Photo courtesy: David Friederich/B.C. Lions

The B.C. Lions put their newfound contender status to the test on Friday night and found a way to make up for mistakes of the past, defeating the Toronto Argonauts by a score of 27-20.

Here are my thoughts on the game.

Beautiful on the inside

So much of the credit for the Lions’ recent turnaround can be laid at the feet of their quarterback, Nathan Rourke, whose sensational play in two straight victories has put him in the thick of the M.O.P. race. Friday night’s performance was another story entirely, though in some ways a more positive one for the franchise as a whole.

It was not that Rourke played badly in this game; in fact, there were some absolute dimes amongst his 16 completions for 235 yards. I thought he generally looked as comfortable as he had been the past few weeks and saw the field extremely well, contributing three total touchdowns. The difference was that on three plays in the first half — all turnovers — his body simply failed him.

There is no defensive nuance to those three interceptions; Rourke simply missed. His first, which came up short on a would-be touchdown toss to Justin McInnis early, almost seemed to die in the air before Willie Drew caught it. The other two just sailed on the quarterback; the last only marginally enough that it was a tip by the receiver that facilitated the turnover. All were errors, but none are cause for concern.

It is no secret that Rourke had a lot going on this week — more on that in a moment — and it would be reasonable to wonder if that distraction had some effect on his night. Whether it did or not, the pivot that sat at the podium after this game did not appear distracted or burdened by broader narratives like he was a year ago. That hasn’t happened by accident.

“I think I’m dealing with it a lot better this time around. Obviously, everyone else probably won’t be able to see that difference, but I’m incredibly proud of the steps I’ve taken in my personal life to be able to prepare and work and show up to work every single day and be a leader in this locker room,” Rourke said. “It might not always be the prettiest game, but to me, I feel like I’ve made it. I’ve come a long way, and I wouldn’t change a thing with the way I’ve dealt with things this week.”

Beyond Rourke’s laudable approach to mental training, the biggest positive takeaway from this game is that the Lions were able to win even when he fell well short of perfection. For much of the season, even against weaker opponents, that simply wasn’t the case.

The sudden emergence of complementary football is an unexpected privilege for this team as they enter the stretch run — one which had Rourke making comparisons to the five-time reigning West Division champs.

“Not pretty, but sometimes good teams find a way,” he said. “I remember when (head coach Buck Pierce) was on the other team (Winnipeg) for the last couple of years, they would have an incredible record, they’d win a ton of games, and they’d just squeak out one every once in a while that was really ugly. You’d just get so mad, like ‘How did they get that one?’ I feel like that’s the kind of win that we snuck out with this time around.”

Journey of self-discovery

Complementary football doesn’t happen without a second side of the football capable of doing the complementing, and Mike Benevides’ defence deserves a ton of praise for keeping this game in check.

I was accused of being overly harsh on the defence last week, as I struggled to separate their performance from Calgary’s off-night offensively. It would appear that was fair criticism, because they came out against Toronto looking vastly different than the unit Nick Arbuckle flambéed before Labour Day. Among their notable accomplishments were just one big play allowed — which mostly came after the catch — and five field goals forced. Gone were the massive busts and receivers running free in the secondary of yore; they kept it all in front of them and rallied to the ball.

This was a game that the Lions absolutely would have lost just a few weeks ago, but here they made the timely plays needed to get stops. Even when unforced errors brought the Argos within a touchdown late and the offence failed to answer back, they didn’t crumble or shrink from the spotlight. Mathieu Betts came flying off the edge to make the play that was needed in the biggest moment.

“The guys have to understand that because it’s the fourth quarter and the score is what it is, you have to put more pressure on yourself. Just trust the call, play and finish. And that’s what the guys did tonight,” Buck Pierce said. “They were able to finish. I thought all three phases made plays; that’s what you want this time of year.”

We’ll discuss some of the personnel changes that made a performance like this possible later, but I think a clear answer has started to emerge to the question of whether B.C.’s earlier struggles lay at the feet of Benevides or were a product of holes in his lineup. There is still a lot of football to be played, but those calling for the defensive coordinator’s ousting have gone awfully quiet.

Softer than Charmin 

Another week, another wildly undisciplined performance from the B.C. Lions. On this occasion, they were flagged 10 times to the tune of 119 yards, but as much as that desperately needs to be cleaned up, I’m not convinced that yardage came at full value.

The exception to that statement may be the controversial Grade 2 roughing the passer penalty against Levi Bell in the fourth quarter, which helped Toronto come uncomfortably close to a comeback. Though the new rule, which came into effect this year, is unfamiliar to most fans, Bell checked all the boxes by leading with the crown of his helmet and hitting Arbuckle’s head despite a clear view before contact. The call was absolutely correct by the letter of the law, though I have seen far worse hits not receive the enhanced penalty this season and understand why many would find that lack of consistency confusing.

Other penalties in this game left me scratching my head far more aggressively, none more so than a 15-yard misconduct call against Mathieu Betts early in the game. The Canadian pass rusher has a reputation for playing on the edge and has clearly lost the benefit of the doubt from the referees, because there is no other explanation for why incidental contact knocking over an offensive lineman should be penalized that harshly. I also hated the misconduct call against Bradlee Anae, which followed Bell’s infraction and set up Toronto’s touchdown. On the replay, he did appear to give Arbuckle a bit of an extra shot while getting up off the ground, but this is a contact sport. I’ve seen far worse blows delivered by passengers trying to grab a seat on the SkyTrain.

Before an errant Argo fan jumps in my DMs with accusations of homerism, the ticky-tack calls went both ways. I thought the pass interference call against Willie Drew in the end zone was suspect at best, even if he did technically have a hold on Keon Hatcher’s wrist, and the flag against Benjie Franklin on the deep shot to Stanley Berryhill in the fourth quarter was so phantom it should be living at the opera.

On a week where improving the entertainment quality of games was a talking point, a combined 253 yards of penalties drained much of it out of this one. Sometimes, the officials should take a cue from my father’s succinct sex-ed talk and just keep it in their pants.

Put ‘em on the table

Buck Pierce is starting to find his identity as a first-year head coach, and I absolutely loved his ballsiness on the final drive to keep it in his QB’s hands twice on third-and-one with the game on the line.

Short-yardage situations hardly count as true gambles in the CFL, but more conservative coaches would have opted to kick a field goal to go up eight points from the Toronto 41-yard line with 1:35 remaining. After barely getting that, they certainly would have kicked a chip shot from the Toronto 15 with 20 seconds left. Pierce did neither, opting to end it on his terms.

“Just belief in what we were doing offensively and belief in our guys,” he said of his decision.

Rourke dubbed the QB sneak the ultimate team play and gave careful credit to his line, but the first of those conversions was all him. Perennial all-star Wynton McManis had him wrapped up a full yard behind the line of scrimmage, let alone the first down marker, but he still powered through to move the chains. It was incredible force of will from the league’s best player on arguably the deciding play of the game.

Better with friends 

So often, we talk about pass rush success in terms of individual accomplishments, but Mathieu Betts’ recent tear has as much to do with the pieces around him as it does the elevation of his own game.

With three sacks on Friday night, including a late-game strip that might as well have been pulled from his Laval highlight tape, the 30-year-old has now recorded three consecutive multi-sack games and nine QB takedowns over that span. He has been a disruptive force off the edge, but the raw numbers will tell you he was still getting pressure before. The difference: pressure doesn’t mean jack when the QB has space to escape into.

Add Levi Bell and Bradlee Anae, who have instantly shut down that corridor to freedom. Anae had an impactful strip sack of his own to force a field goal in just his second career game, while Bell collapses the pocket in a way neither Sione Teuhema nor Kemoko Turay were capable of. The result has been panicked passers, more sacks for everyone, and an easier job for the secondary.

Admittedly, the early loss of left tackle Brandon Kemp had a distinct effect on Toronto’s ability to protect Arbuckle, and Betts turned Ryan Hunter into a turnstile once he was forced to move to left tackle. However, I think you can make the argument that due to injuries in Calgary, the Lions have the second-most dangerous D-line in the CFL heading into the playoffs behind Saskatchewan. That would have seemed ludicrous the last time these teams played, but here we are, and things could get even better with top draft pick Hayden Harris lurking around the stadium.

Fresh with the fullback 

If you were ever going to make a list of CFL roster luxuries, I think you could put having a 240-pound power runner with fresh legs to ice a game at the very top.

The Lions took full advantage when they turned to Zander Horvath five times on the final drive, which resulted in 32 of the hardest yards you’ll see. Rourke would never have been able to will his way to a deciding first down if the former NFL fullback hadn’t powered through multiple defenders on a second-down dump-off to get tight with the sticks. It won’t make headlines like his 70-yarder last week, but it was far more impressive.

For his part, James Butler was unusually quiet in his return from injury, but his 45-yard run early in the second quarter broke the game open. A big shoutout to left tackle Jarell Broxton, who was unable to finish the game due to injury, but made two huge blocks in quick succession to open up that hole.

Never pass on a blue

When the Lions traded up to draft local product Jackson Findlay with their second selection in the 2025 CFL Draft, nobody questioned the talent. There was some valid concern that safety wasn’t the team’s most pressing need, though, as Cristophe Beaulieu looked like a burgeoning star as a rookie.

Well, Friday night proved the best-player-available strategy correct, as Findlay made his first career start in place of the injured Beaulieu and bailed the team out with an early interception. It was exactly the type of play that the Vancouver College product made routinely at Western University and ripped early momentum away from Toronto after his long-lost twin Nathan Rourke’s first mistake.

The Lions will need to lean on Findlay down the stretch, and that is exactly why you never, EVER let a blue-chip player pass you by in the draft. Regardless of what your needs are at any given moment, you don’t know where you’ll be as a team in two years, a year, or even a few months. Stock the cupboard with premium goods and you’ll never go hungry.

Friendly fire

You can’t help but feel bad for Stanley Berryhill, who made arguably the biggest defensive play by an Argonaut all night while wearing the wrong jersey.

I applauded the receiver last week for his hustle, and he was trying to show it off again on a deep bomb to Keon Hatcher in behind the defence, when cornerback Tarvarus McFadden gave him a shove. His feet became tangled with Hatcher’s, and what should have been a long touchdown became just a long gain. B.C. ultimately settled for the field goal.

Viva la Rourke-olution

As a CFL analyst who has (correctly) been accused of being a staunch traditionalist, it should come as no surprise that the past week was a stressful one — particularly the no-man’s land of uncertainty between Sunday afternoon and Monday morning. However, I must say that I came away from the league’s historic rule change announcement considerably relieved and mostly intrigued by the package presented.

Don’t get me wrong, I believe the league erred in shortening the field and doing away with the iconic 55-yard line. I understand the logic of that decision in the context of the other moves, but the more it sits with me, the more uncomfortable I become with losing a historic piece of CFL identity to make field goals more attainable under the new model and the field dimensions more translatable to destinations that may not care about watching the product anyway.

I never lost an ounce of sleep over the so-called “loser point” rouge or the location of the goal posts, but my general discomfort with change does not offer a compelling rebuttal to the league’s arguments in favour of alteration. I’m skeptical it will have the dramatic effect that they claim, but I do believe the net result will be positive. Other changes, like the running play clock, I am entirely in favour of.

You can colour me surprised that my usually hyper-conservative stance on these things was made to look positively forward-thinking by Nathan Rourke. The Canadian QB made no friends in the commissioner’s office by calling the changes “garbage” and suggesting they were a blatant attempt at Americanization. Depending on your feelings about Stewart Johnston’s attack on the status quo, that either made him a nationalist folk hero or an ungrateful puke who needs to keep his mouth shut.

Though I fall somewhere in the middle on the rule change spectrum, I commend Rourke for standing on his principles with total conviction. Even though progress is essential, we need figureheads who are willing to question authority, demand transparency, and ensure every action is made with sober second thought. The reality is that, for better or for worse, these changes would not have passed if they had gone through the standard rules committee process, which is why they were made from on high. You can’t then be surprised when someone who feels their side was intentionally cut out of the process chooses to offer their counter-arguments publicly.

A shocking number of the same people who absurdly categorized Rourke’s pursuit of life-changing money in the NFL as a slight against the CFL now seem to feel he shouldn’t be entitled to strong feelings about a game he grew up playing and watching. Others who bemoaned his failure to properly embrace his status as the face of the league and its highest-paid player last year now seem perturbed that he is using that power to speak out on something he cares about. You can’t have it both ways.

Right now, the Oakville, Ont. native has become an advocate for the old-school fans who have kept the turnstiles moving in even this league’s darkest hour. While these moves were rightfully made in the interest of adding new fans, it isn’t a bad thing to have an aggrieved group of supporters feel like your biggest star has their back. That will keep them watching, if only out of loyalty to him.

Ownership superiority

It was completely coincidental, but Lions owner Amar Doman performed the ultimate flex on his team’s opponent when he announced plans to play two games in Kelowna next season midway through the second quarter.

The Argos are the other team set to be displaced by the 2026 FIFA World Cup, and have been rightfully roasted for their decision to play three home games on the road as a result. By making the opposite decision and taking his product to another area of the province, Doman has proven what good ownership looks like. He may lack the global reach of a conglomerate like Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment, but he makes up for it in dedication, ambition, and genuine respect for his fan base. I can’t wait to see it pay off at the Apple Bowl.

Mean your colours

Friday night was B.C.’s fifth annual Orange Shirt Day game, and it continues to be a wonderful initiative well-executed by the club. To their credit, the CFL has publicly enhanced their commitment to Indigenous Truth and Reconciliation in the last few weeks, continuing to build on the progress of the past few years, but the Lions deserve credit for leading the charge before it was standard practice.

With the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation set for Tuesday, we owe it to ourselves and our fellow citizens to do more than just wear orange. Take a moment and reflect on the difficult history that got us to where we are today, and we’ll all be better for it. It’s the least you can do.

Aspirational algebra 

Just a few weeks ago, missing the playoffs seemed like a very real possibility for B.C. Now, they look like a lock, and according to the CFL’s playoff probability model, they are the odds-on favourites to win the Grey Cup with a 34.51 percent chance to lift the trophy.

I’m not quite sure what AI program came up with that number, considering both Hamilton and Saskatchewan haven’t been hit by a meteor, but things have undeniably shifted. In fact, with the Stampeders suddenly floundering, a home playoff game isn’t outside the new realm of possibility.

The Lions will have a chance to push that closer to reality when they host Calgary next Saturday, October 4, in a game that will decide the season series.