Tiger-Cats Eye Bye to East Final with Crucial Win over Ottawa

Although they’ve been a great road team this year—their 6-3 mark matches the franchise’s all-time high—the Tiger-Cats don’t want to pack another suitcase until mid-November when they can head to Winnipeg with the Grey Cup on the line.

So, as head coach Scott Milanovich says, that makes Friday night’s regular-season finale at Hamilton Stadium “a playoff game for us essentially, right? Virtually a playoff game. You win the game, you’re automatically into the second round and that’s the obvious part.”

The Ottawa Redblacks, plagued all season by injuries—to an uncountable number of Canadians in the first half and to at least a half-dozen defensive backs at the moment—come into town as the last-place team in the CFL East, their playoff hopes long erased, while the Ticats need just a win and they will guarantee first place.

The Ticats are tied for first with the Montréal Alouettes, who’ve won five in a row, at 10-7, but if the two teams remain deadlocked after the weekend slate concludes Saturday, the Ticats own the tiebreaker and would get a direct bye into hosting the East Final Saturday, Nov. 8.

If they don’t win and Montréal does, the Als would claim top spot, and the Ticats would have to host the East semifinal Saturday, Nov. 1, against the fourth-place Western team.

The Alouettes play in Winnipeg Saturday and no matter how desperate the Bombers are for a win to avoid being the team which must travel East, the Als would be so buoyed by a Hamilton loss or tie they’d feel like destiny’s darlings. They’re already on a five-game winning streak and consider themselves a completely different team with injury-recovered quarterback Davis Alexander at the wheel. He didn’t play when they lost both times, decisively, they played the Ticats this year.

But the Als aren’t even in the Ticats’ mental equation, nor should they be. They’re concentrating on their own play first, and Ottawa’s second. Milanovich says all he cares about is winning by one point and he and his players have been stressing that the Redblacks will not only be menacing over the final 60 minutes of the season, they’ve always been better than their wins and losses (4-13) would suggest.

“This is going to be a really tough game,” said Ticats fullback/tight end/special teams devotee Ante Litre. “Their record doesn’t illustrate the capabilities of their team. And they’ve got athletes all over the field.

“This is a playoff game and Ottawa is participating in a playoff game this week despite not being included in the subsequent weeks. I think it’s going to be a really tough game, so we’re going to bring our A-game.”

That’s one of the lessons the well-rested Ticats—they’re coming off their third bye and are 4-1 in that situation the past two seasons—hopefully extracted from their 37-20 loss to the Stampeders two weeks ago, when they could have wrapped up first. They did not bring their A-game to that one, especially in the early going when they trailed 20-3, and have had to stew in it for 13 days. They’ve got to come ready to play from the opening kickoff in all three phases of the game and not rely upon their stick-to-it-iveness, which has been considerable, to overcome any early flaws. That hasn’t been enough in two of their last three games (they were torched 40-3 in Winnipeg a month ago).

In various forms, the Redblacks are all playing, and coaching, for a good off-season review, next year’s contracts, respect for the competitive integrity of the sport, and personal pride. And that adds just enough spice and motivation to the freedom of playing loose that comes with already being eliminated. They want to enjoy their moment and stay in it because there are no moments left for them, at least not as currently constituted, after Friday night. The Ticats task is to not let them, to hurl them into next-year mode as quickly as they can.

“If you love this game, you’re going to show up and play it the right way no matter what,” said Bo Levi Mitchell who earlier this week was selected as the Cats’ Most Outstanding Player.

“I can tell you that in this locker room, no matter what position we are in, we’re going to go out there and play hard.”

And the Ticats anticipate that from the Redblacks too.

If there’s a sense of déjà vu to this season-ender, it’s because last year the roles were almost the reverse. The Ticats were in last place and had already been eliminated and went into Ottawa for Game 18 against the Redblacks who had clinched a playoff spot, albeit only the right to travel to Toronto to play the Argos. It was a barn-burner, which the Ticats lost 37-31 when they couldn’t convert numerous cracks from the Ottawa 1-yard-line in the final half-minute. Mitchell had 425 yards passing, Greg Bell neared 100 rushing and the two teams combined for a stunning 1067 yards of net offence. Sixty minutes of nobody mailing it in, on either side.

“I expect them to perform the way we did last year, as pros,” Milanovich said after a long week of practice ended Thursday. “They’ll play hard trying to build for the following season. Those guys are tough. There’s a lot of pride that’s involved. And everybody wants to go into the off-season with a win.

“For me, I was selling the momentum we had built on the second half of the year, and I still think it carried over throughout the offseason into this season; from a mental aspect and from an expectation to be able to win and to be able to compete with the best. So, I assume they’re doing the same thing.”

The Ticats have had to prepare for the possibility of facing two quarterbacks. After missing last week’s loss to Montréal because of a head injury, Dustin Crum has been cleared to play and is listed on the depth chart. Tyrie Adams, who had three touchdowns last week but also was picked off three times in just his second career start, gets the nod as No. 1 and former Ticat Matt Shiltz completes the pivot trio.

“Crum and Adams, I think, are very similar quarterbacks; they’re good running quarterbacks and they can toss the ball as well,” says Ticats’ defensive tackle Casey Sayles. “It’s good that they’re both dual-threat quarterbacks that you can prepare for but they do have different skill sets. Crum has more experience from the number of games that he’s played the last few years but you can’t take away from Tyrie for going in there last week against Montréal and giving his all.”

The other addition to this week’s Ottawa lineup is Canadian defensive lineman Cleyon Laing, the four-time divisional all-star who returns after being out injured since late August.

On their side, the Ticats will get defensive tackle Miles Fox and weakside linebacker Kyler Fisher back, and both are listed as starters. American Braxton Hill is listed as the starter at middle linebacker, with Devin Veresuk, the team’s unanimous choice for rookie of the year, named the Designated Canadian with American DaShaun Amos as the Nationalized American. That’s all part of the CFL’s complicated roster-ratio pyramid and overall, depending upon game circumstances, Amos plays his normal spot and the linebacker rotation probably looks similar to what it has been.

The Redblacks have a half-dozen defensive backs on the two injury lists so could be vulnerable to the throws over the top to Kenny Lawler that have made him the East’s—and arguably the league’s—most watchable deep receiver.

But the Redblacks have some excellent defenders up front in Laing, Bryce Carter and Mike Wakefield and Mitchell cautioned Tuesday that linebackers Adarius Pickett and former Ticat Jovan Santos-Knox are among the CFL’s best.

“We were in (Ottawa’s) position last year,” Litre said. “I remember we had the same interview a lot this time last year. And you really find out your love for the sport in a game like this for them. They’re a dangerous team when they’re in that situation, when there’s no tomorrow, and you’re going to bring your best game possible. I think the way we ended last year, we fought to the very bitter end of that game. And I’m expecting the exact same effort, and execution, from Ottawa. So this is a real deal.”

As close to a playoff game as it can be without technically being one.

“When our defence is getting turnovers, when we protect the ball on offence, we tend to win,” Milanovich said, “And that’s been our formula all year and we need to get back to that.”

CATS CLAUSES: Bo Levi Mitchell is the seventh quarterback in CFL history to record back-to-back 5,000-yard seasons, joining Warren Moon, Kent Austin, Doug Flutie, Anthony Calvillo, Ricky Ray and Mike Reilly. Mitchell needs two touchdown passes to set a new career-high of 36 … If Kenny Lawler has a TD reception he will tie Tony Champion’s franchise record of 15 recorded in 1989 … Greg Bell needs 56 rushing yards for his first 1,000-yard season, and Tim White is 53 yards shy of becoming just the second Ticat (Darren Flutie) receiver to record four straight 1,000-yard seasons, but Mitchell says that doesn’t enter his mind at all during the game but added, “Those guys are going to get their yards, being the players they are. That’s who they are. And that’s why they’re in the position to be to be able to do that.” … Safety Stavros Katsantonis, who’s tied for the league lead in interceptions, needs one tackle to get to 200 for his career … the Ticats remind fans they can support both the Cats’ push to secure first place and a bye into the East final and the Blue Jays’ first game in the World Series. The Jays game will be shown on screens at various spots in the stadium and, after the Cats’ game concludes, on the video board until 11:30 p.m. … Hamilton has won seven home games in a row against Ottawa dating back to Oct., 2018 … Redblacks RB William Stanback needs eight carries to reach 1,000 in his career … receiver Eugene Lewis reached 1,000 yards last week for the third straight year and fourth time in his impactful career … Justin Hardy needs 32 receiving yards for his third straight 1,000-yard season. With 72 receiving yards he will have the sixth-most in Ottawa history

See below the Tiger-Cats depth chart for the game: