After a Week 15 quadruple header in the CFL that brought some big-time moments and wins, Week 16 offers a bit of a reset north of the border.
Three teams have the week off, leaving three games on tap across two days.
First, Friday Night Football features a rematch of the 2025 Eastern Final from the Hammer as the Hamilton Tiger-Cats and Montreal Alouettes do battle. Then, it’s a doubleheader on Saturday, beginning out east as the Toronto Argonauts host the league’s hottest team in the Edmonton Elks, before Week 16 wraps up in Cowtown as the Ottawa Redblacks search for their first win of the season against the Calgary Stampeders.
Alouettes vs. Tiger-Cats
Friday Night Football features two teams looking to get back on track as the East’s best Alouettes travel to take on the Tiger-Cats.
Despite leading the East, the Alouettes have stumbled recently. Montreal has lost two of its past three games, allowing a combined 92 points in the pair of losses. The Tiger-Cats are also looking to get back in the win column as they are riding a three-game losing streak and have lost six of their past seven games.
This marks the third and final matchup between the two teams after Montreal claimed victories in Week 1 (30-27) and Week 8 (31-18). A couple of things are going for Hamilton in Week 16 that could change the odds in their favour, however.
The Tiger-Cats are coming off a bye and are the more desperate team, as they are three games back of the final playoff spot and a loss could eliminate them from contention.
Hamilton will also potentially roll out a quarterback that Montreal didn’t see in the previous two contests in Harrison Frost. The 27-year-old replaced an injured Tre Ford in the team’s Labour Day contest versus Toronto and completed 16-of-28 passes for 218 yards and two touchdowns.
With all that said, the Als have proven to be a juggernaut, especially offensively. Davis Alexander has virtually done whatever he has wanted on the field as he, Tyson Philpot, and Tyler Snead have lit it up. Breakout tailback Travis Theis has recently hit the six-game injured list, which is another positive for Hamilton, but backup Stevie Scott III is more than capable behind a mauling offensive line.
Elks vs. Argonauts
Two of the hottest teams in the league meet as the Argonauts play host to the Elks in the first of two games on Saturday.
Both teams are playing some of their best ball at the moment, as Edmonton rolls into Toronto on a four-game winning streak while the Argonauts have won three of their past four.
The intrigue in this one comes in the matchup of Toronto’s high-flying offence versus Edmonton’s equally high-flying defence. The Argonauts’ No. 1-ranked passing offence, led by Chad Kelly and the multitude of weapons he has at his disposal, will look to break through the Elks’ defence, which is arguably the best unit on either side of the ball in the CFL.
The Argos offence didn’t have any answers in Week 11 when these teams faced off. Kelly had his lowest complete-game passing total of the season as Edmonton held Toronto to three second-half points to claim a 42-12 win.
That win sparked the Elks’ current win streak as their physicality proved too much for the Argonauts to handle, with JJ Ross snagging two picks and Malik Carney racking up a pair of sacks
All three levels of Edmonton’s defence feature a fantastic intersection of talent and physicality that Kelly and Toronto will have to solve this time around to knock off the West Division’s best.
Redblacks vs. Stampeders
The doubleheader and week wrap up in Calgary as the Stampeders and Redblacks clash.
Both of these teams are struggling at the moment, and are both coming off a game in which their starting quarterbacks were benched.
Ottawa’s Jake Maier and Calgary’s Vernon Adams Jr. both took a seat during last week’s quadruple header, and it remains to be seen who takes the first snap for either team in this one.
The Redblacks are still in search of their first win 16 weeks into the season and are running out of chances. One of Ottawa’s best opportunities to erase the goose egg is in this matchup as they catch a Stampeders team that has lost four of their past five games, including a 40-point loss to the Elks last week.
McLeod Bethel-Thompson took over from Maier last week and helped lead Ottawa’s charge back before the team was walked off thanks to a last-second field goal by Lirim Hajrullahu and the Argos. The 38-year-old completed 16-of-23 passes for 192 yards, one touchdown, and zero interceptions as he seemingly greased the wheels of what was a stagnant offence.
There is potential for this unit to carry that momentum over into Week 16 as Calgary’s defence is near the bottom in most statistical categories.
At the bottom of those defensive statistical categories are the Redblacks, however. Ottawa sits dead last in points allowed per game, passing yards allowed, rushing yards allowed, and second-down conversion percentage against, offering an opportunity for Adams or his replacement Josh Love, the league’s second-leading rusher Dedrick Mills, and budding star wideout Jalen Philpot to put up some points.
