It’s Week 10 in the Canadian Football League, and with the calendar flipping to August, the games are starting to mean more and more.
With nine weeks of data points to work with, we’re starting to get a sense of who is for real and who isn’t. Let’s see if we can use that to find an edge this week.
B.C. Lions at Hamilton Tiger-Cats — Thursday, August 7 at 7:30 p.m. EDT
The East Division-leading Tiger-Cats kick off the week in the CFL as they host the Lions in Hamilton. These two teams met back in Week 8 with Hamilton winning a high-scoring affair back on the West Coast.
Hamilton is the hottest team in the CFL as they ride a five-game winning streak into Thursday’s matchup. A major part of that hot streak is the passing attack, led by Bo Levi Mitchell. The former M.O.P. lit up the Lions in their Week 8 match for 389 yards and three touchdowns. He followed that up with another 350 yards and three scores last week in their close win with Edmonton.
The other big part of Hamilton’s success has been ball control. The Tiger-Cats have the second-fewest giveaways in the CFL this year, continuing the trend from the back half of last season when they made a push towards a playoff spot.
On paper, it looks like a tough matchup for Hamilton through the air, with B.C. giving up the fewest passing yards per game in the CFL this season. If you dig a little deeper into that, however, you’ll see it’s a little misleading.
In B.C.’s eight games, they have faced backups Chris Streveler, Jake Maier, and McLeod Bethel-Thompson, while also going against Tre Ford twice, who is now a backup himself. The Lions did limit Zach Collaros to 179 yards when he faced them, but the other two starters B.C. faced this year both went off for over 385 yards.
I had a tough time getting a read on this Lions team in the early part of the season. But, the more I see them, the more I feel like there are quite a few flaws, and Nathan Rourke’s excellent play can only cover up so many of them.
PICK: Hamilton -3.5
Edmonton Elks at Montreal Alouettes — Friday, August 8 at 7:30 p.m. EDT
The Alouettes and Elks get the Friday night spotlight in Montreal, with each team looking to regroup from a loss in Week 9. For Montreal, they got beaten up by Saskatchewan 34-6 last week, while Edmonton lost to Hamilton 28-24.
Both teams have struggled to put points up on the board recently. Edmonton hasn’t reached the 30-point mark since their Week 5 win over Ottawa, while Montreal has only hit that mark twice this year — Week 3 against these Elks and Week 2, also against Ottawa. Thus, it makes sense that both of these teams find themselves in the bottom half of the league in points per game.
Looking at the matchup when Montreal has the ball, this looks like a very stoppable force against an incredibly moveable object. As mentioned above, the Als aren’t exactly lighting up the scoreboard this year and this hasn’t been because they put up big numbers but just can’t find the end zone.
Along with a bottom-half ranking in points per game, Montreal is also in the back part of the league in net offence. McLeod Bethel-Thompson had a big night against Calgary a couple of weeks ago, but he came crashing back to earth against Saskatchewan. He only threw one interception, but got away with several more that could have gone back the other way. And even with that, he has four interceptions in his four starts and has only thrown for 210-plus yards once.
He’ll be going up against an Elks defence that has been a pretty good slump-buster for teams this year. They are in the bottom half of the league in every defensive stats category the CFL tracks, with three exceptions: opponent rush attempts, opponent pass attempts, and opponent field goals. Presumably they aren’t in the bottom of those categories because it’s too easy to move the ball on them, so teams don’t need a lot of attempts to make their way into the end zone.
On the opposite side of this matchup, Montreal’s defence has been excellent this year. This is a tough case to make after they gave up 34 points last week, but they were asked to carry a lot of the water in that game. Montreal only had the ball for 23:08 in that game, so it wasn’t that they defended poorly — it’s just that they had to defend a lot because their offence couldn’t stay on the field. Even with that, they still have allowed the third-fewest points in the league and have the best net defence in the CFL.
They face an Edmonton team that has struggled to get out of the gates offensively this year. We talked about their problems scoring. Much like their defence, the offence is in the bottom of the league in most categories — with the exception of pass efficiency, where they sit third, which probably says more about that stat than it does the Elks’ offence.
The area of the offence that needs to be fixed right away is the play of the Elks offensive line. Edmonton has allowed the second-most sacks in the CFL this year, and that is while being one of two teams to have only played seven games. Meanwhile, Montreal’s defence is third in the league in sacks, five back of Saskatchewan, which had the good fortune of already playing Edmonton and getting eight sacks in that game.
These two teams met early in the season in a high-scoring 38-28 Montreal win, but a lot has changed since that game. Montreal’s offensive struggles are keeping me from picking their side in this game, but I think their defence will hold up their end of the bargain to keep this game under the number.
PICK: Under 51.5
