Montreal Alouettes vs Ottawa Redblacks September 21, 2024 PHOTO: André Ringuette/Freestyle Photography
Take a deep breath, RNation. The Ottawa REDBLACKS are headed to the postseason.
With the Winnipeg Blue Bombers win over the Hamilton Tiger-Cats on Friday night, the REDBLACKS punched their ticket to the playoffs for the first time since 2018. They could still meet either the Toronto Argonauts or the Hamilton Tiger-Cats, but we do know they’ll be playing football on Saturday, November 2nd.
Along with the matchup, the game’s location has still yet to be determined. What we do know, however, is that if the game is to be played away from TD Place, it would be at BMO Field in Toronto.
Regardless, this is the best bye-week news any REDBLACKS fan could have hoped for at this point of the season. They are the third team in the CFL to clinch, and did so on the earliest date in franchise history, narrowly beating out their 2018 date by two days. But how did we get here?
While some are making the argument that the REDBLACKS “backed into the playoffs,” it’s rather disingenuous. Sure, the team is on a bit of a slide, losing their last three games, but they still hold the third-best record in the league, and put themselves in a position to be exactly where they are.
At 8-6-1, this isn’t a matter of another team’s futility, it’s a story of the REDBLACKS earning their spot by winning football games early in the year.
At home, the REDBLACKS have been a force, winning six of their eight tries, with another resulting in a tie. Away from TD Place, things have been a little more challenging, highlighting that there are still things to improve upon, but no one in the organization is pretending that clinching a spot means the work is done.
In this uber-competitive CFL, every single team has had a stretch of a couple of games or longer that worried fans. The Montreal Alouettes – who admittedly haven’t had a long stretch – lost to the Argos and tied with the Calgary Stampeders in back-to-back games, the Winnipeg Blue Bombers started 0-4, and now lead the West Division, and the B.C. Lions lost seven of nine games in the middle of the schedule.
What has been shown each and every time is that a stretch of bad games doesn’t define a team in the CFL, as long as things are corrected.
That’s exactly what Head Coach Bob Dyce and his staff are hoping to do when the REDBLACKS hit the field at practice next week, ahead of their Thanksgiving Monday meeting with the Alouettes.
Make no mistake, the fans aren’t the only ones disappointed with the performance in the past three games, and the players and coaches know that if they want to reach their Grey Cup goals, they’ll need to be better.
Knowing for sure that you’ll have a chance to compete in the dance, however, is a good thing, make no mistake about it.
