It’s akin to a loud aside in a stage play, but it speaks directly to what’s at stake on Friday night in Toronto.
Each week, Pro Football Focus extensively analyzes every play of every CFL game to provide extra context to what transpires on the field.
After the players are graded, the top ones at each position are named to the CFL weekly Honour Roll.
Of the 10 players who led their positions in the three games last weekend, seven will be playing at BMO Field when the Tiger-Cats try to sweep the three-game season series with the Argonauts.
Two of those weekly honourees are Argos—quarterback Chad Kelly and primo returner Janarian Grant who powered the Argos’ dominant 33-17 upset of the BC Lions right in Vancouver.
And five of the other eight are Ticats: defensive end Nick Usher, running back Greg Bell, receiver Steven Dunbar Jr., left guard Brandon Revenberg and linebacker/defensive back Jonathan Moxey. Among many others, they were instrumental in Hamilton’s solid 37-21 win over the Ottawa Renegades.
Additionally, Kelly was named the top offensive player of the week, and Usher the top defensive player—and they’ll see each other a lot on Friday.
Plus the Ticat line was voted the best of all six offensive lines who played last week, with Revenberg, centre David Beard and right tackle Jordan Murray finishing 1-2-3 in points rankings. And, it says here, right guard Coulter Woodmansey and left tackle Brendan Bordner could have been in there too. And they were, actually, as part of the “top line” designation.
You could argue too that the awards to Bell, for whom they blocked, and Dunbar Jr., for whom they provided quarterback Bo Levi Mitchell time to find on cleared routes, were a function of the play of the offensive line, which did not allow a sack.
“It was their best week,” agreed head coach Scott Milanovich. “Their most physical week in the run game. And I’m glad to see them get recognized.
“Everything you do offensively is contingent on the guys up front doing their job and they played physical and protected well. It was their best game and we need to see that more often.”
The Cats will need to see it again Friday night against a Toronto defence which recorded seven sacks against the Lions, and four against the Ticats on Labour Day.
The Ticats have won two in a row, Labour Day against the Argos and last week against Ottawa and, now the two arch-rivals meet again for the second time in 18 days. Milanovich says his team knows the Argos are “going to have an axe to grind.”
“I like it and don’t like it all at the same time,” Milanovich says of facing a team twice in such a short period. “It’s convenient in that you have an idea of what they’re going to do. But at the same time, they also know what you’re going to do.
“To some degree it’s a battle of what can you tweak, what kind of different look can you give them to keep them off balance and not be predictable. Given it was only two weeks ago I know they’re still fresh in our mind and I’m sure we’re still fresh in their mind.
“For the players, it’s a little bit easier to understand what you might be facing…for an offensive lineman, for instance. But there’s also the difficulty that you’re not surprising them either … unless you put something new in and that’s hard with a short week.”
Usher says he likes the way the defence—which had six turnovers against Ottawa—is meshing and the manner in which the entire team is in harmony in this mini-roll, one unit building off another.
“The offence makes a play we’re on our toes, defence makes a big play we’re on our toes,” said Usher who forced a fumble and recovered two of them. “Special teams made a big play this week. Everybody’s on their toes, feeding off each other.”
The Honour Roll defensive player of the week knows the Ticats will have to limit the damage caused by the Honour offensive player of the week, who threw for 322 yards on Labour Day, but was also picked off once and was forced to settle for five Lirim Hajrullahu field goals.
“He’s got a big arm and he can stretch the plays with his legs,” Usher said of Kelly, who had a modest 268 yards passing against the Lions but also had a career-high 10 runs for 56 critical yards.
“Knowing that we have to take advantage of keeping him in the pocket and make him beat us with the way he thinks he can beat us which is with his arm. We’ll see if he can throw into our coverage. Our guys can handle it for sure.
“It’s playoff football for us right now.”
