CFL 'Quick Kicks' 2026: Week 7

By Chris Lawton

Welcome to week seven of our weekly review of each week of the 2026 CFL 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.

A quick note before we dive in. Week 7 basically stocked its own library shelf without any help from me, four games and four ready-made classics, so consider this the CFL’s book club edition. Grab a drink, possibly a translated edition of something suitably foreign, and let’s get into it.

Let’s dive right in. The first game of the week saw the Edmonton Elks host the BC Lions in a rematch of their Week 5 game. The Elks exacted a measure of revenge for their only loss of the season so far as they knocked Nathan Rourke out of the game and took a 19-17 win in the process. Edmonton now stands at 5-1 and have made their best start to a CFL season since 2017.

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, and both of those times took place in the same stadium on the same night, which is either poetic or just very inconvenient if you support the Lions. Nathan Rourke’s night lasted exactly two plays, which even by BC’s luck this season felt a bit much. The offensive line came apart under an Edmonton stunt, Tomari Fox landed on Rourke’s left shoulder as he tried to escape, and the reigning Most Outstanding Player trudged off before he’d thrown a single pass. BC head coach Buck Pierce had little to add afterwards beyond confirming Rourke would be reassessed back in Vancouver, the sort of update that tells you everything and nothing at once.

In came Chase Brice, and things did not improve. His first pass of the night was picked off, and by the time the evening was done he’d thrown four interceptions, completing 20 of 34 for 226 yards and one touchdown in what he himself admitted afterwards was “a lot of mistakes on my end.” To his credit he stuck around to face the music, crediting Edmonton’s shifting pressure looks while refusing to hide behind them. Three of those first-half picks alone helped set up 13 Elks points, and a roughing the passer call on Nathan Cherry chipped in the rest of Edmonton’s cushion, the sort of afternoon where the Lions might have been better off just staying in the dressing room.

Cody Fajardo, mercifully for Edmonton, had no interest in matching Brice’s chaos. He went 27 of 37 for 282 yards and the game’s only offensive touchdown through the air, a four yard toss to T.J. Luther that put the Elks back in front for keeps. Vincent Blanchard did the heavy lifting after that, banging through all four of his field goal attempts from 38, 26, 26 and 16 yards, the sort of relentlessly tidy kicking display that makes for a slightly dull highlight reel but a very satisfying final score if you’re wearing green and gold.

BC’s defence, to their enormous credit, refused to be the punchline of the whole affair. They held Justin Rankin, the CFL’s leading rusher, to nine anaemic yards on seven carries and the Elks to just 27 total yards on the ground, numbers so grim you’d think Edmonton had simply forgotten running the ball was allowed. Deontai Williams was blunt about where that effort went to waste, admitting “we need to get a turnover, we need to score,” before adding, with the sort of quiet defiance that suggests the Lions are due a decent home slate, that BC simply refuse to lose there. He’ll get the chance to prove it soon enough, with BC playing three of their next five back home.

Four takeaways and four sacks, two of them arriving on BC’s last gasp final drive to force a turnover on downs, were enough to see Edmonton home handing them a fifth win in six. Two teams walked into Commonwealth Stadium and only one of them recognised itself by full time, Edmonton reborn as a genuine 5-1 contender, BC left sifting through wreckage that reads like the chapter where things get worse before they get better. It’s a fifth-place finish in a crowded West for the Lions at 1-4, a homecoming that now doubles as damage control, while Edmonton get to enjoy top spot for at least a few days before a proper measuring stick trip to Saskatchewan next Thursday.

MOP of the game

D – Kenneth Logan Jr., DB, Edmonton Elks: interception, part of a four takeaway defensive effort that decided the game.

The second game of the week brought us Chapter two in Cowtown as the Calgary Stampeders and Montreal Alouettes squared off, with the Als taking a 38-32 win. If this week’s instalment sounded familiar, that’s because it basically was. Montreal jumped out to another big first half lead at McMahon Stadium, Calgary mounted another furious fourth quarter comeback, and Montreal survived by roughly the same margin of composure as seven days earlier. It was less Groundhog Day than a proper slice of One Hundred Years of Solitude, the BuendĂ­a family relearning the same lessons in Macondo generation after generation, except here it was the Stampeders discovering, twice in a row, that a 19-point deficit doesn’t disappear just because you wish hard enough for it.

Davis Alexander made history doing the damage, extending his interception free streak to 336 consecutive attempts to break Darian Durant’s old CFL record, while piling up 402 yards and three touchdowns. Travis Theis bulldozed his way to a season high 123 rushing yards and a touchdown in a first quarter that was essentially his highlight reel, and Cole Spieker, back from injury, celebrated his return with a touchdown catch worth the wait. Montreal led 22-0 before Calgary had so much as cleared its throat.

Cleared it they eventually did. Dedrick Mills and Vernon Adams Jr. combined for three fourth quarter touchdowns to briefly tie the game at 32-32, capping a genuinely impressive rally that will sting all the more given how avoidable some of it was. Calgary head coach Dave Dickenson certainly thought so afterwards, still fuming about a second quarter roughing call on a Theis sideline run that he felt should never have stood. “They know it’s a bad call,” he said, arguing the contact was shoulder to shoulder rather than helmet to head. The 15 yard penalty handed Montreal prime field position and led directly into Tyler Snead’s touchdown two plays later, the sort of gift that tends to matter rather a lot when the final margin is six.

Alexander got the last word anyway, driving Montreal 95 yards for Kaseem Ferdinand’s go-ahead touchdown with just over a minute left, the kind of finish that had French broadcasters reaching for the word genius and at least one columnist muttering that running out the clock would have been the safer call. Fair enough on both counts. It’s Montreal’s third straight win and sole possession of first in the East at 5-1, while Calgary will wonder how many more 22 point leads they’ll need to erase before someone in Cowtown decides the story doesn’t have to keep repeating itself.

MOP of the game

QB – Davis Alexander, Montreal Alouettes: CFL record for consecutive pass attempts without an interception, 402 yards, three touchdowns.

The third game of the week saw chapter three unfold in Hamilton, where an old fisherman’s tale has never felt more apt. The Tiger-Cats won round one of the Ballard Cup Trophy matches 24-23 on a game that went to the final play.

The Tiger-Cats spent most of Saturday night learning what it feels like to reel something in only to watch the sharks start circling before you can get it to shore. Hamilton built a 24-10 lead by the third quarter and then spent the fourth watching Toronto strip pieces off it, right up until Lirim Hajrullahu’s game winning field goal attempt sailed wide as time expired. It was pure Old Man and the Sea, Hamilton battling to keep hold of something hard won while an opponent kept taking bites out of it, and for once the fish made it back to the dock more or less in one piece.

Tre Ford, making his first career start in place of the injured Bo Levi Mitchell, gave Hamilton exactly the night they needed, completing 21 of 27 passes for 218 yards and a touchdown while adding a game high 109 yards on the ground. He set the tone early, flipping a shovel pass to Larry Rountree III while falling down for a first down, and later found Kenny Lawler for the game’s opening touchdown after the Argos had struck first on a Nick Arbuckle sneak. Ante Milanovic-Litre and Jake Dolegala added rushing touchdowns either side of half time, the latter set up by a Jamal Peters interception that swung the third quarter firmly Hamilton’s way.

Toronto, to their credit, refused to sink quietly. Chad Kelly threw a touchdown to DaVaris Ungerer III and Arbuckle punched in his second rushing score of the night, cutting the deficit to a single point with a missed convert doing the rest of the damage. A late Kelly scramble and a 29 yard completion to Damonte Coxie set up one last chance from inside the Hamilton 15, but Hajrullahu’s kick drifted away from the uprights, and Hamilton escaped with the 24-23 win and a share of second in the East. It was, by most honest assessments in Hamilton this week, the shakiest their defence has looked all season, conceded big plays and struggled to get off the field on second down. They’ll take the two points regardless. The old man doesn’t need style points, just the fish on the dock.

MOP of the game

QB – Tre Ford, Hamilton Tiger-Cats: 218 passing yards, one touchdown, and a game high 109 rushing yards in his first career start.

The final game of the week was in Ottawa where the RedBlacks welcomed ex QB Dru Brown and the Winnipeg Blue Bombers to town. It was clear that no one has enjoyed a homecoming this much since a certain wrongly discarded Frenchman got his hands on a fortune and a list. There’s a particular satisfaction reserved for a man who gets to stand in the house of the people who threw him out and calmly rearrange the furniture, and Dru Brown got to enjoy every second of it on Sunday night. Traded away by the Redblacks less than a month ago, Brown spent the evening quietly dismantling his old team before delivering the sort of late rally that reads like a script, Edmond Dantès with a football instead of a fortune, revenge served patiently and then all at once.

Winnipeg trailed 26-12 in the fourth quarter, which on paper should have been the end of it against a Redblacks side chasing their first win of the season. Instead Brown found Nic Demski and Pokey Wilson for touchdowns to drag the Blue Bombers level, finishing the night 27 of 43 for 317 yards and both scores, and the sides traded field goals through the first two rounds of a genuinely chaotic overtime before Winnipeg finally settled it with two point conversions, Brown finding Gavin Cobb for the clincher before Redha Kramdi batted away Jake Maier’s final desperate throw. “It feels good to win,” Brown said afterwards, in what may be the single most understated quote of his career to date.

Winnipeg’s defence deserves its share of the credit too, forcing four consecutive Ottawa punts before overtime and coming up with a goal line stand and a first career interception for Jake Kelly at the most important possible moment. It’s a third straight win for the Blue Bombers, who move to 4-2, while Ottawa slip to 0-6 in agonising fashion yet again. There is, at least, some historical company for the Redblacks to take comfort in. Four teams in CFL history have started 0-5 and still reached the playoffs, most famously the 2011 BC Lions, who rattled off eleven wins in their final thirteen games and lifted the Grey Cup at home. Ottawa will need something rather more dramatic than that to salvage 2026, but stranger things, as any good count locked away too long knows, have happened to men written off far too early.

MOP of the game

QB – Dru Brown, Winnipeg Blue Bombers: 317 passing yards, two touchdowns, and both the tying and clinching plays in the overtime win over his former team.

Standings

Step back from the individual box scores and Week 7 leaves a fairly clear picture forming. The West is Edmonton’s right now, sat at 5-1 and playing their best football in years. There matchup next week with the 4-1 Riders will be telling for both teams.  Meanwhile BC’s season now hinges on how quickly Nathan Rourke’s shoulder heals given how thin things looked with Chase Brice under centre. Winnipeg are also quietly building a genuine head of steam with three straight wins heading into a soft patch of schedule. The East picture is tighter although Montreal are looking every bit the team to catch at 5-1. Hamilton are just scraping by without Bo Levi Mitchell and somehow still finding results and Ottawa, meanwhile, remain the story nobody in the capital wants to keep telling, 0-6 and still searching for answers, though history at least says it isn’t mathematically over yet.

The theme creeping through the whole league right now is quarterback health, with Rourke, Mitchell, and Winnipeg’s Zach Collaros all sidelined in one form or another, and how each of those teams manages life without their starter may end up deciding more of this season than anything happening on the field this weekend.

Next week there is once again a full slate of games. None of them kick off before midnight UK time, but as ever you can catch up with all of it for free on CFL+.

Until next week CFL fans!

 

Standings:

Interdivisional Standings This Week: East Division 1, West Division 1

Interdivisional Standings 2026 season: East Division 5, West Division 9

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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