CFL 'Quick Kicks' 2026: Division Finals

By Chris Lawton

Welcome to the Division Finals edition of our weekly look back at the 2026 CFL season. Two games, two Grey Cup tickets, and two fan bases now staring at the winter ahead like a man who has just been told the pub has stopped serving food.

This week we learned that a crossover team still cannot reach the Grey Cup (Winnipeg being the last who will ever try, with the format changing for 2027), that the Elks’ “Concrete Castle of the North” is a sturdier fortification than anything built on these islands since the Normans lost interest, and that a road trip to the West Final has become, for the B.C. Lions, a seasonal tradition about as reliable as the clocks going back. Mindy you, that Concrete Castle monicker wouldn’t have flown when the Elks were setting a CFL record 22-game home losing streak.

Special teams, as ever, wandered into both games uninvited, so I will be saying a fair bit about them. The East Final kicked off at 8 PM UK time and the West Final turned up at half past eleven, so if you saw the whole thing, you have earned every biscuit in the tin. Kettle on and let’s get started!

The First Game

Montreal Alouettes 33, Winnipeg Blue Bombers 23. The setting was Percival Molson Memorial Stadium, sold out, with the tickets all gone 19 days beforehand and a queue outside two hours before kick-off, which in Montreal, where anything that is not the Canadiens struggles for attention, counts as a riot. The ground sits on the McGill campus and opened in 1915, so it has seen a fair bit, though probably not a Most Outstanding Player throwing his first pass in 26 days.

That was the gamble. Jason Maas had told the doubters to go ahead and second-guess the rest he gave Davis Alexander, Tyson Philpot and Tyler Snead, and for about a quarter the doubters looked rather clever. A 40-yard Mekhi Mews kick return produced only a field goal, a two-and-out followed, and Alexander spent a while checking down like a man trying to pay a bill before the post office closes. Then Snead and Charleston Rambo woke up, Stevie Scott III scored, and Najee Murray (five tackles, a sack and a fumble recovery in the first half alone) began making Winnipeg’s afternoon miserable. Mustafa Johnson forced a Brady Oliveira fumble that Montreal had to challenge to win back, and a Jose Maltos Diaz field goal made it 13-0.

Winnipeg’s offence punted on four of its first five possessions and fumbled on the other, which is one way of showing urgency. Zach Collaros did start, after a week in which the Bombers guarded his health with the secrecy of a Cold War missile test: no practice on Tuesday, a closed one on Wednesday, and Dru Brown telling reporters that even he did not know who was playing. What kept them in it was Trey Vaval, who piled up 237 return yards on ten attempts while Montreal’s punt coverage gave him up to ten yards of room before anyone laid a hand on him, a sort of guided tour with no guide. Both Winnipeg scores before half-time, a Sergio Castillo 25-yard field goal and a Bryce Perkins plunge, came off long returns. Rambo, meanwhile, ran past Major Williams for catches of 48 and 52 yards before the break.

There was a mad moment too. Collaros overthrew Dorian Singer, the ball ricocheted off Robert Kennedy III, Tim White, Kennedy again and into the hands of another defender, bounced up, was caught by White, stripped, and recovered by Montreal, all of it ruled an incompletion. Somewhere Pinball Clemons felt a flicker of professional pride. Evan Holm made 10 tackles in the first half and finished with 11, three short of the CFL playoff record of 14 held jointly by Brendon Ayanbadejo (B.C., 2002) and Deron Mayo (Calgary, 2013). Deatrick Nichols, meanwhile, had a nonsensical flag overturned on review and then swore at a TSN camera operator, the one man in the stadium who had nothing to do with it.

The second half was Winnipeg’s for a good while. They scored on three of their first four drives and, trailing 26-23, had a chance to take the lead with a little over three minutes left. Then Collaros rolled right, Tyrice Beverette dodged a Nic Demski block, stripped the ball and fell on it. Scott’s best runs of the day set up the finish, and Alexander, getting rid of the ball in the nick of time, found Snead for a catch that closed the book. Castillo’s late 39-yard miss was his first from inside 40 all season, field goals and converts included, which tells you the sort of day it was.

Some historical colour: Montreal beat these same Bombers to win their eighth Grey Cup in 2023, then lost last year’s final to Saskatchewan with Alexander hobbling, and are now back for a second straight appearance. Winnipeg, the fourth seed who won in Toronto but could not follow it up in Montreal, depart as the last crossover team in league history. No crossover side has ever reached the Grey Cup and, with the format changing in 2027, none now will. As trivia goes, it is a poisoned chalice.

Player of the Game: Davis Alexander, QB, Montreal. Rusty for a drive, then a Most Outstanding Player. 23-of-35, 373 yards, 2 TD, plus 25 rushing yards on five carries. Honourable mentions to Tyrice Beverette for the strip-sack, Tyler Snead for the catch, Najee Murray for a first half that deserves its own plaque, and Tyson Philpot (nine catches, 129 yards).

The Second Game

Edmonton Elks 28, B.C. Lions 16. The venue was Commonwealth Stadium, where 40,182 turned up, the biggest crowd in the league this season, at a ground that opened in 1978 for the Commonwealth Games and was promptly christened by the Eskimos’ run of five Grey Cups on the trot (1978 to 1982). The Elks call the place the Concrete Castle of the North, so let us run with the metaphor: this was a siege, and the Lions arrived with no ladders, a catapult that landed short and half the garrison in the infirmary.

It was a siege of the slow, grinding kind. Nobody found the end zone in the first half, which finished 9-6, and the Elks’ defence, the stingiest in the league under Mark Kilam, who took the team from 7-11 to 13-5, had Nathan Rourke bottled up for most of the evening. Rourke finished with 324 yards, completed 59 per cent of his throws, went one-for-four in the red zone and was sacked twice, and the stat line is kinder than the game was: Joel Dublanko dropped two interceptions and Tyrell Ford nearly had a pick-six off an overthrow. Rourke did score the Lions’ only touchdown, and has now started three West Finals (2022, 2025 and 2026), all of them on the road. Road teams have lost 19 of the last 24 divisional finals, so it is worth asking whether the problem is the quarterback or the postcode.

Across the line, Cody Fajardo, 34, had 25 completions from 30 for 274 yards and a touchdown, and ran ten times for 84 yards and another score, extending plays against blitzes the Lions had to dial up to get anywhere near him. He credited some criticism from TSN’s Henoc Muamba for firing him up, which should be a lesson to us all: never underestimate a quarterback with a grudge and a pair of legs. A 16-16 tie early in the fourth quarter gave way to Austin Mack’s 23-yard touchdown catch over Robert Carter Jr., and then Dublanko stripped Justin McInnis on third-and-10 with 5:40 left, J.J. Ross took the loose ball 62 yards, and the wind was out of the Lions for good.

Buck Pierce, it must be said, did not help his own cause. With a three-point lead early in the third quarter he tried a “free play” on second-and-inches, lined up in the shotgun with Rourke looking like anything but a quarterback about to sneak, and took an eight-yard sack. Then, nine down with 5:40 to go, he chose to go for it on third-and-10 and McInnis was stopped short, which is how the Dublanko strip happened. Sean Whyte, meanwhile, missed a 50-yard field goal in the first quarter a week after missing a 49-yarder against Saskatchewan. The goalposts retreat 15 yards in 2027, and Whyte, who is 40, is set to discover that the new 50 is the old 35: his kick arrived like a second-class stamp, late and short of the destination. There were also two unnecessary roughness flags on Fajardo, from Deontai Williams and Mathieu Betts, both of which led to Elks points.

One man deserves a drink, and it is Darnell Sankey. The newly crowned Most Outstanding Defensive Player made 11 tackles and two sacks and was about the only thing between Fajardo and the open field, a one-man garrison in a siege that was already lost.

For the history books: Edmonton are back in the Grey Cup for the first time since beating Ottawa in 2015, having gone 25-61 in the five seasons after their last playoff appearance in 2019. They have 14 titles to their name, a list they hope to extend in Calgary. The Lions, who started 1-5 and finished 10-8, a game worse than last year, were beaten in the West Final on the road for the fourth time in five seasons. They have not been to a Grey Cup since they beat Winnipeg at home in 2011, and have made the playoffs 11 times in 14 years with nothing to show for it.

Player of the Game: Cody Fajardo, QB, Edmonton. 25-of-30, 274 yards, 1 TD through the air, plus 10 carries for 84 yards and a touchdown on the ground. Honourable mentions to Joel Dublanko for the strip (and, a little less so, for the dropped interceptions), J.J. Ross for the 62-yard return, Austin Mack for the touchdown, and Darnell Sankey, who deserved a better supporting cast.

The 113th Grey Cup

Edmonton Elks (13-5) v Montreal Alouettes (14-4), McMahon Stadium, Calgary, Sunday 15th November. Some outlets give the kick-off as 5 PM Mountain Time (midnight UK) and others as 6 PM Eastern, so check cfl.ca before you set the alarm. Either way, it is a late one, so make a flask and some sandwiches.

This will be the 12th time these two have met in the Grey Cup, the most of any pairing in the game’s history, and the Elks lead the series 8-3. They won in 1954, 1955, 1956, 1975, 1978, 1979, 2003 and 2005, while the Alouettes took 1974, 1977 (the “Ice Bowl”, 41-6 in Montreal) and 2002. The pair last met for the title in 2005, a 38-35 overtime thriller at BC Place that featured a 96-yard kick-off return touchdown by Tony Tompkins, still the longest in Grey Cup history. So, once more, expect special teams to turn up.

The previous time these sides met in Calgary was in 1975, in the first Grey Cup ever played on the Prairies. It was -15 degrees with a 25 km/h wind, Edmonton won 9-8, and nobody scored a touchdown. It is one of only three touchdown-less Grey Cups. If the forecast looks grim, you know where to look for a precedent. Montreal have happier memories of McMahon, where in 2009 Damon Duval missed a field goal to lose the game, was handed a second chance when Saskatchewan were penalised for too many men, and kicked the Alouettes to a 28-27 win. It remains the cruellest way to lose a Grey Cup.

The sub-plot that writes itself is in Head Coach Jason Maas. The Montreal head coach spent nine seasons as an Edmonton quarterback, as Ricky Ray’s backup on the 2003 and 2005 Grey Cup winners, and was Edmonton’s head coach from 2016 to 2019, until they fired him. In 2015 he was Ottawa’s offensive coordinator when the Redblacks lost the Grey Cup to Edmonton, and the Eskimos hired him as their head coach a couple of weeks later. He has since collected another ring as Montreal’s head coach in 2023, which makes him a four-time champion (2003, 2005, 2012 and 2023). Now he gets to go after a fifth against the people who sacked him.

The Quarterbacks

There is a second story here, and it is about who is throwing the ball. Cody Fajardo was Montreal’s quarterback when the Alouettes won the 2023 Grey Cup, a 28-24 upset of a 14-4 Winnipeg side that had beaten them twice in the regular season. The Als had once been 6-7, finished 11-7, beat Hamilton and then the record-setting 16-2 Argonauts in Toronto, and trailed the Bombers 10-0 and 17-7 at half-time in the final. Fajardo, the 2019 West Division MOP, was named Grey Cup MVP with 291 yards, three touchdowns and one interception, and with the game on the line he took an eight-yard sack, ran for 13 yards, hit Cole Spieker on a critical third down and found Tyson Philpot for the winner with 13 seconds left.

Montreal being Montreal, they moved on. Davis Alexander, a backup on that title team, went 4-0 as the fill-in for an injured Fajardo in 2024 and signed an extension that November, and the Als then made him the face of the franchise by trading the reigning Grey Cup MVP to Edmonton for McLeod Bethel-Thompson. It looked ruthless, and soon it looked right. Alexander won his first 11 regular season starts, passing Hall of Famer Danny McManus’s old record of eight, and took Montreal back to the Grey Cup last year, where he ran into Saskatchewan in Winnipeg while carrying a hamstring injury. The Riders won 25-17, picked him off three times and won the turnover battle 4-0. Alexander was 9-of-14 for 97 yards and two interceptions at half-time before looking more like himself after the break, by which time it was too late.

He has spent 2026 answering that. Alexander stretched his record run of wins to start a career to 13, led the league in wins by a starter and is the current Most Outstanding Player. His only regular season defeat in his first 21 starts, a 32-29 loss on 20th June, came against the Elks, and it was the first time he and Fajardo had met. So, Sunday is a sequel with a plot a soap opera would reject as too convenient: the quarterback Montreal sent away after he won them the Cup against the one who replaced him and has a Grey Cup of his own to win.

On the field, Montreal have the Most Outstanding Player in Alexander, the Most Outstanding Canadian in Philpot and a habit of finding a way when it is not pretty. Edmonton have the league’s best defence and a 34-year-old quarterback who has just run for 84 yards against a blitzing defence and is still annoyed about something. Montreal’s punt coverage will need to improve, because Edmonton’s returners will have noticed what Vaval did to it. The history says Edmonton, the form says Montreal, and I would not bet against special teams settling it.

It is also the last Grey Cup on the current field: the goalposts move back 15 yards in 2027, so kickers get one last go at the old distances. After the week Sean Whyte had, he will be watching with interest.

Until the Grey Cup, CFL friends!

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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