It may not have been pretty – and at some points it was downright ugly – but the Cats went to Toronto, got a win, and in the process all but sealed the Argos' playoff fate. Mouths were shot off, guarantees were made, but when it all counted, the Black & Gold came away with the only thing that matters: the win.
Positives
Terry Grant. 'Nuff said.
The Defense came to play. In fairness, the Argos have the worst Offense in the league, but even bad teams score touchdowns. Tonight, the Cats didn't allow the Argos to score a touchdown.
The Secondary, especially Bo Smith, played very well. They are the most scrutinized unit on the team, and they held the Argos in check for most of the game. I liked what I saw out of them. I don't know if they can do it consistently, but for one night, they were very good.
Justin Hickman continued his All-Star-calibre season by forcing two fumbles and adding another sack. He has been a disruptive force nearly every week and is having a career year. He had another great game.
Negatives
I have given Justin Medlock plenty of dap for the majority of the season, but his punting tonight was atrocious. He angled three punts out of bounds and all resulted in penalties. It would have been better for Medlock to have pounded them out of the end zone and taken the point. The field position the Argos gained from his bad punts was about the same. Medlock gets a mulligan, but hopefully this was a one-off and not a sign of things to come.
Kevin Glenn threw three very bad interceptions, and against a better team those would have been problematic. But Glenn usually plays well, so if he has a bit of an off night, it's not the end of the world. To say something good, he did have only six other incompletions the rest of the night and threw for over 300 yards. But the interceptions. They were bad.
Final Thoughts
This wasn't the best game the Tiger-Cats have played this season, but sometimes you have to win ugly. It was nice to see the team not play particularly well, especially in the second half, and still come away with the win. At this time of year, it's better to have that type of game and win than play great and lose.
With the loss, the Argos are on life support. They will need to win out and hope one of Hamilton or BC lose their five remaining games. That's unlikely. For all intents and purposes, the Ti-Cats eliminated the Argos from the playoffs.
With the win, the Tabbies move to within two points of the Als and Bombers. They face Winnipeg this coming Friday and Montreal the next week, so the Cats have a golden opportunity to put themselves in position to claim first in the East. It won't be easy, but it's not out of the question either.
With the Argos now pretty much out of the picture, the playoffs are all but assured for the Tiger-Cats. Now it's time to jockey for position. That jockeying begins on Friday.
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To be fair to Glenn on 2 of those INTs I think it was McKay's errors more than Kevin's.
ReplyDeleteThe first one, McKay should of cut in and either make the catch or knock it away from the defender. The second one, McKay simply ran the wrong route. It was clear.
But both of those are due to lack of playing time as well.
We escaped and got the Win that's all that matters!
Fair comment. The second one to MacKay was definitely his fault. He stopped his route (or ran the wrong one, as you pointed out). The first one, I don't know where the blame goes. If Glenn had thrown it to the outside -- difficult, I know, but not unreasonable -- then it's either dropped or caught by MacKay. I'd say the first was 50-50. But again, I'm not going to kill him for it. I just didn't like to see him, or any QB, throw three INTs.
ReplyDeleteBut you're right, the win is all that matters. Bring on the Bombers!