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Canadian Football League 2017: Week 5 talking points

We're past halfway through the CFL season.
Roar Guru
25th July, 2017
5

Ahh, Canadian football, you strange and wonderful beast. Week Five saw five games stretching from Wednesday to Monday, and one team, the Ottawa Redblacks, played twice.

You just can’t get schedule quirks like this anywhere else. On to week five’s talking points.

Week Two’s Grey Cup rematch has competition for ‘Best Game of 2017′
Goodness me, did we see an epic unfold on Friday night in Vancouver? I loved the 43-39 Stampeder win over Ottawa in week two, one full of big plays, but the Winnipeg/BC Lions contest raised the bar even more. It was as good as the CFL gets, complete with a wonderfully-executed fake field goal that led to a fresh set of downs for Winnipeg, disastrous fake punt called by Blue Bombers coach Mike O’Shea deep in his territory, an interception-then-lateral return for a touchdown and more points than we’ve seen all season.

Winnipeg had a chance, with kicker extraordinaire Justin Medlock fell just an agonising couple of yards short of a 50-yard kick that would’ve sent the game to overtime. Thus, the Lions got out of jail with a 45-42 win and Travis Lulay (404 passing yards and two touchdowns), in relief of the injured Jonathan Jennings, has his second win in as many games. Both teams, though, were fantastic. The game had everything. If you weren’t entertained by that, then something’s seriously wrong.

Ottawa are finally in the winner’s column
It wasn’t pretty, and it required an impressive defensive stand on their goal-line, but the Redblacks have notched their first win of the year on Wednesday night, securing a 24-19 decision over Montreal at home. They were unlucky to have lost a couple of really close games this year, and I have a feeling that, despite only having the one win, the best team in the East division.

Unfortunately for Ottawa’s large fan-base, the defending Grey Cup champions fell to the Argonauts in Toronto on Monday night to close out the week.

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Mike Reilly is a machine
Granted, the Edmonton quarterback’s stunning last-minute drive to beat Hamilton on Thursday night was against the beleaguered TiCat secondary, but you couldn’t help but be impressed by Reilly’s composure and control of the dangerous Eskimo offence.

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Remember, the Esks hadn’t led at any stage in the game, and were starting their final possession deep in their own territory. Absolutely no worries. They calmly went 75 yards in 47 seconds to break a lot of hearts at Tim Hortons Field.

On the deciding drive, Reilly was a perfect 3-3 for 65 yards and the game-winning touchdown, a 30-yarder to Vidal Hazelton that saw the receiver make some nice post-catch moves en route to the end zone for a 31-28 win. And if that isn’t impressive enough on it’s own, consider that Reilly was absolutely monstered all night long by a savage Hamilton front. The man is a warrior, no doubt.

Kevin Glenn sets a milestone
On Saturday night, the Saskatchewan quarterback became only the seventh player in Canadian Football League history to eclipse the 50,000 passing yardage mark, joining such luminaries as Anthony Calvillo, Henry Burris and current Toronto starter Ricky Ray on that list.

Bo Levi Mitchell has one hundred CFL touchdowns

Actually, the Calgary quarterback now has one hundred and one CFL touchdowns following the Stampeders 27-10 win over the Rough Riders at McMahon Stadium on Saturday night.

Hamilton are slowly getting better
But they still need to put together a 60-minute game. The TiCats led for 55 minutes, but learnt valuable defensive lessons in giving up key scores to Edmonton in the last three minutes of both halves. The final score of the game saw the Esks snatch victory from the jaws of defeat, but Hamilton played well for the most part, and this week more so than last week, they didn’t look as hopelessly outclassed as they had in the early games.

Quarterback Zach Collaros seems to be settling in with his new offensive weapons and is benefitting from vastly improved offensive line play, and a young TiCat defence seems like it’s improving, too. The next few weeks will tell us the story of Hamilton’s season.

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