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Redblacks embarrass themselves in loss to Ticats, fire Dyce (& 10 other thoughts on closing the book on 2025)

A year ago, the Ottawa Redblacks’ season ended with a 20-point loss in the East Semi-Final. Based on how 2024 played out, hopes were high heading into 2025.

Instead, the team regressed in every phase of the game and just like last year, their season once again ended with a 20-point loss. Only this time it was in a regular-season game that meant nothing because the Redblacks had long been eliminated from playoff contention. It was also a game in which Ottawa wasted the opportunity to at the very least play spoiler to a divisional rival, perhaps denying them a first-place finish.

Here are all my thoughts on Ottawa closing the book on their 2025 campaign with a 35-15 loss in Hamilton.

1) Although he was given his second straight start — and only the third of his career — quarterback Tyrie Adams didn’t get much time to show what he was capable of.

The 28-year-old oozes potential, even if it’s buried under a layer of rust that’s developed from a lack of playing time or reps in practice. Adams wasn’t lights out against the Ticats — he missed a couple of easy completions and threw a pair of interceptions on ill-advised throws, and yet in limited action he still completed 64 percent of his passes and also threw a touchdown.

He flashed mobility to evade pressure and extend plays and completed a 35-yard pass. That’s significant because the Redblacks finished 2025 with just 13 (yes, you read that right) passes that traveled 30+ yards, and that’s including yards after the catch.

Last week, Adams settled in and got more comfortable — in other words, better — as the game went on. That’s what made yanking him after one half of action so bizarre. Speaking of which…

2) In one of his last acts as Ottawa’s head coach, Bob Dyce made the egregious decision to bench Adams and insert journeyman quarterback Matthew Shiltz into the game. It seemed to catch everyone off guard, as it was Adams himself who revealed he’d been benched during an halftime interview with TSN’s Kenzie Lalonde.

Adams seemed to imply that Shiltz was going into the game as he was likely to retire, whereas postgame Dyce suggested that six quarters of Adams was enough and that the decision to play Shiltz was in the best interests of the team.

I’m not going to disparage Shiltz the person. He’s been nothing but a great teammate all season long and he’s certainly played well in the past. With that said, he’s still the worst quarterback on Ottawa’s roster by a wide margin and there was no justification for playing him in Hamilton. Period.

Clearly, there’s a reason Shiltz has been stapled to the bench since his disastrous Week 2 performance against the Alouettes in his lone start of the season. Shiltz was so uninspiring in that outing that despite numerous injuries to their other quarterbacks, Ottawa never once looked his way again.

Dyce spent the week talking to the media about how his team was taking the field to get a win for their fans, but those words ring hollow in hindsight given how he mismanaged the quarterback situation. And if it the decision was fuelled by some misguided attempt to send Shiltz out in style as he truly does plan to retire, that’s even worse because if he’s not going to be part of the future of the team, why give him reps at the expense of a quarterback (Adams) who might be?

If that’s what Dyce wanted to do, Shiltz could’ve been given a possession late in the fourth quarter. It would’ve achieved the same thing and been much less detrimental to the team’s performance.

Upon entering the game, the 32-year-old did his very best to ensure each defensive back in the Hamilton secondary got to pad their stats with an interception. Shiltz finished the game completing seven of the 15 passes he attempted for 78 yards and four interceptions. He was actually fortunate that the damage was limited to four turnovers, as defenders has their hands on three other passes that could have been caught as he stared down pass after pass.

And what message does the benching send to Adams? After being the fourth quarterback all season long and spending the majority of this season’s practices hanging out with the offensive line during drills — as he wasn’t getting reps to throw the ball — when he finally does get a start, he’s quickly benched. Why would Adams possibly consider re-signing in Ottawa?

Dyce’s decision was disrespectful to fans who invested their time by tuning in to continue to support their team in a season when they were given every reason to tune out. It was one of the most baffling choices in a season that had its fair share of them.

3) Coming into the final game of the season, Tommy Condell’s offence was the worst in the league. Ottawa ranked dead last in offensive points at 22.6 per game, and had the distinction of being the team that had run more plays than any other offence in the league (56 per game), while averaging the least amount of yards per play. Put another way, nobody had the ball more than Condell, yet nobody did less with it. Ottawa was also the second-worst team in the CFL at converting second downs.

Against the Ticats, those trends continued. For the 16th time in 18 games, the Redblacks scored less than three points in the first quarter. Slow starts weren’t just something that happened once in a while to the Redblacks, it was with their modus operandi. Yet again against the Ticats, Ottawa found themselves trailing by double digits and never recovered.

I’m not going to dive deep into the stats from the game because honestly, the only thing that matters is that Ottawa had 13 possessions and only two ended in points. Yet again, Condell utterly failed to get the ball in his playmakers hands (how does it take 56 minutes for Eugene Lewis to see a single target?) and aside from one burst of creativity with the flea-flicker, he failed to generate explosive plays.

The lack of big plays is another defining characteristic of the Redblacks’ 2025 offence, as of the 615 passes Ottawa attempted this year, just 13 gained more than 30 yards.

R-Nation has seen poor offences before — there was the offensive coordinating “by committee” with Joe PaoPao in 2019 and the Paul LaPolice era — but what made 2025 more frustrating than any other year is that the Redblacks had plenty of talent. Justin Hardy, Eugene Lewis, Kalil Pimpleton, Bralon Addison, William Stanback, Daniel Adeboboye, Marco Dubois, and Keelan White are very good players, yet too often their talents weren’t maximized or they simply weren’t a part of game plans.

The story of Ottawa’s offence this season isn’t that it was lacking playmakers, it was that it was lacking someone who knew how to use them.

4) To illustrate how poorly Ottawa’s weapons were used this season, look no further than how they deployed their running backs. William Stanback is a powerful runner whose physical style wears defences down the longer a game goes on. He’s exactly the kind of back who flourishes the more he’s featured in the game plan, and yet despite playing in 17 games this season, he was only handed the ball more than 11 times in a game twice.

Stanback was criminally underused, which is something he has in common with Canadian back Daniel Adeboboye. Selected by Ottawa media as the Redblacks’ nominee for Most Outstanding Canadian, all the 26-year-old did in 2025 was produce when given touches. Adeboboye averaged 5.5 yards per rush and 8.1 yards per reception but in 12 of 18 games, was given four or fewer carries. And in 17 of 18 games he finished with three or fewer receptions. If Ottawa can convince him to re-sign, they should commit to involving him more in the offence going forward.

5) For the third consecutive season, Justin Hardy crossed the 1,000-yard receiving mark. In 2025 he did it in style, diving to secure a flea flicker.

Hardy is the first Ottawa receiver to record three straight 1,000-yard seasons since (Buds) Brad Sinopoli and Greg Ellingson achieved the feat from 2015 to 2018.

The 33-year-old snagged three receptions for 51 yards against the Ticats and also made two tackles following interceptions. Despite the fact that he will be 34 when the 2026 season kicks off, it would behoove the Redblacks to do their best to ensure Hardy remains in the nation’s capital. He’s sure-handed, consistent, and tough. There should always be a place for that kind of receiver on the roster.

As for the rest of Ottawa’s receiving corps, Eugene Lewis was an afterthought in Ottawa’s attack, securing his first (and only) target for a 12-yard gain with four minutes left. Lewis’ 2025 campaign ends with 75 receptions for 1,012 yards and six touchdowns but it feels like the Redblacks only scratched the surface of what could have been. Lewis barely stretched the field because the Redblacks’ offence rarely asked him to. Having him return would be nice, but will he be willing to return to a place that failed to tailor its attack to his skillset?

The always dangerous Kalil Pimpleton finished with three catches for 60 yards, Bralon Addison made four receptions for 39 yards, and Canadian Keelan White made one grab for nine yards to finish his rookie year with a total of 46 catches for 482 yards and a pair of touchdowns.

6) Statistically, William Fields’ defence was middle of the pack in 2025. It wasn’t great, but wasn’t awful. And yet too often it simply felt like it didn’t make life tough enough against their opponents.

Case in point, Friday’s game against the Ticats. It never felt like Hamilton’s offence was ever impeded. The Ticats averaged 5.6 yards per rush and 8.6 per pass. Bo Levi Mitchell wasn’t sacked and rarely pressured, which allowed him to complete 68 percent of his passes and he easily picked against Ottawa’s soft zone looks. As has been the case many times this season, receivers repeatedly caught balls without any defenders nearby.

Obviously, Hamilton’s offence had some favourable starting positions due to the half-dozen interceptions the Redblacks’ offence threw, but of the 12 possessions in which the Ticats were trying to move the ball, they scored on nine of them.

A couple of defenders deserve shoutouts for playing hard all the way to the final whistle. Middle linebacker Jovan Santos-Knox made six tackles and strong-side linebacker Adarius Pickett made five to finish as the Redblacks’ leading tackler in 2025. Pickett not only played in all 18 games but was his usual dominant self despite suffering a torn Achilles in Week 11 of last season.

Defensive back Adrian Frye chipped in five tackles and in his return to action from injury, veteran defensive lineman Cleyon Laing made two tackles — including one for a loss — and recovered a fumbled snap for Ottawa’s only turnover of the night.

Defensive back C.J. Coldon made three tackles and could’ve (read: should’ve) had a pair of interceptions.

7) If there’s one player happy that this season is ending it has to be Lewis Ward. The veteran kicker’s nightmare season continued with another miss, this one wide right on a 38-yard attempt. Overall in 2025, Ward managed just one field goal from beyond 50 yards and connected on a career low 76.1 percent of his tries.

Richie Leone also had a tough year, finishing last in the CFL in terms of net punting average. With that said, that can be a little deceiving as net punt average is dependent on cover units doing their jobs, and Rick Campbell’s special teams were second-worst in the CFL at covering kicks. Not only did Ottawa allow a league-high five kick return touchdowns in 2025, they also conceded 13 yards per punt return and were the fourth-most penalized group on special teams.

Ward and Leone are a pair of popular veterans and it’ll be interesting to see how general manager Shawn Burke handles their futures.

8) In a decision that felt inevitable, early Saturday morning the Redblacks announced that they’d fired head coach Bob Dyce. I truly do believe that during his time as Ottawa’s head coach, he showed significant growth. Early in his tenure, Dyce was risk-adverse and overly conservative, and that came back to bite him more than once. But it seemed he learned from that the longer he was in the role.

A staple of Dyce’s time with the Redblacks is that it never seemed like his players abandoned him or tuned out his message. To a man, on and off the record, players continually spoke of how they felt he was a true leader of men and someone they’d run through a wall for. Unfortunately, those sentiments didn’t always translate to positive play on the field. Frequently, Dyce would spend the week speaking to the media of how he felt his group was prepared and ready to come out firing, only to be let down when those same players came out flat.

In one of his interviews to TSN 1200 this season, Dyce spoke of the important of three Es: effort, energy, and execution. While I never doubted the effort his players put in, far too often the latter two Es were absent.

What ultimately doomed Dyce in 2025 was who he chose as his coordinators. To Dyce’s credit, he always had a clear vision of the team he wanted his squad to be. From day one he preached physicality and wanting to be a team that hit people in the mouth and imposed their will.

In 2025, his general manager stocked the roster with players to do exactly that. Ottawa boasted big, physical receivers capable of manhandling defensive backs in run blocks and a pair of tough running backs capable of pushing the pile. Where Dyce went wrong was that despite having the ingredients for what he wanted to cook, he hired a chef who wanted to cook something else. Having an offensive coordinator who clearly preferred a ball control offence centred on passes at or behind the line of scrimmage was never going to jive.

Defensively, it’s tough to talk about being physical and aggressive when your defensive coordinator’s scheme doesn’t bring pressure often and features lots of soft zone coverage. If the defensive line isn’t collapsing the pocket on it’s own, the secondary will naturally be exposed, which is what kept happening.

Finally, although I’m sure having an experienced voice in Rick Campbell on the staff was helpful, in hindsight putting him in a role to coach a unit he hadn’t since 2012 wasn’t great.

As things went off the rails in 2025, Dyce could’ve leaned into his position as head coach to force his coordinators to change their styles, but for whatever reason, he didn’t or couldn’t. Dyce failed as the Redblacks head coach in 2025 not because of his in-game decision making or roster management, but because he failed to influence his staff into moulding the roster into the team he wanted.

And ultimately, it’s a results-based business. Going 18-39-1 since taking over for Paul LaPolice in 2022 and missing the playoffs two out of three years had stretched fan patience to the limit. Thousands of members of R-Nation had become disillusioned with the direction of the franchise and have shown their displeasure by stay away from games in droves.

Firing Dyce isn’t going to magically lure those people back, but it’s the first step in restoring faith that there is a plan and that better days are ahead.

9) With Dyce out of the picture and the news that general manager Shawn Burke will return in 2026, OSEG finds itself in a potentially strange situation. Burke will be heading into the last year of his contract yet is tasked with hiring a new head coach who will presumably be signed for multiple seasons.

Coaches crave stability — and need it to be successful — so will the fact that Burke only has one year left on his deal be an issue as he seeks to hire Dyce’s replacement?

Keeping Burke in his position makes sense given that he’s done a good job of not only attracting top-tier talent to Ottawa, but also in extending his own key free agents. Nobody thought Burke had a poor offseason — the Redblacks drew plenty of praise for the talent they added and many members of the media were high on them when the season started.

With that said, just like with Dyce, it’s a results-oriented business and through four seasons Burke’s rosters have gone 21-50-1 and failed to win a playoff game. Burke inherited LaPolice as a coach but chose to roll with Dyce.

He now has the opportunity to hire a second head coach and it’s a task he must ace, otherwise he won’t get a chance to hire a third.

10) With the loss, the Redblacks end 2025 with a 4-14 record, just like they did 2023 and 2022. Burke has a busy offseason ahead of him, not only needing to select a head coach and help him fill out a staff, but he also comb through his roster to determine who should be a part of the future and who needs to be thanked for their services and moved along.

Fielding a competitive team in 2026 is an absolute necessity given where the fan base is at. In 2025, for the first time ever, the Redblacks averaged less fans at home games than at any point in the Renegade era.

Ottawa is a proud football town but it seems like many in R-Nation are at their limit. Since the return of pro football in 2014, R-Nation has seen their team win 68 regular season games while losing 123 and tying three. They’ve also only seen five playoff appearances in 11 seasons and haven’t celebrated a postseason win since 2018.

It’s high time to turn things around by building a rock solid foundation.

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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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