Als and Argos meet in East Division showdown

Oct 15, 2014 - 3:40 PM Toronto, ON (SportsNetwork.com) - With the regular season winding down, a pair of teams find themselves tied atop the East Division standings, not only with each other but with a third club.

On Saturday afternoon, the Montreal Alouettes and the Toronto Argonauts will try to settle their differences on the football field when they get together at Rogers Centre.

Both of these teams are getting hot at just the right time, winning three straight while joining Hamilton at the top of the division standings with records of 6-8. Over in the West, there are already three franchises (Calgary, Edmonton and Saskatchewan) that have locked up postseason invitations, but the picture is not nearly as clear for either the Als or Toronto.

There is very little room for error at this point and yet the Argos squeezed by Hamilton by the narrowest of margins with a 34-33 victory at home last Friday.

Toronto scored three touchdowns in the fourth quarter, as the Argonauts completed their biggest comeback of the season in kicking off the Thanksgiving weekend in thrilling fashion.

The Argos, winners of three in a row for the first time this season, trailed by double figures for much of the night before outscoring the visitors, 21-3, in the final frame. Quarterback Ricky Ray converted 34-of-46 passes for 431 yards and logged three touchdowns through the air, as well as a short major on the ground.

Chad Owens, who was averaging more than 100 receiving yards heading into the meeting, caught six balls for 109 yards, including the game-winner which measured 69 yards in the final minutes. John Chiles accounted for game highs with eight receptions for 123 yards, but was kept out of the end zone.

Making the victory even more unlikely for the Argos was the fact that they were hit with an unbelievable 21 penalties for a loss of 178 yards. Then again, Hamilton did help to balance the scales by being flagged 19 times for 153 yards.

So while Toronto was barely squeaking by against Hamilton and helped to create a log jam at the top of the division standings, Montreal waited until Monday afternoon in order to blow the doors off visiting Saskatchewan by a final of 40-9, a lopsided victory accentuated by the fact that the Als just happened to be retiring the jersey of record-setting quarterback, Anthony Calvillo.

Finding someone to fill the shoes of Calvillo has been a long and arduous task, and one that doesn't not appear to be ending any time soon, although Jonathan Crompton is holding his own rather well. Against the slumping Roughriders, Crompton converted just 12 of his 25 pass attempts, but they were stretched for 225 yards and three touchdowns, two of those going to Duron Carter.

Backup signal caller Tanner Marsh made a contribution with a one-yard TD run for a Montreal squad that has produced five wins in the last six outings.

The fact that Montreal is now in the thick of things in the division is rather hard to fathom, considering the team has gone through a laundry list of quarterbacks and is still next-to-last in the league in scoring with just 20.4 ppg. As a unit, the Montreal passing attack is the worst in the league with just 53.2 percent accuracy and 2,799 yards thus far. The loss of Calvillo has been very hard to deal with for a team that has a pass efficiency rating of only 69.8.

While the Als continue to seek a permanent answer to the Calvillo question, the Argos don't have any such issues with Ray handling the action in the huddles. Ray has converted 68.6 percent of his passes for a league-high 3,861 yards and 27 touchdowns, 10 more than his closest competitor. With all that being said, is it any wonder that he was named the CFL Offensive Player of the Week recently?

Toronto captured a lopsided 31-5 decision in the most recent meeting in early August on the road, but still the Als are the ones who own a 110-86-3 advantage in the all-time series, one that considers only regular season contests dating back to 1946.

During that Week 6 matchup, Montreal was still fumbling about with the Troy Smith experiment at quarterback, the former Heisman Trophy winner converting only 5-of-10 passes for 63 yards. Alex Brink also saw action for the Als and was limited to just 9-of-23 for 60 yards and an interception for a Montreal group that produced a minuscule 167 yards of offense.

On the other side, Toronto followed the lead of Ray who connected on 19-of-33 passes for 186 yards and two scores, both of those going to running back Steve Slaton who caught six balls for 48 yards. Slaton, a former West Virginia Mountaineer who saw some time in the NFL with the Houston Texans, also ran for a game-high 52 yards on 12 carries.

Montreal, which has won seven of the last 11 meetings with Toronto, will host the Argos on Nov. 2 in the penultimate game of the regular season, so clearly these last few weeks will heavily influence the playoff picture.