Photo courtesy: CFL.ca
The Hamilton Tiger-Cats officially booked their ticket to the postseason in Week 17, but nobody is celebrating.
While the Toronto Argonauts’ loss on Friday night officially clinched a playoff berth for the team down the QEW, they quickly undermined their status as East Division favourites with a brutal 40-3 drubbing at the hands of the Winnipeg Blue Bombers. It was a sobering reminder of the reality of CFL football.
“Clinching doesn’t mean sh*t. It doesn’t mean a thing. In this game, you have to play good football until the last whistle of the Grey Cup, and if you don’t, you won’t win. You won’t be there,” quarterback Bo Levi Mitchell said frankly. “It’s not about looking forward like, ‘Oh man, we only need this to happen’ or ‘We need this team to lose’ — it’s not about that. It’s about going out and playing good football and getting better as a football team. Right now, we are not good enough.”
Hamilton defeated the Bombers at home 32-21 just two weeks ago, but it was a different story on the road. Their defence was obliterated at the hands of the fresh-legged Zach Collaros, surrendering a whopping 514 net yards, while the offence failed to find the end zone a single time. Even special teams were an issue, as Trey Vaval took the opening kickoff 98 yards to paydirt and set the tone for a colossal beatdown.
“We got whipped from the opening kickoff to the end of the game,” head coach Scott Milanovich admitted, placing the blame for the loss on his own shoulders.
“We’ve been talking after games about how it was a three-phase win, it was a three-phase win — today, it was a three- or four-phase loss, including the coaching staff. They were more ready to play. That’s my responsibility. We weren’t ready to play tonight.”
Mitchell, who completed 21-of-32 passes for 212 yards in the blowout, disagreed with his coach’s assessment of the loss. Instead, he pointed the finger directly at those within his own locker room.
“Scott’s the kinda guy that’s gonna come out and take the blame, say it’s on him to get us ready. It’s on the players to realize we are the ones who play the game,” he insisted. “It’s not X’s and O’s; we didn’t get beat by scheme. As an offence, you’ve got to find a way to be inspired and play great football and go out and make big plays.”
In Mitchell’s view, the Ticats’ uncharacteristic outing was a direct result of complacency. With not only a playoff spot sewn up, but a home playoff game as well, they lacked the fire needed to compete. The Bombers, meanwhile, benefited from being in the thick of a tight postseason race with B.C. and Calgary.
“They came out playing for their lives, and I think we came out surviving,” the 35-year-old summarized. “I talked to the receivers earlier — on a couple of plays, you get on a guy and then you let him go? What if Greg (Bell) breaks it and your guy chases him down? My job — when I run the ball, I’m sliding four yards short of the first down. It’s giving everything you have in order to go out and take what is yours.”
If the Tabbies needed some external motivation, their performance effectively secured it. At 9-6, they are now just one game up on Montreal for first place in the East Division. Though Hamilton owns the season series and the tie-break as a result, the Alouettes are surging in the midst of a three-game winning streak.
With real pressure on them for the first time in months, Mitchell will accept no excuses or caveats in the film room this week.
“You gotta win your one-on-one. You gotta be a man. You gotta be willing to drop it on the line and put your body out there for your team. That’s the urgency,” he stressed.
“It’ll be a playoff game every single game, and I think that’s gonna be every game in the CFL. There’s not a lot of teams that just go out there and lay down. There’s gonna be guys playing for their lives, coaches coaching for their jobs. We understand what it is like. It’s gonna be playoff football from here on out. You’ve got to go out there and play like every game is your last.”
Only time will dull the sting of embarrassment after a loss like Saturday’s, but Milanovich emphasized that his group won’t have long to dwell on it.
“I told them, ‘You’ve got 24 hours to sulk.’ We’ll figure out what went wrong, but we know what’s coming up next week,” he said. “We know that’s a championship-calibre football team that was not going to lay down. They got on top. You don’t want them to get ahead of you, and they took it to us.”
The Tiger-Cats (9-6) will return to action on Saturday, October 4, when they visit the Toronto Argonauts (5-10) at BMO Field. Kickoff is slated for 3:00 p.m. EDT.