Landry's 5 takeaways from Week 12

Don Landry

CFL.ca

@CFLLandry

Hello, Chad Kelly. Of all the things about you that have impressed me much during this season, there is nothing that tops the discipline of your absolute insistent consistency in ending every single one of your interviews with “Go Argos.” It has me wondering if everything you do in life gets buttoned with that.

Would you like a receipt, sir? “Yes, I would. Go Argos.” Can I bring you more coffee? “Yes, please. Go Argos.” Do you take this woman to be your lawfully wedded wife? “I do.” *foot taps incessantly as he tries like hell to hold it in* “Go Argos!”

Here are this week’s takeaways.

A SPARK. TWO SPARKS, REALLY. PERHAPS A FLAME?

“We made it make sense,” said Edmonton Elks’ head coach Chris Jones of his team’s upcoming back-to-back games against the Calgary Stampeders.

I’m not exactly sure what he was driving at, there, but my guess is that he meant that the Elks two-win streak has made the annual OK Tire Labour Day home and home series more meaningful than it otherwise would have been had the Elks been going into it at oh-and-eleven.

Getting their first win of the season last week in Hamilton was big for the Elks, but ending the home losing streak that had gone on far too long and become the team’s chief identity is even bigger.

“We finally played four quarters,” Edmonton defensive end Jake Ceresna told CHED Radio afterward.

That, too, is a confidence-building step for a team that had yet to do that in 2023, even in that rain-delayed win in Hamilton in Week 11.

The streak is over. Complimentary football much more evident. And, oh yeah, the quarterbacking situation has been resolved with Tre Ford taking control.

Like the coach said, things make sense now.

LIFE IS A CARNIVAL. SO IS THE ARGOS DEFENCE

Appropriate back-drop, the Canadian National Exhibition was, for that Toronto Argonauts’ win over Calgary on Friday night.

A ferris wheel spinning, midway rides delighting. Sights and sounds galore for the senses.

The Argo defence is a lot like that. They make plenty of big plays and they give up plenty of big plays. Bone-thumping stops on running plays as well as being gashed for large gains on the ground. Interceptions and takeaways as well as drive-extending penalties and the surrendering of long balls aplenty.

Against the Stampeders, the Argos defence made what had been a fairly timid Stampeder passing game look like a mob of long bomb terrors. But then came crunch time and a Toronto pass rush that turned the terror tables on Calgary, snuffing out any possible final comeback with ferocious tenacity.

The Toronto Argonauts defence is entertainment. Big things happen one way or the other when they’re on the field.

Step right up, folks.

SOMEDAY HE’LL BE ABLE TO LOOK BACK AT THIS AND LAUGH. THAT SOMEDAY, TURNS OUT, IS THE SAME DAY

Winnipeg quarterback Zach Collaros had an absolutely miserable time against the Montreal defence in the first half of what would ultimately become a lopsided decision in favour of the Bombers.

Two pick-sixes surrendered, three interceptions. And Collaros made a couple of regrettable decisions on at least two of those swipes. Collaros also had four touchdown passes to the guys in the right uniforms, too, though.

The veteran quarterback was seen smiling and laughing on the sidelines as the game’s final moments played out and he was in good spirits again during his post-game media conference, owning his mistakes and even relaying a joke that teammate Dakota Prukop had made to him, telling the vet that it was not every day a QB could throw six touchdown passes in a game.

“I thought that was pretty funny,” said Collaros, laughing greatly as he said it.

When you’ve got a team like that to help you turn things around, it makes it easy to laugh at your own mistakes, and to cancel any personal pity party you might have had in mind.

RUNNING THE BALL IS AN ATTITUDE

That’s a quote from Hamilton Ticats’ head coach Orlondo Steinauer, after his team’s surprising, thorough victory over the Lions in Vancouver.

Sure, I guess it’s at least partly an attitude, one that drips down from the coaches to the offensive line and to the running backs.

But it is much more than that, I think. You’ve got to have a guy who has the ability to take advantage and James Butler did that against the Lions. 21 rushes for 118 yards did Butler have, including five lugs of over ten yards. Rushed for a touchdown, too, diving over the line of scrimmage in a leap so high that surely an air traffic controller at YVR exclaimed “what the hell was that?” at that moment.

If running the ball is an attitude then the Hamilton Ticats have profoundly adjusted their thinking. Along the way they may have found out how, exactly, they can turn what’s been a disappointing season around.

HE DOTS EVERY I, CROSSES EVERY T

The Winnipeg Blue Bombers were up by a score of 44-17 with less than six minutes to go when Dru Brown threw a pass over the middle to Rasheed Bailey that was broken up by Montreal’s J.R. Reed at the Alouettes’ 38-yard line.

Winnipeg head coach Mike O’Shea threw his challenge flag.

Might seem like an “aw, come on” moment because the game was over, really, but it’s just another indicator of how dedicated O’Shea is to process and to consistency.

And how he feels about his players, too. Bailey was incensed after the play, certain he’d been wronged. O’Shea could’ve said ‘don’t worry about it, let’s just get out of here with the win’ but instead he backed Bailey up.

The coach expects his players to execute – always. That challenge flag shows he expects it from himself too.

A pointless delay in a game already won?

That’s one way to look at that challenge. But not how they look at it in Winnipeg.

AND FINALLY… Farewell, Rich Stubler. I didn’t get to know you well but always enjoyed a quick chat with you. And one little browse of a social media timeline tells us all we need to know about just how adored you were by the legions of players who got to work your system. Rest well, sir.

Landry’s 5 takeaways from Week 12

Kevin Sousa/CFL.ca