\u00bb MMQB: 5 things we know after one-third of the CFL season<\/a>
\u00bb Dru Brown<\/a>\u00a0leads Bombers over REDBLACKS in Ottawa return<\/a>
\u00bb\u00a0Ticats hold off late Argos push to claim win on Saturday<\/a>
\u00bb\u00a0Alexander sets record as Alouettes take down Stampeders for second straight week<\/a>
\u00bb\u00a0Elks take down Lions to capture fifth win of season\u00a0<\/a>
\u00bb\u00a0Subscribe to the CFL\u2019s newsletter for exclusive offers and league updates<\/a><\/p>\n
IS NOW THE TIME FOR A CHANGE?<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
That was an absolutely excruciating loss for Ottawa on Sunday night.<\/p>\n
In control at the half, with chances to pull away even more early in the third, the winless REDBLACKS wound up with a 36-34 overtime loss to the Winnipeg Blue Bombers.<\/p>\n
\u201cWell, that\u2019s it. Gotta go with McLeod Bethel-Thompson<\/a> next week.\u201d<\/p>\n THE VERDICT: Overreaction.<\/p>\n I understand that sentiment. The team is oh-and-six. Frustration is high. But quarterback Jake Maier<\/a> played well against Winnipeg.<\/p>\n An end zone shot that he\u2019d like back, sure. But a guy who goes 30\/40 for 344 yards and a touchdown is not playing the position poorly.<\/p>\n A lot happened to lead Ottawa to this loss. Some of those mistakes were Maier\u2019s. But lots of them weren\u2019t.<\/p>\n \u201cWe had four interceptions that we dropped, right?\u201d said head coach Ryan Dinwiddie after the game.<\/p>\n It was kind of \u2018by a 1,000 cuts\u2019 that the REDBLACKS lost this one and quite a few of those nicks didn\u2019t have anything to do with the starting quarterback.<\/p>\n THE DEFENCE IS ACTUALLY THEIR STRENGTH<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s not Rankin, Fajardo and the offence that is Edmonton\u2019s strength. It\u2019s their defence.\u201d<\/p>\n THE VERDICT: Fair.<\/p>\n That\u2019s not to say, in any way, shape or form, that the Edmonton offence is a problem. It\u2019s not. It\u2019s pretty good, actually, and while super-back Justin Rankin was kept mostly tied up against BC, Fajardo threw for nearly 300 yards. They moved the ball again, but on this night, the Edmonton offence suffered from stall out on many of their drives, settling for threes.<\/p>\n This is just to say that that is just how very well that Edmonton defence is playing. Leading the league with 16 takeaways heading into Week 7, the unit came up with five more (including four interceptions) against the Lions, and registered four sacks too.<\/p>\n Edmonton\u2019s offence is pretty effective, sometimes greatly so.<\/p>\n But that D? It\u2019s lights out right now.<\/p>\n THERE\u2019S A NEW BATTERING RAM IN TOWN<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Montreal running back Travis Theis provided us with a tremendous display of power running in his team\u2019s 38-32 win in Calgary.<\/p>\n He set the tone early, taking on almost everyone on the Calgary defence \u2014 including knocking over defensive end Folarin Orimolade<\/a> (mind-blown emoji) on a 14-yard gain that looked like the trailer for \u2018One Battle After Another.\u2019<\/p>\n Theis did it a few more times, too, on the way to 123 yards on 19 rushes, with many of those yards coming through determination and brute force and plenty of walls knocked down.<\/p>\n \u201cTravis Theis is emerging as the premier power back in the CFL.\u201d<\/p>\n THE VERDICT: Overreaction.<\/p>\n In a league that boasts premium bashers like Brady Oliveira<\/a>, Dedrick Mills<\/a>, Justin Rankin and A.J. Ouellette, Theis has a ways to go before he can be thought of as being in that class.<\/p>\n But, boy-howdy, did he ever show everyone he has the stuff to join those guys. Keep it up and we get to \u201ctoo soon to tell\u201d very quickly and who knows? Maybe even to \u201cfair\u201d by season\u2019s end.<\/p>\n THE ONE THING THEY COULDN\u2019T AFFORD Nathan Rourke left Week 7\u2019s game against the Edmonton Elks with an injury (James MacLennan\/CFL.ca)<\/p>\n That was a real punch to the gut for the BC Lions, losing reigning Most Outstanding Player Nathan Rourke<\/a> on the first series of the game in<\/a> Ouch to the power of OUCH.<\/p>\n \u201cThey\u2019re going to have to win games on defence until Nathan returns.\u201d<\/p>\n THE VERDICT: Too soon to tell.<\/p>\n No one should arrive at a final judgment on BC quarterback Chase Brice<\/a> based on that one game alone.<\/p>\n The 28-year-old back-up to Nathan Rourke<\/a> is not going to be Nathan Rourke<\/a>, we don\u2019t assume, but coming in cold against, arguably, the league\u2019s best defence? It would have been quite a surprise to see him look comfortable and for the Lions\u2019 offence to be all groovy despite the sudden change.<\/p>\n Let\u2019s wait to see how Brice comes out in Week 8 against Toronto, after a week\u2019s worth of practice at QB1, if that\u2019s the way the Lions need to go.<\/p>\n THEY\u2019VE GOT THE BLUEPRINT ON HOW TO BOTTLE UP THAT NIGHTMARE<\/p>\n \u201cThe Lions have cracked the Rankin code.\u201d<\/p>\n THE VERDICT: Fair.<\/p>\n The BC defence swallowed up Justin Rankin\u2019s run game for the second time this season.<\/p>\n His rushing numbers against the Lions over two games: 28 yards on 14 carries.<\/p>\n The Lions\u2019 D has shown how to effectively scheme against the Rankin run threat. Other teams will want to follow suit but do they also have the type of players and the execution to play copycat effectively?<\/p>\n QUARTERBACK QUESTION: SOLVED<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n After the injury to Bo Levi Mitchell, the Hamilton Tiger-Cats had a big question to answer.<\/p>\n Could someone behind Bo on the depth chart rise and ensure the Ticats\u2019 offence could move the football with authority?<\/p>\n On Saturday night, Tre Ford stepped in and did Tre Ford kinda stuff; he darted, dashed and escaped, running for first downs and occasionally checking up to deliver a completion downfield \u2014 as he did on a touchdown strike to receiver Kenny Lawler \u2014 in a 24-23 win over Toronto.<\/p>\n \u201cHamilton\u2019s all set, now, Tre\u2019s the man.\u201d<\/p>\n THE VERDICT: Too soon to tell.<\/p>\n The Ticats did hang on and Ford\u2019s mind-blowing escapability played a big part in getting them over the line against the Argos. The Hamilton offence looked a little more electric, certainly, than it did the week before in a blowout loss to Saskatchewan.<\/p>\n What will happen over the next few weeks, with opposing defences armed with video of how Ford got things done?<\/p>\n You can bet on defensive coordinators, league-wide, devising schemes that they hope will keep Ford at bay.<\/p>\n Good news for Hamilton fans is that head coach Scott Milanovich is one of the best QB coaches anywhere and he\u2019ll have his own counter moves up his sleeve.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Welcome to Overreaction Monday, where we look back on the previous week\u2019s action and root out some angles…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":814491,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[437],"tags":[49,48,521,522,520,82],"class_list":["post-814490","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cfl","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-canadian-football-league","tag-canadianfootballleague","tag-cfl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/814490","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=814490"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/814490\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/814491"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=814490"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=814490"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=814490"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/Nathan_Rourke_2026_5-1.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
Edmonton.<\/p>\n