Hamilton Tiger-Cats vs Ottawa REDBLACKS July 28, 2023 PHOTO: André Ringuette/Freestyle Photography
The Ottawa REDBLACKS may have fallen 44-31 to the league-leading Toronto Argonauts on Sunday night, but there’s more to it than meets the eye.
Prior to kickoff, the talking heads built a game plan that would lead to a Toronto victory: force REDBLACKS’ quarterback Dustin Crum to make plays with his arm, which the Argonauts did to perfection, but resulted in something different than they had anticipated.
The premise makes perfect sense. If you force a young quarterback to make the right reads over and over again, chances are, they’ll make a couple of mistakes here and there. What happened instead was Crum taking the snap, and finding a receiver in space more often than not. On the day, the rookie pivot tossed for 292 yards on 21 completions, putting the ball in the endzone a trio of times.
Performances like those from a quarterback are what win you plenty of games in the Canadian Football League, and we now know that Crum is capable of putting on a show. The credit, however, isn’t all his.
“It’s always preparation, that’s what it comes down to,” Crum said. “Khari Jones put together a good gameplan for us this week, and he did a really good job of scheming things up early.”
The impressive offensive display was about more than just quarterbacking and coaching. Too early to see Bralon Addison into the fray, the REDBLACKS’ receivers who did take reps showed out. Jaelon Acklin – as if right on cue – found the magic sauce, hauling in six passes for 157 yards and a long touchdown. Justin Hardy was equally as impressive, and others chipped in when asked.
“I know the guys that are beside me in that huddle, and I know what they are capable of, so it doesn’t surprise me too much,” Crum said. “There are still things we can learn from, things I can clean up that will help us and put us in better situations, but a lot of guys made plays out there.”
It continued up front with the offensive line, as well. For the most part, Crum was kept clean, and given ample time to find his targets. His was dropped four times throughout the game, with one sack coming on the final play of the evening, with the game already on ice.
When the REDBLACKS get back in the film room this week, they’ll find a lot to like, and because of that, Head Coach Bob Dyce is about as happy as a coach can be after a loss.
“I’m happy with what I saw,” he said. “The protection was shored up, and I thought Dustin was able to make his reads and put the ball where it needed to be. We had some vertical plays. Guys made plays, so we’re going to build off that positivity.”
Even with all of the confidence the strong performance generated, the fact of the matter is that it wasn’t enough to see it over the finish line, and when you’re in the midst of a playoff battle, every game is important.
At 3-6 and in last place in the East Division, the REDBLACKS are still in the thick of the race, but Crum isn’t mincing words about how important the next handful of games – a stretch where they’ll face the Montreal Alouettes, Edmonton Elks, and Hamilton Tiger-Cats – are.
“They’re all important, but I don’t think it’s too early to say every game is a must-win at this point,” Crum said.
Any time a player or coach speaks to the media, a trend has held true. Much like the game of football is a three-phase game, the REDBLACKS’ recipe for success is tri-tipped; start fast, execute well, and finish strong.
Numerous times, Ottawa has found one or two of those in the same game, and they have gotten away with wins, but in order to celebrate victory Monday consistently, you’re going to have to do all three. It’s a team that has shown capable of every goal, but now it’s about putting it all together at the same time.
“It’s just a matter of us being consistent,” Acklin said. “We can’t have games where we have trouble moving the ball and go two-and-out and then show up here and show what we can do. We didn’t even do enough [in Toronto], we could have put more on the board, and we have to figure that out.”
