HAMILTON REMAINS IN HUNT THANKS TO LOWLY EAST RIVALS
Comeback win over eskimos puts ticats in playoff position, despite sub-.500 record
Coming into the 2018 season, there were all kinds of reasons for optimism about the Hamilton Tiger-Cats.
They had a new — well, newish — head coach who turned a winless team into an offensive powerhouse when he arrived last August. They had a quarterback who posted Flutie-like numbers over that stretch. And they had another quarterback who not that long ago won the Heisman Trophy and is friends with Drake.
But it turned out the most important thing for the Ticats this season is something that hadn’t changed at all: Hamilton’s position on the map. Steeltown is still in the eastern part of Canada. And in the CFL, that makes all the difference.
It means the Tiger-Cats could have many things go not exactly as planned over the first half of this season and yet they can still have Grey Cup aspirations. Living in the CFL’s East Division these days means never having to admit you are out of it.
Complete a comeback 25-24 win at home over the visitors from Edmonton for a fourth victory of the year? Boom, you are back in a playoff spot.
Things are, admittedly, a far sight better at this point than they were last year in late August. Then, Hamilton was 0-8 and coach Kent Austin, who brought in June Jones to run the offence, essentially fired himself and gave Jones the whole show.
One of Jones’ first moves was to bring his friend Art Briles in to run the defence. It was not particularly well-received. A fan and media revolt led to Briles, who was the coach at Baylor University amid a massive sexual assault scandal in the football program, being immediately un-hired.
This season has largely lacked such drama. Even the thing that looked most likely to blow up in the franchise’s face, the latespring signing of Johnny Manziel, the talented and troubled quarterback trying to resurrect his career after washing out of the NFL, ended with nary a peep of controversy.
Manziel was traded to Montreal before he ever threw a pass that mattered in Hamilton. It was a curious move, given Jones had said just last year that Johnny Football had the tools to be one of the CFL’s all-time greats. The team even offered refunds to those who had hastily purchased Manziel jerseys. Such customer service should be saluted.
But if the off-field stuff has been mild in 2018, the on-field product has been also surprisingly mild. Though the Ticats under Jones rolled up CFL highs in points, net offence, passing yards and rushing yards over the last half of 2017, the rest of the league has adjusted to his running-and-shooting ways, at least a little.
Hamilton was fifth in the CFL in points per game entering Thursday night’s home date against Edmonton. Quarterback Jeremiah Masoli, who became the full-time starter last year under Jones and threw 13 touchdowns against five interceptions down the stretch, had eight of each coming into Thursday, although he was still averaging a gaudy 308 yards per game.
Masoli threw another two firsthalf interceptions on Thursday night, as Edmonton roared back from that 10-point hole with 24 straight points in the second quarter to take a comfortable lead into halftime. Mike Reilly, who came into the game having already thrown for more than 3,000 yards on the season, torched Hamilton for 182 yards in the second frame alone.
That burst wasn’t enough, though, as the Ticats stopped drive after drive late to work themselves into position for a game-winning field goal that came as the clock expired.
Hamilton heads into the Labour Day home-and-home against the Toronto Argonauts knowing a couple of strong performances will give them the inside position on a playoff spot. The Argos have their own issues this season, with just three wins themselves, although a road date with the doormat Alouettes on Friday could easily see them get win No. 4. Only Ottawa, with a 6-3 record, has been mostly competent in the East this year.
Not that this is a particularly new development. The East has not produced a team that won more games than it lost over the course of the regular season in either of the past two years. It has, however, produced the last two Grey Cup champions with Ottawa and then Toronto managing the improbable feat. The Calgary Stampeders have been all but unbeatable over the past two-plus years, except for when they play mediocre teams from Ontario in the last game of the season.
All of that means Hamilton is, fairly, not without hope.
There are many games yet to be played this season, but the possibility of an East team with a sub-.500 record in the playoffs looms again. Commissioner Randy Ambrosie, who was at Tim Hortons Field on Thursday, said this era of a power imbalance tilted to the West is part of the ebb and flow of sports. He said Ottawa has been good this year, and he wouldn’t count out the Argos just yet.
“This football team here in Hamilton can be special as well,” he said. “I think you just let it play out.”
It has worked out for the East also-rans before.
As it did on Thursday night.