Game Thread: Toronto Argonauts @ Ottawa Redblacks

[ARGO57]

Bad game as a whole, eerily similar to the East Final against the Als. Kelly didn't play well at all, neither did the rest of the team. Although I believe keeping him at QB for the whole game and letting him ride it out was the right decision. He's been sitting on the sidelines for ages because of the suspension, so the last thing we need is for his morale to sink even further if he was standing on the sidelines for an extended period of time. Hopefully he bounces back.

The defense had a few stops, but not nearly enough. They got torched.

Also a minor gripe, I'm more accustomed to watching hockey and I know football players and coaches are built differently. But Dinwiddie's over reaction to us getting a TD to open up the half was very silly. I know he's trying to boost the energy of the team but we were still down big. He needs to channel his emotions there. Of course the Redblacks got a TD on the next series lol.

I know it's much too early to talk about the playoffs, since it's looking like a struggle right now, but if we do make it. It'll be as a third seed which means we'll start off on the road. When is the last time we won a road playoff game aside from the Grey cup games?

2012 Eastern Final.

[ARGO57]

Kudos to Ottawa who were well prepared and came to play today unlike the Toronto Argonauts who pretty much sucked in every aspect.
Chad Kelly seems to have no confidence and looks rather confused, has been making stupid decisions and isn’t throwing the ball well at all.
O-Line play has been rather mediocre (to be kind), Argo receivers rather ordinary and seemingly unwilling or incapable of throwing blocks downfield.
Kadeem Carey as always performs well and competes hard.
Argonauts D-Line very disappointing overall, Ceresna has been a major disappointment in Double Blue.
McFadden, Priester and Franklin have been solid at times but as a unit the Argos secondary are a mess, blown coverages and soft tackling are evident quite regularly.
The Argonaut roster has nowhere near the talent it had last season and the coaching staff hasn’t done a very good job as well.
I wasn’t a big fan of the co-defensive coordinator strategy and am even less so now.
Unless they bring their A game this coming Friday in BC they will get embarrassed again for the third straight game.

[paulwoods13]

Third-place teams do not go to, much less win, the Grey Cup. This is a third-place team (if they can hang onto that spot).

This year reminds me of 1985. After three first-place finishes, a Grey Cup win and an incredibly disappointing eastern final loss, the wheels fell off for Obie. Both teams played most of the year without their starting QB, for different reasons, obviously. And both had other reasons in addition to quarterbacking for the precipitous fall. But it happened back then and it sure seems to be happening again this year.

[ArgoRavi]

Third-place teams do not go to, much less win, the Grey Cup. This is a third-place team (if they can hang onto that spot).

This year reminds me of 1985. After three first-place finishes, a Grey Cup win and an incredibly disappointing eastern final loss, the wheels fell off for Obie. Both teams played most of the year without their starting QB, for different reasons, obviously. And both had other reasons in addition to quarterbacking for the precipitous fall. But it happened back then and it sure seems to be happening again this year.

The last 3rd place team in the East to make it to the Grey Cup were the 1970 Alouettes.

We have debated ad nauseum on here about what happened with the Chad Kelly accusations but I suspect we can all agree that whatever happened in the week leading up to last year's East Final and then in that game itself has done long-term term damage to this team. They just haven't recovered to this point. Can they?

There's still one-third of the season left and they need to get some healthy bodies back in the lineup so I continue to hold out hope. However, these past two games have been immensely disappointing.

[OV Argo]

Third-place teams do not go to, much less win, the Grey Cup. This is a third-place team (if they can hang onto that spot).

This year reminds me of 1985. After three first-place finishes, a Grey Cup win and an incredibly disappointing eastern final loss, the wheels fell off for Obie. Both teams played most of the year without their starting QB, for different reasons, obviously. And both had other reasons in addition to quarterbacking for the precipitous fall. But it happened back then and it sure seems to be happening again this year.

The last 3rd place team in the East to make it to the Grey Cup were the 1970 Alouettes.

We have debated ad nauseum on here about what happened with the Chad Kelly accusations but I suspect we can all agree that whatever happened in the week leading up to last year's East Final and then in that game itself has done long-term term damage to this team. They just haven't recovered to this point. Can they?

There's still one-third of the season left and they need to get some healthy bodies back in the lineup so I continue to hold out hope. However, these past two games have been immensely disappointing.

*************************************************
Not to mention the 5 & 11 Ottawa Rough Riders of 81 (2nd in the useless East that year) made it to the GC and almost beat the EE dynasty team.

Still time to right the Argo ship for a play-off run, and getting some guys like McManis, Brinkman, Brissett back could really help; I just don't see the coaching smarts with this team now and have to wonder what happened to RD there? Have to wonder if Mace the DC and overall coach was a bigger factor than some realize

Good thing could be they will likely have to face the RedBlacks (likely in Ottawa) in the East semi, and, today's brutal performance aside, that is an easily winable game cause the RedBlacks just are not very good IMO, even though some seem to think their record so far makes them so. The Lions with a still rusty Rourke killed them last week. The match-up at home vs. Ottawa a bit down the road will be another chance to make a statement against them, even with the blown chance today.

[ArgoGabe22]

Frustrating game, twice in a row, which makes the feeling much worse. Regardless if the QB throws INTs or not, that defence isn’t winning the game. There were times last season and year prior where you felt confidence in the defence to get a stop when it mattered. This defence is just flat.

Kelly may have struggled with a wet ball, although playing from behind I get it but RD totally abandoned the run game which was disappointing.

I’m not buying that this is one of the worst losses in Argos history like some are saying elsewhere. I’d rather have a QB like Kelly give us some chance of a comeback and not afraid to go deep on first down than watch a Cleo Lemon and Drew Willy. How many have forgotten what a truly dreadful offence looks like. At least we’re not the Stamps. Yikes.

[Will]

This team is not a Grey Cup contender in any way shape or form as things stand right now. People want to theorize that the root cause of this two-game losing streak is Chad Kelly, and they're entitled to their opinion, and not taking away from the two pick-sixes, but there are other factors at play here.

The defense has been inconsistent, at best, all season. There has been a lack of consistent pass rush all season, which can partly be blamed on injuries. The secondary, which I thought was turning a corner against Saskatchewan has played poorly in two straight games and has also been inconsistent all season. Once again, this can partly be blamed on injuries. However, I daresay that the recruiting at that particular positional area appears to have fallen short. Can't work magic every year, but that's the reality of it. You can point and say that Kelly threw three picks in the first quarter, which led to 17 Ottawa points, but Dru Brown still threw for 350 yards.

I was dreading this game the moment I saw the weather. We can only speculate whether Kelly struggled with the wet ball, but I would've liked to have seen RD try and still go with the run when the team was down 10-0. Kelly had thrown 2 picks already and it could've helped to calm him down a little bit. If Adeboboye is limited from being a part of the running attack because of the injury then the Argos need to bring another guy in. I know that's easier said than done because Dan is Canadian, but it's turning a potential 3-headed monster into a 2-headed monster and I'm not sure how much faith coach has in McMahon either.

This is the third consecutive game where the Argos started flat. They were able to overcome that against Saskatchewan, but no against Hamilton and Ottawa, although I am of the belief they were never in this game. This is a team that can win games at home to be certain, but certainly not on the road. I don't like their prospects against BC on the road and I don't like their prospects against Winnipeg on the road. It remains to be seen what they can do against Montreal, Ottawa and Hamilton at home, but I fear that this is looking like a .500 team at best.

To wrap it all up, Coaches need to be better, Chad Kelly needs to be better, the whole team needs to be better.

[Will]

Third-place teams do not go to, much less win, the Grey Cup. This is a third-place team (if they can hang onto that spot).

This year reminds me of 1985. After three first-place finishes, a Grey Cup win and an incredibly disappointing eastern final loss, the wheels fell off for Obie. Both teams played most of the year without their starting QB, for different reasons, obviously. And both had other reasons in addition to quarterbacking for the precipitous fall. But it happened back then and it sure seems to be happening again this year.

The last 3rd place team in the East to make it to the Grey Cup were the 1970 Alouettes.

We have debated ad nauseum on here about what happened with the Chad Kelly accusations but I suspect we can all agree that whatever happened in the week leading up to last year's East Final and then in that game itself has done long-term term damage to this team. They just haven't recovered to this point. Can they?

There's still one-third of the season left and they need to get some healthy bodies back in the lineup so I continue to hold out hope. However, these past two games have been immensely disappointing.

The team was always going to be decimated in free agency during the 2023-2024 offseason whether Chad Kelly sexually harassed the female employee or not. Are you speculating that the locker room is fractured because of what has happened?

[gilthethrill]

"I wasn't really sure what was going on" Paul Hardcastle's song 19. Hard to really defend the Argos injury situation when Ottawa was missing key starters on both sides of the ball and had just cut the starting RB...but you wouldn't know it. It seems to be a trend falling behind early. I didn't see any intensity from what I thought was an improving D. A topic of discussion yesterday with some of the brightest minds in football as the game was on, is why isn't Mital starting? As mentioned earlier, Nield missed 2 blocks on those heavily relied on passes behind the line to the outside.
I expected the team to get hot when Kelly returned but it appears I couldn't have been more wrong.

On a side note, it was great to host argolio, AV, argo57 and boy yesterday. A special shout out to "Hurricane Hugo" for making an appearance and cheering up my award wining "Argo Room".

[ARGO57]

"I wasn't really sure what was going on" Paul Hardcastle's song 19. Hard to really defend the Argos injury situation when Ottawa was missing key starters on both sides of the ball and had just cut the starting RB...but you wouldn't know it. It seems to be a trend falling behind early. I didn't see any intensity from what I thought was an improving D. A topic of discussion yesterday with some of the brightest minds in football as the game was on, is why isn't Mital starting? As mentioned earlier, Nield missed 2 blocks on those heavily relied on passes behind the line to the outside.
I expected the team to get hot when Kelly returned but it appears I couldn't have been more wrong.

On a side note, it was great to host argolio, AV, argo57 and boy yesterday. A special shout out to "Hurricane Hugo" for making an appearance and cheering up my award wining "Argo Room".

Thanks to you for hosting us at your home, many laughs which brightened up an otherwise miserable game.
“Some of the brightest minds in football” leads me to believe you had other guests for the later games yesterday.