It’s been a season of streaks, across the league and for the Tiger-Cats, and of course they want the current one to continue. But that won’t be on their minds Saturday afternoon.
As the 9-5 Ticats head into Winnipeg for their second game against the 7-7 Bombers in three weeks, all of Hamilton’s wins—and all of their losses for that matter—have come in two separate streaks. They started at 0-2, then won six in a row, then lost three in a row, two of them in the final moments, and since then have won three straight: in Montreal and at home against Winnipeg and, last week, Edmonton in the Hall of Fame Game.
“It was important to us to continue the momentum that we had built for this year,” head coach Scott Milanovich said earlier this week. “I do believe in that. I know a lot of people don’t, but I think momentum is a big factor.”
But he cautioned that it’s not about what’s been done, but what has yet to be done:
“I know how cliché this sounds, but we know we need to improve little by little over these last four weeks. And the only way to do that is to focus on the next game. Like I’ve bored you guys with for 14 weeks. But that’s what we believe. And (his players) believe it.
“And that’s the most important thing: one game at a time, we’re going to have to continue to improve. Fix the things that we didn’t do. Like (against Edmonton) we did a nice job stopping the run. That was an improvement over the week before.”
This week, they’ll be looking to be even better at stopping the run—and will have to be—because the Bombers have Brady Oliveira who’s really been, pardon the pun, hitting his stride.
Oliveira has carried the ball 55 times the last three games and has gone over 100 yards each of the last two, including 116 against the Ticats. He’s also a force at catching the ball when he swings out of the backfield.
The powerful back is one of the two lead pistons in the Bomber offensive motor, which will be revved by the return of future Hall of Fame quarterback Zach Collaros after he spent two games on the sidelines with a head injury.
And how’s this for a streak? Since he came to the Bombers five Grey Cup appearances ago, Collaros is 31-7 as a starter in Winnipeg home games. As it is with the Ticats and Bo Levi Mitchell, when he’s in the huddle, his team always believes that they’ve got a chance.
The Cats will need to take advantage of an uncharacteristic Winnipeg shortcoming this year: they lead the league in surrendering sacks, so one of the ways they could show the improvement Milanovich is looking for is get to him early and often with physical, creative and sustained pass rushes, change his reads and throwing angles and, above all, contain Oliveira as well as they can. The pass is built off the run: so Ticat defenders have to square up and make secure tackles in the first two tiers to force longer second downs, allowing the ball-hawking Ticat secondary to play the aggressive style which is generally their signature of success.
“The biggest thing is just coming out ready for a physical game,” said Ticats defensive end Julian Howsare, who leads the team with seven sacks and has been putting together an all-star-type season. “Everybody has got to get to the ball. You’ve got to go and tackle him. You just have to play physical from the very first play and contain him as much as possible.
“They’re a team that’s been together for a long time. They have a really good offensive line and really good running back. And Collaros is someone who’s been in this league playing at a high level for a long time. So they’re a good football team. But at the end of the day, we’ve just got to do our job and take care of business.”
Philip Ossai, the young defensive end who has started on the other pole of the line from Howsare since TyJuan Garbutt was injured a month ago, will get his first experience at tumultuous Princess Auto Stadium, where the Ticats have lost four straight games and are looking to muffle the rabid Blue and Gold fans early.
What is the strategy for limiting Oliveira’s punishing skill set?
“Just bring my feet to the party,” says Ossai, who has 16 tackles and two sacks the past two games. “We can play. We are a very good run defence as well as pass defence. So we always just have to bring our feet, wrap up and bring him down.”
It’s a testament to the Winnipeg running game that they were able to win in Ottawa last weekend, despite completing only three—that is not a misprint—passes in eight attempts, with Chris Streveler under centre.
That was the first time since September of 1975 that a CFL team won a game while completing three or fewer passes. The same two teams who will meet Saturday afternoon (3 p.m. Ticats Audio Network, TSN) were in that air-challenged game as former Ticat Chuck Ealey, by then a Bomber, went 2-for-11 in a win over the Ticats.
Thoughtful Ticat defensive back Dashaun Amos, the veteran who will be an important factor in reducing Collaros’s options and covering a very strong Winnipeg receiving corps, said that the three completed passes aren’t entirely an indictment and can be seen as a tribute to the CFL’s variety.
“In a sense of the big umbrella, there’s a million ways to win here,” he says. “I think that’s what makes this game fun. You find a different way to win. And at the end of the day, it takes all three phases, right? I said maybe a week or two ago that offence and defence can have ‘one of those games’ and you still win but one phase of the team that can’t have an off game is special teams.
“And for them, special teams and defence did what they had to do, where they could win with only having three completions. So, they’re not just one-dimensional. And they can win a game with just running the ball.
“You can’t just say, ‘We’re going to shut down the pass and make them beat us on the ground,’ because they just proved that they can do that.”
On the special teams Amos referred to, the Bombers got a couple of long returns last week from Trey Vaval who set a CFL record with 199 total yards in a missed field-goal return which included a franchise-record 128-yarder for a touchdown. The Ticats’ downfield coverage has wavered occasionally of late—it’s generally been one of their strong suits—so they’ll have to be on top of that part of their repertoire against the Bombers, who have always made special teams consistency a priority.
The Ticats’ offence, meanwhile, has been evolving and diversifying. The passing potential is still lethal with Kenny Lawler having already caught a career-high 11 touchdown passes and Kiondré Smith and Tim White closing in on joining him as 1000-yard receivers.
And here’s another streak: if White gets to 1000 (he needs 188 more yards) he will be only the second receiver in Ticats history to put up four consecutive 1000-yard seasons in the black and gold. Hall of Famer Darren Flutie (1998-2001) was the first.
But the Ticats running game has suddenly surged as Bo Levi Mitchell, heeding his head coach’s counsel, has been taking what the defences have given him. He’s handing off or pitching to Greg Bell, running himself, and not forcing the ball into what’s not there; using swing passes out of the backfield, shorter passes to the seams and on crosses to Smith and White, peppered with deeper defence-stretching shots, most often to Lawler.
Bell has emerged as a hub in the offensive wheel, actually carrying the ball even more often than Oliveira has over the past three games: 59 times. He’s accumulated 386 rushing yards in that stretch, including the first back-to-back 100-plus games of his pro career and has also had 17 pass receptions.
The line has been opening some attractive holes for him, and Bell is recognizing when to hit that hole, and when to get outside when the middle route is about to close.
“The only answer I have is that we’ve had more continuity with him being in there with our offensive line,” Milanovich said this week of the Ticats’ running game charging into the spotlight. “We’ve had situations in games where we were able to run the ball more, based on score and wind, all those things that are a factor, and it’s worked right, which makes it much easier for me to stick with it.
“I’ve also said I think it’s important at this time of the year to be able to have enough balance. You’re going to have to win a game down the stretch where, whatever the case may be—whether a pass game that isn’t working—where you can lean on your run game for a period of time in a game and still come out with a win. So, it’s very encouraging the way we’ve run the ball the last couple weeks.”
If the Ticats can win in Manitoba, they will clinch a home playoff game as either the first or second place finisher in the East. But the far bigger prize is finishing first, which comes with a bye into the East Final, and the right to host that game. Their “magic number” for that is four: meaning any combination of points in the standings won by the Ticats or lost by the Alouettes that totals four (two points per win/loss), gives the Ticats their first regular-season divisional pennant in six years. The Cats are riding confidence and self-belief, enjoying each other, and are so close they can smell it. But they’re keeping their nostrils slammed shut.
“I think it’s very important to not kind of get on the high horse; you know, to stay humble, stay level-headed,” Amos said early this week. “Remember what’s got us here and look for things to improve on. Because what got us here isn’t necessarily going to carry us through. It’s about the things that we’re not necessarily covering or not being the best at.
“We want to make the environment fun. We want to make sure that everybody wants to show up and put in the work that we need to, to get better and be the best at the end of this year.”
CATS CLAUSES: PK Marc Liegghio who was 5-for-5 in field goals including the game-winner against Edmonton, has made 21 straight since missing one, and leads the league with a 95.1 per cent success rate and he was the only Ticat named to the CFL’s Week 16 Honour Roll. His winning field goal over Edmonton last week was the league’s 7th walk-off field goal this year. There were 10 last year and only 3 in each of the previous two seasons … shutdown corner Jamal Peters is a game-time decision for the Ticats … WILL LB Kyler Fisher returns to start … the Ticats signed DL Jose Ramirez to the practice roster this week. He played at Eastern Michigan and was on the Tampa Bay Buccaneers’ practice roster for two seasons before being released in the final cuts a month ago. OL Joey Lombard was released … the difference between the Ticats’ league-leading turnover ratio of plus-7 and the Bombers’ league-trailing minus-9 is 16 turnovers. Last year, that first-to-ninth gap was 49 turnovers … sacks increased over the past two weeks as defences stepped up in the stretch drive: 3.65 per game through 14 weeks; 4.63 over the past two weekends … if the Ticats can win they would sweep the season’s series with Winnipeg for the first time since 2019 … the Ticats have outscored the opposition by 54 points in the fourth quarter … The Ticats have given up 18 sacks, one off the league-low while the Bombers have surrendered the second most at 38 … Both teams are opportunistic: Winnipeg is third in the league with 75 points scored off turnovers, 23 fewer than CFL-best Hamilton … Zach Collaros has the league’s second-best pass completion rate at 73.8 behind Cody Fajardo’s 76.5 … Winnipeg’s Tony Jones is second in the CFL with 86, 11 behind Micah Awe … Nic Demski leads the Bombers with seven touchdown receptions while RB Brady Oliveira is third in the league with 336 yards after making a catch, emphasizing the Ticats’ determination to gang-tackle him … WR Jerreth Sterns comes off the injury list for the Bombers and Keric Wheatfall, who leads the team with 619 receiving yards goes onto the 1-game list.
