The CFL regular season is over and the post-season looms. Here are our takeaways from the final weekend of play.
Sad day for Ray
Poor Ricky Ray. Back in Commonwealth Stadium making his 200th start, the Toronto Argonauts‘ QB was blown out by his former team and outplayed by a guy over a decade younger than him.
When healthy, the three-time Grey Cup champion is still a competent passer. Ray finished the season throwing for 2,367 yards, 15 TDs and just six interceptions. The issue, though, is that Ray hasn’t been able to stay on the field during his time in Toronto.
Ray has 24 wins and 28 losses as an Argo, and he’s missed 38 games due to injury—that’s two full years lost in a five-year span. The most basic of QB hits have been able to put the legendary passer on the shelf for extended periods of time. Which is why it hurts even more that Toronto lost both Zach Collaros and Trevor Harris in free agency.
Making matters worse, Ray’s uncertainty caused them to trade a first-round draft pick for Drew Willy this year. That means that Winnipeg now has the No. 1–overall pick in the upcoming draft as the Argos finished last in the league standings with a 5-13 record.
James Franklin makes a statement
Edmonton’s last game of the season meant nothing—they’d already sewn up their playoff spot and will play Hamilton on Sunday—but James Franklin looked good with Mike Reilly getting rest.
After Franklin threw just one pass all season he lit up Toronto to the tune of four touchdown passes in the first half. Franklin finished with 335 yards—186 of them going to fellow backup Brandon Zylstra.
Franklin wasn’t just providing further confidence to his own organization as they head into the playoffs—he was auditioning for the rest of the teams in the league. Franklin will be the top backup teams would be interested in this off-season.
East division semi all about team from the West
Edmonton and Hamilton split the season series, but this sets up to be one of the more one-sided division semifinals in recent memory.
Edmonton finished fourth in the West but better than any team in the East in the regular season. Edmonton also won five of their last six to end the regular season.
Meanwhile, with their loss to the Alouettes on Saturday, the Tiger-Cats have now dropped four straight at home. Hamilton goes into the playoffs on a two-game losing streak and have lost five of their last six games.
Another issue for the Ticats will be health. The Eskimos are coming in having rested starters versus Toronto. Hamilton, however, will be missing three of their best receivers as Luke Tasker, Andy Fantuz and Chad Owens are all out due to injury.
West division semi all about turnovers
The BC Lions beat the Saskatchewan Roughriders to secure home field against Winnipeg. But there’s reason for Bombers fans to be hopeful as their team swept swept the season series.
The secret for success for Winnipeg all year was the turnover battle, and that was no different in their close wins over BC. The Bombers won the turnover battle by five when the teams played this season. They won both games by a combined five points.
Jonathon Jennings had five interceptions in the two losses to the Blue Bombers, and in the matchup at BC Place Chris Rainey had a key fumble that snuffed out BC’s comeback late.
All indications are this game should be close with both fan bases rightfully believing they should win.
Banner year for BC offence
Lost in all the talk of how dangerous Calgary is offensively is how good their west rivals in BC were racking up yards in 2016. Their win over Saskatchewan marked their fifth game of 40-plus points this season.
Jonathon Jennings and Emmanuel Arceneaux reached the lofty plateaus of 5,000 yards passing and 100 catches, respectively. Doug Flutie, Dave Dickenson and Casey Printers are the only other BC Lions to throw for 5,000 yards in a season.
Jennings put up 307 yards passing and three touchdowns in his final work of the regular season. Arceneaux, meanwhile, needed just five catches to get 100 and ended up with 10. The last time a BC Lions receiver had 100 was back in 2006 when Geroy Simon did it.
BC is among the most explosive passing games in the league with Arceneaux, who finished third in receiving yards, and Bryan Burnham right behind him in fourth.