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Ottawa Redblacks overCrum mistakes to defeat B.C. Lions (& 10 other thoughts)

Too many times this season, Redblacks’ games have unfolded the same way. The team digs itself an early (often deep) hole, briefly comes to life — giving their fans a flicker of hope — before finding a way to lose.

For much of Friday night’s game, it seemed like the same script was being followed, until quarterback Dustin Crum put the team on his back and willed his squad to a 34-33 victory.

Here are all my thoughts on the game.

1) Now in his fourth season as a professional quarterback in the CFL, Dustin Crum remains a work in progress. He isn’t always the most accurate passer, he doesn’t push the ball down the field as often as he should, and sometimes his decision-making will leave fans shaking their heads, such as when he threw a high pass out of bounds on third-and-19 to seemingly end the comeback attempt with 1:32 remaining in the game. And yet for all his flaws, Crum has two things that frequently make up for any other shortcomings: his natural athleticism and his toughness.

Photo courtesy: Scott Grant/CFLPhotoArchive.com

The 26-year-old is a gifted runner and, unlike most quarterbacks who seek to slide or step out of bounds as contact approaches, Crum is more than willing to lower his shoulder to run over a defender or spin through attempted arm tackles. I think sometimes he’s so successful at grabbing a few extra yards at the end of a scramble because defenders are simply not used to facing quarterbacks willing to pay the physical price for them.

In his second consecutive start in place of the injured Dru Brown, Crum threw for a career high 301 yards. He made good reads, quick decisions and protected the football. Not only did Crum complete 75 percent of his passes, but he also extended his current streak of 85 pass attempts without an interception.

More often than not, the Kent State product hit his receivers in stride. If he didn’t see something to his liking, Crum didn’t hesitate to take off and run, as evidenced by his eight rushes for 69 yards and two touchdowns. By finding the end zone against the Lions, Crum has now scored a touchdown in five straight games, which is currently the longest active streak in the CFL.

Crum saved his best for last, with his final two passes of the night perhaps being the best two of his career. The first, a deep bomb to a streaking Kalil Pimpleton, was a thing of beauty and exactly why fans wish he’d be more willing to take shots down the field.

The second was a dart across the middle on a tight line to Eugene Lewis for the game-winning score.

If the Redblacks can count on a couple more performances like that from Crum, they’ll be more than willing to let Dru Brown completely heal up instead of feeling any urge to rush him back.

2) It’s unfathomable how slow offensive coordinator Tommy Condell’s unit continues to be out of the gate. By yet again failing to score a single point in the first quarter, the Redblacks have now managed one single point through the opening 15 minutes of their last six games. In fact, through their entire 12 games in 2025, they’ve mustered just 21 points.

After 15 minutes of play against B.C., Condell’s attack had put up 27 yards and no points. In the first half, Ottawa punted on their opening five possessions before managing a field goal. At the start of the second half, it looked to be more of the same, as things started yet again with a punt. But then the tide flipped. The Redblacks had eight other second-half possessions and managed to score on five of them (four touchdowns and a field goal). For as awful as his unit was in the first half, Condell orchestrated 31 second-half points to help the Redblacks steal a late win.

Overall, the Redblacks finished with 377 yards of offence and 23 first downs. They converted 43 percent of their second down opportunities — largely due to their success in the second half of the game — but most importantly, went four-for-four in the red zone.

Condell’s use of play-action was extremely effective, but it would’ve been nice to see him lean into Crum’s athleticism a bit more. As much as Crum has improved as a passer in recent weeks, asking him to drop back and pass from a static pocket isn’t ideal. Moving the pocket with rollouts and RPOs (run-pass-options) would put even more pressure on opposing defences and lead to coverage busts.

There’s also the fact that the ground game continues to be an afterthought. Although there were some gimmicky runs with receivers (Bralon Addison), the ball was handed off to a running back just 10 times. Obviously, trailing by double digits for the fourth game in a row does somewhat tie a play-caller’s hands in terms of running the ball, but given how effective Ottawa’s backs can be, you’d like to see them even more involved.

3) Speaking of the running backs, good things always seem to happen when Canadian Daniel Adeboboye touches the ball, which is why I’ll continue to advocate for him to get more opportunities. Adeboboye’s lone carry against the Lions came in the third quarter and resulted in a 12-yard gain. He also made a pair of catches for 16 yards, with 13 of those yards coming after the catch.

As for American William Stanback, the veteran turned nine carries into 27 yards and a touchdown. He also caught a pair of check-downs for 21 yards, with 17 of them coming after the catch.

Photo courtesy: Scott Grant/CFLPhotoArchive.com

4) With right guard Dariusz Bladek now on the six-game injured list, the most versatile lineman in the league — Jacob Ruby — once again found himself starting. Ruby was solid, if unspectacular. That’s an assessment that actually extends to the positional group as a whole.

The Redblacks’ offensive line had moments where they did a good job of giving Crum a clean pocket to work from, but also had plays that featured complete breakdowns and total failure to pick up the blitz, as evidenced by the four sacks the unit conceded. The big men up front also struggled to open lanes for their running backs, although the team’s final rush totals (and average rush per play) look decent, which is mainly due to the fact that a mobile quarterback hides a lot of warts.

With all that said, if the Redblacks want to stack wins, they’ll need more from their front five.

5) A couple of interesting milestones were passed by a pair of Ottawa’s star receivers. By hauling in three passes for 31 yards and a touchdown, Eugene Lewis now has 7,001 career receiving yards, which is 57th all-time in CFL history.

Photo courtesy: Scott Grant/CFLPhotoArchive.com

And by snagging four of the seven passes sent his way for 64 yards, Justin Hardy has now passed Jock Climie for ninth all-time among receivers in Ottawa football history (which encompasses the Rough Riders, Renegades and Redblacks).

As for the rest of the receiving corps, Kalil Pimpleton led the way with seven catches for 95 yards, including the 51-yard bomb that set up the game-winning score. In his return from injury, Bralon Addison caught three passes for 39 yards and had two rushing attempts for a total of four yards. Canadian rookie Keelan White caught a pair of passes for 20 yards, and fullback Anthony Gosselin caught one pass for 15 yards.

6) When playing a quarterback like Nathan Rourke, you can’t realistically expect to shut him down, but you have to do your best to contain and limit the damage he does.

Photo courtesy: Scott Grant/CFLPhotoArchive.com

Coming into the contest, Rourke had been on fire, throwing for 300+ yards in six of his last seven games. Ottawa’s defence held him to 284, mostly because the coverage was tight (aside from Justin McInnis’ 51-yard third-quarter touchdown) and tackling was much improved from what we’ve seen in recent weeks.

Of Rourke’s 284 yards, only 98 came after the catch by receivers. To put that into context, that means 34 percent of the Lions’ passing yards came after the receivers had caught the ball. That’s a significant improvement over Ottawa’s last few games, in which opposing quarterbacks had generated more than 50 percent of their yards through YAC.

Of B.C.’s 15 possessions, 10 gained less than 30 yards. The Lions converted just 39 percent of their second-down opportunities and went only one-for-two in the red zone. The Redblacks weren’t overly successful in pressuring Rourke, but they did manage to sack him twice and generate a pair of turnovers.

Leading the way for the Redblacks was Canadian linebacker Lucas Cormier. It was Cormier’s first start of the season, and the 24-year-old didn’t disappoint. He managed six total tackles and made a timely diving interception that led to a touchdown.

Taken 10th overall in the 2023 CFL Draft, the Mount Allison product has battled injuries for much of his pro career. If he can stay healthy, it’s clear he can be a strong contributor.

General manager Shawn Burke had to be smiling as he saw his bye week addition have a strong Redblacks’ debut. Defensive back Mark Milton was acquired from the Toronto Argonauts in exchange for a seventh-round pick in the 2026 CFL draft on August 25. The game against the Lions was his first start with Ottawa, and the 25-year-old halfback notched five tackles, forced a fumble, and sealed the win with an interception on the last play of the game.

Other notable defensive efforts were defensive lineman Lorenzo Mauldin making five tackles and knocking down a pass, Canadian defensive line Muftah Ageli (Ottawa’s fourth round pick in the 2025 CFL draft) making three tackles and a sack in place of the injured Cleyon Laing, and defensive back C.J. Coldon making four tackles. Star linebacker Adarius Pickett had a “quiet” night with just four tackles, but was still always around the ball and a menace when blitzing.

7) The Redblacks’ special teams have cost them more than one win this season, and it looked like that might be the case again when Rick Campbell’s unit allowed yet another return touchdown.

Thankfully, other than that one punt return, Ottawa’s kick coverage was otherwise quite good, as Seven McGee’s other six returns only resulted in an average of 8.1 yards per return. Leading the way in that area of the game were Canadian defensive lineman Aidan John and Cormier with two special teams tackles apiece.

In terms of Ottawa’s kicking game, Lewis Ward was a perfect two for two on his field goal attempts (good from 32 and 39 yards out) but missed a convert. Punter Richie Leone punted eight times but had a net field positional flip of just 23.6, thanks to the above-mentioned 93-yard punt return touchdown.

One thing that I found to be a refreshing change of pace was the Redblacks’ attempt at an onside punt in the first quarter. It was no Dobson Collins scoring the first touchdown in Redblacks history at TD Place back in July of 2014 vs Saskatchewan, but it still planted a seed that the Lions had to consider for the rest of the game. Going forward, it would be nice to see the Redblacks reach into their bag of tricks a bit more frequently. It’s something they do so rarely, they’re likely to catch someone napping.

As for the Redblacks’ return game, Pimpleton averaged a healthy 18.3 yards per punt return but only 12 per kickoff. Speaking of kickoffs, Keelan White fielded one return for 25 yards, and Pickett had one for 5 yards. Pickett was also lined up as a punt returner when the Redblacks chose to have two men back. I’ve said it plenty of times before, but you cannot convince me that the risks of using Pickett as a returner are outweighed by the rewards.

Photo courtesy: Scott Grant/CFLPhotoArchive.com

Speaking of which, in a situation that bears monitoring, it was interesting to see returner DeVonte Dedmon give an interview to local radio station TSN1200, stating that he was 100% and ready to get back on the field, only to have him held off the gameday roster.

8) I have no doubt that 16,267 tickets were indeed bought/distributed, but in terms of actual butts in seats at TD Place, Friday night’s game might be the very worst in the history of the Redblacks’ franchise. I’d be surprised if even half of those people showed up. Every single time TSN’s cameras panned out slightly, hundreds of empty seats were on display.

The windy, damp weather certainly didn’t help things, but OSEG has to understand that apathy has set into a section of the fan base, and the organization must work hard to keep those fans engaged. Obviously, winning cures all, and perhaps this dramatic comeback win is a shot in the arm in terms of ticket sales.

A year after posting a 7-1-1 record at TD Place, the 2025 Redblacks are now 2-4 at Lansdowne this season.

9) This week’s stat that might interest only me is that the 2025 Redblacks are now 2-0 coming off bye weeks. They also won coming their bye in Week 8, where Ottawa proceeded to beat Calgary by a score of 31-11 for their largest margin of victory this season.

10) With the win, the Redblacks ensure that mathematically, they’re still alive in the playoff hunt. A loss to the Lions would’ve left Ottawa three games back of B.C. with six games left, and heightened the possibility of a crossover.

At 4-8, the Redblacks remain in last place in the East, but depending on how Saturday’s games play out, they might find themselves only a single game out of second place, and two out of first.

Up next for Bob Dyce’s squad is a trip to the West Coast to finish off the home-and-home with B.C. Playing in Vancouver is always tough for Eastern teams, but at this point of the year, Ottawa’s margin for error is basically nil. They’ll need a win in the worst way to keep their dreams of November football alive.

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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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