Toronto Argonauts receiver Damonte Coxie earned CFL Player of the Week honours after grabbing eight catches for a season-high 161 yards in the team’s 33-30 victory over the Calgary Stampeders in Week 10.
The fifth-year player is putting together the best season of his career with 42 catches for 685 and two touchdowns through his first eight games.
His performance last week helped the Argonauts win their second game in a row in their home opener to move to 4-4, a game and a half ahead of the Hamilton Tiger-Cats for second place in the East Division.
Coxie joined First Up on TSN1050 on Thursday morning to discuss the win in the home opener, his performance in the game and his expectations moving forward for the Argonauts.
“It was great getting back home, first home game in a long time, we’ve been on the road all season,” Coxie said. “It felt great to get back home and play in front of our fans - it was great for us, great for our fans, great that we took the chance to get a win. We can’t complain, we missed BMO [Field].”
The Argonauts were displaced from BMO Field while the venue was hosting matches in the 2026 FIFA World Cup, forcing the Boatmen to hold camp and practice in Guelph and play on the road for the first two months of the year.
Toronto played its first seven games of the season as visitors - an unusual scheduling quirk that some players and coaches experienced differently than others.
Coxie viewed it as a positive that helped the team come together.
“We were already mentally prepared for being on the road for the actual travel. Sometimes we were playing back-to-back, but that’s normal, but I guess I just assumed that because we didn’t play an away game, then a home game, then another away game that it was the same but all away games? You gotta really stick together as a team,” Coxie said. “That’s what I liked the most about it; even though we were on the road the whole time we always stayed together as a team, no matter what the outcome was.”
The Argonauts lead all CFL teams in passing yards per game (347.8) with Chad Kelly back under centre. The former Most Outstanding Player missed all of the 2025 season while rehabbing a severe leg injury suffered in the 2024 East Final.
Coxie credited the return of Kelly in helping energize the passing attack, saying that he likes to attack downfield, but lauds the receiver group in Toronto that features a number of productive targets.
Coxie, Makai Polk and Kevin Mital are all over 500 yards through eight games, with David Ungerer just behind them at 481 yards.
“When you have dynamic guys it’s good because it takes the pressure off each other,” Coxie said. “It’s like, if I know [one guy’s] snapping this week, somebody else is going to go off next week, or we can all go off in the same game. We like the competition because we’re competing with everybody else and ourselves, so it’s more of like, we want to see how far we can go.
“It’s like we feed off of each other. It’s hard to stop because if one gets rolling, it’s like we all made that catch, so it’s like a fire that just burns and once one person gets caught on fire all you need to do is just touch the next guy. The guys in our room, they’re some really good guys, off the field and on.”
The Argonauts play five of their final 10 games at home, are on a two-game winning streak and sit in the second playoff spot in the East Division. Coxie has already won two Grey Cups with the Argonauts, could a third be possible this year if the team stays hot?
“If God’s got that in his plans for me then I definitely pray that we do,” Coxie said, laughing. “I feel like we’re going to handle our business each day at a time, and I see us competing with the best, as long as we handle our jobs one day at a time.”
The next job to handle is a trip to Edmonton to take on the Elks (6-3), who sit a half-game behind the Saskatchewan Roughriders for the top spot in the West Division, on Saturday.
“They’ve got a good defence, their d-line is very active, their DBs do their job,” Coxie said of his upcoming opponent.
“On the offensive side, they’ve got a great run game, they’ve got receivers that make plays. On both sides of the ball, those guys - they compete. They’re a competing team, they just haven’t put all the keys together.
“This year it felt like they found a few more pieces and I’m excited for them, I’m ready to compete with them. They had a great game [last week], so I’m excited to get a piece of the pie too, I like to compete.”
