams who will take part in the CFL postseason this year. Of those three wins, exactly none of them came on the road. Ottawa’s only two road victories this season came in the province of Alberta.
If you wanted to get super philosophical about it you could say they have beaten one playoff team quite a bit lately — themselves. Penalties and turnovers have been a nightmare for this team in the back part of this season. They have multiple turnovers in their last five games and three or more turnovers in three of those. As for penalties, in their last six games, Ottawa is taking an average of nine penalties for 97.5 yards a game. For reference, the average CFL game this year has 13 penalties total. Ottawa has been doing almost all of that themselves recently.
Meanwhile, Toronto has started to put things together down the stretch. Their defence was all over Zach Collaros in their low-scoring win in Winnipeg last week. Overall this defence sits second in the league in net offence allowed. They also forced four turnovers in that game making them a tough opponent for Ottawa.
The one thing Ottawa can hang their axe on is their win over Toronto in Week 14. They did give up over 400 yards to Chad Kelly but they picked him off four times and rolled to a 41-27 win. It seems like that game was a lesson for Kelly. He only has two interceptions since and Toronto has balanced their attack with Kelly throwing 30 or fewer passes in every game, compared to the 56 attempts he had against the Redblacks in Week 14.
Since that game those two teams have been like — pardon the pun — ships passing in the night. Toronto has won three of their four games while Ottawa has lost all four.
Ottawa was one of the surprises of the early part of the season, but it has fallen apart for them at the wrong time while Toronto might be hitting their stride just in time for the post-season.