Argos have left fans feeling Double Blue
New field was supposed to give team a fresh start, but Boatmen missed opportunity
Ricky Ray exhaled, shook his head and tried to find the words to describe what was lost.
“It’s been a tough go,” the Toronto Argonauts quarterback said on Friday night, his team on the wrong side of the score for the sixth straight week and the 12th time this season.
“It feels like we’re so close, but just aren’t able to get it done,” he said, his head shaking side to side again. “Tonight was another one of those nights.”
Those nights have blurred together with a predictable formula. The offence can’t score points and the defence allows far too many, with long passes flying overtop of beaten defenders for touchdowns and running backs zigzagging the field like they’ve cracked a code in a video game.
The only thing different in the Argos’ 31-13 loss to the Calgary Stampeders was that it finally, officially, marked the end of the line for this team. There’s a game left on the schedule, but loss No. 12, paired with the Hamilton Tiger-Cats’ overtime win, eliminated the Argos from the playoff hunt in an East Division that’s been embarrassingly weak.
The autopsy on the Argos won’t be a pretty one. It starts with their quarterback issues. Ray led the Argos to a 3-2 record to start the season but he hurt his knee in a win over Montreal. The keys to the offence went to Logan Kilgore, who won his first game but was progressively worse in the next two losses. Ray returned for two games (both losses) and suffered a cracked rib and deflated lung in Hamilton on Labour Day. It would cost him the next six games and the Argos’ season went off the rails.
The quarterback depth that had kept the Argos afloat in previous years when Ray was injured wasn’t there this season, as former backups Zach Collaros and Trevor Harris went on to prominent roles with Hamilton and Ottawa, respectively.
When Kilgore struggled, GM Jim Barker signed Dan LeFevour on Aug. 8 and had him starting a month later for the Labour Day rematch with Hamilton. He won that game, but the team found out immediately after that the defensive star of that win, defensive back T.J. Heath, had been dealt to Winnipeg for quarterback Drew Willy.
Having lost his starting job in Winnipeg to Matt Nichols, Willy never found his footing with the Argos. With the team’s eye-of-a-needlesized playoff hopes in front of them heading into Calgary this week, Argos coach Scott Milanovich said Willy was injured and had Ray — who was supposed to be a backup when re-activated — back on the field.
Ray might not have recognized the team he joined on the field. Milanovich cleaned house on his receiving corps on Oct. 3, releasing Vidal Hazelton, Kevin Elliott, Tori Gurley and Phil Bates, after calling players’ commitment and attitudes into question the day before in a bad loss to Montreal.
It seems like almost everything the Argos have touched has gone up in flames this year. Their key free-agent signings didn’t pan out. Linebacker Keon Raymond, a defensive captain, was released out of nowhere in late August. Defensive lineman Brian Bulcke came back from injury, played one game and was shown the door immediately after. Offensive lineman Josh Bourke had a bad year and landed on the six-game injured list.
This year was supposed to be a fresh start for the Argos, freed from the vibe-killing, increasingly-difficult-to-play-in Rogers Centre. Their new home at BMO Field is a more suitable venue for football and their new ownership group, headed by Larry Tanenbaum, with Michael Copeland as CEO and president, poured cash and resources into making game day a fresh and fun atmosphere. The fans didn’t turn out the way they had hoped, with the Argos averaging about16,000 per game, but the front office will be patient on that front.
The Argos’ handling of Grey Cup hosting duties might be worse than their current 5-12 record. They misjudged the market and over-charged for ticket prices when they were unveiled in the summer and had to readjust their pricing this past week. As of Oct. 18, Copeland had said the game was halfway to sold out.
On the field, the Argos feel directionless. The torch was temporarily passed from Ray, an aging, oft-injured quarterback, then given back him. The roster has been ravaged by cuts through the season and is full of deficiencies. Off the field, they scrape along, their footprint barely a grazing in the sand of a city’s crowded landscape.