The good news is that three-quarters of the CFL East is off to a stumbling start. The bad news is that their next game happens to be against the other quarter.
The Tiger-Cats headed into their first bye week of the season with a bitter burn coating their collective mouths and too long to stew in their own juices after dropping a 28-23 decision to the Saskatchewan Roughriders at Hamilton Stadium Saturday night.
That dropped Hamilton to 0-2, deadlocked with similarly winless Ottawa and Toronto in what could charitably be called a tie for second place behind 2-0 Montreal. A less kindly way of expressing it would be that the Cats, Argos and Redblacks are also tied for last place.
And, after facing one of the toughest defensive front sevens in the game, the Ticats must return from their bye to face a Montréal Alouettes defence that is at least as vigorous as the Roughriders’.
“Byes always taste better after a win,” said head coach Scott Milanovich. “There’s no question about it, it’s never fun to go into a bye week on a loss. There’s certainly going to be a lot of soul-searching and seeing what we can do better as coaches and seeing what we can do better as players.
“Hopefully it’s just tweaking. I don’t think you’re going to see some mass changes in scheme or personnel or things like that. But we have to make sure we’ve got the right players on the field, and we’re giving them the best chance to be successful out there.”
On a night when the Ticats retired Garney Henley’s legendary No. 26 jersey in a moving halftime ceremony, they could have used a little of the versatile Henley touch and his penchant for the winning play.
The Ticats are 0-2 for the third straight season, and there was enough déjà vu all over again to it, that you’d think Yogi Berra was doing the colour commentary.
Too familiar and too unacceptable. Like last year, they lost their opener in Calgary. Like last year, they came home to face Saskatchewan, had a chance to win, and came up short.
They had hot stretches and stretches cold enough to cost them the game. They limited their penalties but a couple of them were at the wrong place at the wrong time. And if complementary football wins games, not playing complementary football can certainly lose them. They didn’t follow inspiring offensive drives often enough with immediate defensive stops; and didn’t follow big defensive plays with sustained drives to keep the defence off the field often enough.
And you have to score touchdowns, not field goals, (3-for-3 again from Marc Liegghio) when you’re piling up offence as the Ticats did: 370 yards, 336 of them through the air. Saskatchewan, however, had 416 yards and a more balanced attack, with 133 yards on the ground, 96 of them by A.J. Ouellette, who powered, then sped, then powered his way to a highlight 47-yard touchdown run.
And, you cannot throw a pick-six which Bo Levi Mitchell did five minutes into the third quarter with his team up 7-6, thanks to a missed convert and two missed field goals from normally reliable Rider veteran Brett Lauther, who started his career as a Ticat.
The Cats had opened the second half with a four-play stop of Rider quarterback Trevor Harris’s offence, and Isaiah Wooden’s ensuing exemplary 21-yard punt return.
But on the first play thereafter Mitchell, who’d had a dozen straight completions to open the game, was picked off by Rolan Milligan Jr., the reigning CFL defensive player of the year. When you play the Riders it’s essential to be aware of his whereabouts…at all times.
Mitchell, always quick to shoulder the blame, felt it was similar to last week when the Ticats opened the second half with a significant mis-play—a botched kickoff—that negatively altered the course of the game. And it was definitely uncomplimentary football.
“Last week with the kickoff and right there with my pick six,” he said. “It just changes the feel on the sideline. It’s just a play that I can’t make. I can’t force it. I can’t throw that. You’ve got to know to put (the ball) out there earlier. Rotate, check down…that’s on me with the security.”
Milanovic agreed that the pick six, followed by an easy two-point conversion pass to Dhel Duncan-Busby was a huge momentum swing in the game, which the Ticats never led again, although they did twice move into a tie, including 20-20 with just over five minutes left.
“That was a big play for them and put us in a hole,” Milanovich said of Milligan jumping the route and accelerating to the house.
Mitchell was 26-for-40 for 313 yards and continued his near-psychic pitch-and-catch battery with marquee free agent signing Kenny Lawler, who was simply magnificent with eight grabs of the 10 balls thrown toward him for a game-leading 162 yards. Several of his receptions were ones only he could make, including a diving snare just short of the end zone which soon led to Ante Litre’s touchdown which got the Ticats into a 17-17 tie early in the fourth quarter. It was an eye-catching play all around as Mitchell recovered a bounced snap and still had the poise to put the ball low and outside to Lawler.
Harris went 26-for-37 for 295 yards, with one TD and a pick. KeeSean Johnson had eight catches for 124 yards and a touchdown and was part of a Harris assault which converted 13 of 23 second downs, the bulk of them in the second half, in which the Riders outscored the Cats 22-16.
The Ticats had a better running game than they did last week, with Greg Bell carrying only five times but for 46 yards and catching screens and swing passes six times for 44 more yards.
“They’re very good rush defense,” Milanovich said of Saskatchewan. “The screen game was part of our plan coming in, to get the ball out on the perimeter and let Greg run it that way. But the times that we did run, I thought we were pretty good.”
It’s a shame that Lawler’s effort went unrewarded with a victory in his first regular season home game as a Ticat. Despite his eight catches, he spoke most about the one ball he didn’t grab, on second down, that could have kept a drive going.
From this corner, Lawler had nothing—not a thing—to apologize for after his splendid night but he insisted:
“I know if I pull in that catch, I give my guys another opportunity to go out there and move the chains or even get a touchdown. So, you know, I put that one on me because I know if we get that touchdown, we apply some more pressure and the defence gets some more energy to go out there and get a stop.
“I don’t care how well I do, never do, I’m all about the win. It’s just about all of us clicking. It’s just the little things that we’ve got to clean up. Once we clean up those little things; I promise we’re going to be a great team.”
Mitchell made some excellent plays on difficult throws but was mea culpa about some of his more routine tosses, which went errant.
“I just hate losing and I hate making plays that help cause it,” said Mitchell, whose bid for a 100th career victory remains stalled at 99. “You know, I just do. I just hate losing. I know there’s a lot of guys who feel that way, but it’s on the quarterback, who touches the ball every single play.
“I feel like the ship goes the way that I steer it. I don’t think it’s (the offence) not having the ability to make great plays. It’s not that great plays weren’t made tonight. I’m a very harsh critic of myself, so as a 13-year vet, you’ve got to make the easy ones every time. I missed two guys kind of crossing on a check-down. You pride yourself on winning and making the plays to win the game. And I didn’t make enough of them tonight.”
Mitchell said he’d prefer to go right back out and play Saskatchewan again instead of having a bye week.
And when the Cats do come off the bye week it’ll be against the Alouettes (Friday, June 27), who’ve won their last six regular-season games against Hamilton and have the only two wins this season by an Eastern team. And they are aggressively miserly on defence.
“That’s who you think you have to beat in order to go to a Grey Cup, right?” Mitchell said. “We have the advantage of having a bye week. We’ll watch the film and get better from this and find an even better way to prepare for them.”
CATS CLAUSES: Tim White scored Hamilton’s first touchdown on a nine-yard pass and run over the middle to cap a 74-yard 13-play drive in the second quarter … strong-side CB Jonathan Moxey made his second interception, aided by safety Stavros Katsantonis’ hard hit. Katsantonis made five tackles and had two knockdowns and stormed up quickly to make a couple of tackles that stopped potentially larger gains on the wide side … Mario Kendricks had the Ticats’ only sack, helped by TyJuan Garbutt sealing off Trevor Harris’s only escape route … DB Destin Talbert and LB Ray Wilborn both had two pass knockdowns … Isaiah Wooden had 135 yards in returns … Kiondré Smith had four catches for 46 tough yards … as well as A.J. Ouellette’s 96 rushing yards, Saskatchewan got 26 from Ka’Deem Carey … KeeSean Johnson caught eight Harris passes for 124 yards and a TD … Dhel Duncan-Busby caught five for 59 … Rider sacks went to C.J. Reavis and former Ticat MLB Jameer Thurman who also had five tackles … announced attendance was 22,810.
