CFL 'Quick Kicks' 2025: Semi Finals Week

By Chris Lawton

Welcome to our weekly review of each CFL game week for the 2025 season. ‘Quick Kicks’ brings you week to week news of how the games went, scores, surprises, and a general feel of ‘what we learned’ from the games. This time it’s the playoffs as we look back at home wins in the East and West Semi-Finals and look forward to the coming Division Finals.

What a great round of football we had to kick off the 2025 Grey Cup Playoffs too. 138 points were scored across both games, nothing was decided until the final quarter in each game and in one of them we had a walk off win with zeros on the clock.

Let’s dive right in. The opening game of the weekend saw the Winnipeg Blue Bombers visit the Montreal Alouettes and it is the Als who will now be moving on to the East Division Final in Hamilton after posting a 42-33 win here.

What a game this was. It had it all as Montreal got off to a dominant start at home, Winnipeg pulled them back and came all the way back to lead before Montreal once again took over and saw out the win. If you were scripting a great advert for the 3-down game, for CFL playoff football and for the league in general, then this would be it.

Als QB Davis Alexander remains unbeaten as a starter (12-0) and argued of the Blue Bombers trash talk that “they woke up the wrong team.” He also said he knew the team would rally round him. Why wouldn’t they. Right now, Alexander is the man in Montreal. The Alouettes have been looking for a QB to be that since the retirement of Anthony Calvillo. Whether ‘Alexander the Great’ will prove to be that long term only time will tell. For now, though he remains unbeaten and to get there had to pull off some big plays here. Alexander finished the game 24 of 34 for 384 yards with 1 touchdown and 1 interception. You could see how dominant Montreal were in the first half as he threw for 246 of those yards before the second half kicked off. He also had 3 carries for 32 yards and a score.

On the other side of the field Winnipeg had veteran QB Zach Collaros put in one of his better playoff displays for a while as he went 19 of 26 for 306 yards with 1 touchdown and 1 interception. For Collaros and Winnipeg this feels like the closing of a chapter. The two-time CFL MOP and 1-time Grey Cup MVP arrived in Winnipeg in 2019, and the team appeared in every Grey Cup played from 2019 to 2024. Montreal knocking them out means we are guaranteed a new West Division champion this year.

Montreal made an explosive start here, getting out to a 17-0 lead built around solid defence and a connection between Alexander and Tyson Philpot. Montreal started out defensively strong, holding Collaros, Oliveira and co in check to build a 25-6 halftime lead. In the third quarter however, Winnipeg came out all guns blazing and it did rattle them as the visitors hit back with three straight touchdowns. Two quarterback sneaks for Terry Wilson and a 54-yard throw to Ontaria Wilson and Winnipeg had their first lead of the game 27-25.

Montreal managed to stem the tide on their next possession as Alexander hit Mack for a 50-yard gain. Then, from the Bombers’ 13, Scott III ran into the end zone for the touchdown that would re-take the lead. Winnipeg were limited to a field goal in response and the fourth quarter was finely balanced after that at 32-30 to Montreal with just under 13 minutes to play. A turnover led to another Scott III touchdown and although Winnipeg got it back to 39-33 with just under 7 minutes left Montreal took over and saw it out with strong running as well as adding a final three points to secure the victory.

Winnipeg are known as a team that can control a game with a hard pounding running game. Here it was the Alouettes who dominated on the ground. They put up a net 176 yards rushing at 7 yards per carry to Winnipeg’s 43 yards on 14 carries (3.1 yards average). Stevie Scott III led the charge with 18 carries for 133 yards and 2 touchdowns as well as 3 catches for 29 yards. What really impressed was in the fourth quarter with things on the line he really took over, including a 39-yard run that put the Alouettes deep in the Bombers half of the field and led to the points that made it a two-score game to settle it.  

For The Alouettes Tyson Philpot had himself a day with the opening score (a 1-yard run on a jet sweep), a 45-yard touchdown catch and caught 10 of the 11 balls thrown his way for 135 yards.

Next Week: The Eastern Division Final.

Hamilton and Montreal will face off in Hamilton to decide who represents the East Division in the Grey Cup this year.

The second Semi-Final game was in Vancouver where the host BC Lions faced off with the Calgary Stampeders. It was the home town Lions who took the win 33-30 with a walkoff field goal for the win and who now move on to the West Division title game.

The question here was could the second semi-final match the energy and excitement of the first? To which the answer was a definitive yes, especially from the mid third quarter onwards when the two teams started trading scores with some regularity.

Prior to that BC had taken a 13-7 lead into the halftime break. Which was probably not as high scoring as people had been expecting. Excitement was high going into the game as the Leos Offence has been red hot of late, and the Stamps had finished the season on a good run. A lot of the storylines centred around the two quarterbacks – especially as Calgary’s pivot Vernon Adams Jr had been displaced as the Lions’ starter by MOP candidate Nathan Rourke.  

However, it wasn’t the duel between these two that settled it all, but really BC getting contributions from every phase of the game. For comparison, Adams Jr had his best game yet against his old team finishing the game 22 of 33 for 334 yards with 2 touchdowns and 3 carries for 24 yards, whilst Rourke went 16 of 22 for 223 yards and had 6 carries 68 yards and a touchdown.

Lions’ fans will be worried about next week as for the second game in a row they didn’t get much going on the ground and the Stamps D-Line was getting in Rourke’s face quite a bit.

If you looked at some of the overall stats you might well have expected Calgary to be the winners here. But there were some real key moments, and momentum shifts that really cost the Stamps and benefitted the Lions at crucial points in the game. For instance, the Stamps, down 13-7 in the second quarter with 8 seconds on the clock and in field goal range threw down to the four-yard line. Great. Except it took 9 seconds and they lost 3 points. Renee Paredes also missed an extra point that could have made it 28-27 to Calgary but instead kept things tied. 4 points gone by in a game lost by one is never a winning approach.

Earlier in the second half too the Stamps had really grabbed the momentum, scored and were looking like a team on a comeback mission only for Robert Carter Jr to immediately reply with a 95-yard kick return touchdown. Calgary would tie the game up again later, but it really did deflate things in the moment.

Another key difference was, not just BC getting help from every phase of the game, but the Lions taking their chances with two touchdowns on two red zone visits. It may well be that the often-overlooked element of the game, special teams, was a real difference here too. The game started with a bang as Lions returner Seven McGee opened things with a bang with a 55-yard kickoff return, Sean Whyte was 4 for 4 on his field goals, 7 for 7 on all kicks, and hit a walkoff game winner and Carter Jr had his 95-yard touchdown return.

For Calgary there were some great performances as Dedrick Mills had 14 carries for 111 yards and 3 catches for 25 yards, Jalen Philpot had 7 receptions for 120 yards and a touchdown and Clark Barnes had 4 receptions for 73 yards and a touchdown.

After back-to-back twelve loss seasons this was a good return to form for Calgary and they will look to next year with some optimism. For BC meanwhile this was their fourth consecutive appearance in a West Semi-Final. Now they will look to try and go and win in Saskatchewan (who beat them in last year’s West Semi) and make their first Grey Cup appearance since 2011.

Next Week: The Western Division Final.

The Lions win sets up a visit to Saskatchewan where the Roughriders and BC Lions will fight for a chance to represent the West in the 112th Grey Cup.

MOP's of Semi-Finals Week:

O – Stevie Scott III RB, Montreal Alouettes: 18 carries for 133 yards and 2 touchdowns, 3 catches for 29 yards.

D – Isaac Adeyemi-Berglund DE, Montreal Alouettes: 4 tackles, 1 sack, 2 forced fumbles, 1 fumble recovered.

ST – Robert Carter Jr KR/DB, BC Lions: 2 kick returns for 110 yards and a touchdown, 2 tackles.

Grey Cup Playoffs:

West Division Final: BC Lions (12-7) at Saskatchewan Roughriders [12-6].

(West Semi Final: Calgary Stampeders 30 at BC Lions 33)

East Division Final: Montreal Alouettes (11-8) at Hamilton Tiger-Cats [11-7].

(East Semi Final: Winnipeg Blue Bombers 33 at Montreal Alouettes 42).

CHRIS LAWTON

CFL ANALYST

Chris originally started following the NFL with the ‘first wave’ of fans when it was shown on Channel 4 in the 1980’s. He has been a keen supporter of the Miami Dolphins since 1983. Chris first encountered the CFL in 2016 and instantly fell in love with the Canadian game. He has been writing about the CFL 2017. Chris has a degree in history, postgraduate degree in librarianship and can be found on twitter as @CFLfanUK

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