CFL 'Quick Kicks' 2025: Week 5

By Chris Lawton

Welcome to week five of our weekly review of each week of the 2025 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.

Let’s dive right in. The first game of the weekend saw the  Winnipeg Blue Bombers visit the Calgary Stampeders for Thursday night football. The teams were playing in the inaugural ‘Stampede Bowl’, designed by the Stamps marketing team to tie in with the annual 10-day Calgary Stampede event. It was the home team who got to be the first owners of the trophy too as they won out 37-16.

This is Calgary’s attempt to draw some attention and they will no doubt be hoping to build something of a tradition like the Banjo Bowl over time to enliven fan interest. For Calgary it would make a great addition to their annual rivalry game with Edmonton in the Labour Day Classic too. It certainly did a job too as 22,485 fans were on hand for this one – almost 4,000 more people than were at the last home game.

As for the game itself, Calgary owned the first half 29-6 and rarely looked like they were going to be troubled by the Blue Bombers. The Calgary D certainly did their part as Winnipeg were held out of the endzone until the fourth quarter. The men in red’s defence also added two touchdowns of their own as Damon Webb and Derrick Moncrief both ran back a pick-six each.

Vernon Adams Jr was efficient here finishing 13 of 18 for 222 yards and with 2 touchdowns. By contrast Zach Collaros finished 34 of 48 for 288 yards with 1 touchdown and 2 interceptions (both taken to the house). Dedrick Mills continued his fine start to the year with 18 carries for 93 yards and a score for the Stamps. For Winnipeg Brady Oliveira returned, and despite the loss, they will have been happy to see him finish the game with 13 carries for 61 yards and 6 catches for another 51 yards in return from injury.

Not only did Calgary win the inaugural Stampede Bowl but they got to see the Blue Bombers also make a $25,000 donation to Purolator Tackle Hunger in Calgary as part of a wager made by team presidents Jay McNeil and Wade Miller before the matchup.

This will shake up the standings a little in the West Division as Calgary and Winnipeg are both 3-1 but the Stamps leapfrog the Bombers by virtue of their head-to-head win here. Meanwhile this leaves just the Saskatchewan Roughriders, who were on a bye week, as the only remaining unbeaten team (4-0).  

The second game of the weekend was in Toronto as the Hamilton Tiger-Cats took on the Toronto Argonauts in their fierce rivalry game. It was the visitors who came up trumps winning 51-38 in a game with plenty of action.

It could have all been very different too. Toronto took the opening kickoff then marched down the field to a touchdown from running back Kevin Brown. A quick 2 and out from Hamilton and the Argos were marching again. Which is when DaShaun Amos picked off Nick Arbuckle. Instead of marching to a 10-0 or 14-0 lead the momentum shifted the other way immediately as Bo Levi Mitchell hit receiver Kenny Lawler in stide for a 35-yard touchdown on the very next play to tie things up. Hamilton built from there.

For reasons that remain a mystery, the Toronto D, having seen this connection already, left Lawler one-on-one with no safety cover. That led to another connection with Mitchell this time for a 79-yard score. Lawler would finish the game with 6 catches for 207 yards and with 3 touchdowns. Mitchell would finish up going 19 of 24 for 332 yards and 5 touchdowns. With the win Mitchell is now 16-2 against the Argonauts for his career and in this game, he passed 40,000 career passing yards in the CFL.

For Toronto, Arbuckle and the double blue offence tried to keep up, with Arbuckle himself finishing 27 of 38 for 339 yards with 2 touchdowns and 1 pick. The touchdowns went to Kevin Mital, (8 catches 104 yards, 1 major) and Damonte Coxie (5 catches 76 yards 1 score).

This game also saw two kick return touchdowns. Janarion Grant being back from injury is huge for Toronto and he showed that here returning a touchdown on a reverse play on a third quarter Ticats kickoff. Hamilton would answer back with a kick return touchdown of their won from Isaiah Wooden. With those plays perhaps the biggest winner from this game was a fan. Roy Lyster won a sponsor’s promotion due to the two return touchdowns and won a million dollars. He is the first winner of the prize this century, which will be paid out in $50,000 instalments over the next 20 years.

The win moves Hamilton to 2-2 and Toronto to 1-4. If Toronto are looking for any positives their offence looks to be clicking a little more and they can look to take a leaf out of Winnipeg’s book from last year, when the Bombers started 0-4 and made it to the Grey Cup after an 11-7 season. Meanwhile this is the first time in a year or two that the Tiger-Cats have not started out by digging themselves a hole to start the season.

The third game of the weekend was between the BC Lions  and the hometown Montreal Alouettes. This one had less going on than the combined 89 point game the Ticats and Argonauts put on, but it did end with the Lions recording a walkoff win as Sean Whyte hit the winning field goal for a 21-20 win with 0:02 seconds showing on the stadium clock to give him a chance and zeros as the kick sailed through the uprights.

A couple of weeks ago you wouldn’t have bet on this result, but the Als are really missing starting QB Davis Alexander and have lost both games without him. Added to that the Lions are now 8-2 since 2015 in games played in Montreal and have won five in a row against the Alouettes.

Nathan Rourke is working his way back from injury and finished this one 22 of 36 for 352 yards with one touchdown and one interception (came early but he got better after that), and 8 carries for 43 yards and another score. For Montreal, McLeod Bethel-Thompson finished 15 of 23 for 192 yards with 2 touchdowns.

One thing that was noticeable was that Rourke was able to spread the ball around, so Justin McInnis had 6 catches for 109 yards, Stanley Berryhill III had 4 grabs for 85 yards and a touchdown, Ayden Eberhardt had 4 catches for 53 yards and Keon Hatcher ad 4 receptions for 48 yards. Added to that Jevon Cottoy (3 receptions 38 yards) made a critical grab to set up Whyte for the game winner.

This was Montreal’s first home defeat dropping them to 3-2 whilst BC moved to 2-3 to try and stay in touch in a very competitive West Division.

The final game of the weekend was the matchup in Edmonton where the Edmonton Elks  hosted the Ottawa RedBlacks. The home team took this one 39-33 to pick up their first win of the season. Thanks in no small part to ‘thunder and lightning’ running backs Justin Rankin (12 carries 105 yards, 1 touchdown as well as 4 catches for 69 yards and a touchdown & Javon Leake who had only 10 yards on 5 carries but also returned 5 punts for 163 yards, including a 94 yard touchdown run).

Edmonton started fast and were off to a 15-3 lead early on as QB Tre Ford completed his first 10 passes.  Ford would finish going 15 of 17 for 212 yards with 2 touchdowns which gave him a ‘perfect’ quarterback rating of 158.3. On the other side the RedBlacks were doubtless happy to see Dru Brown return as their pivot and their passing game looked much better as he finished the game 31 of 43 for 316 yards with 2 touchdowns. Eugene Lewis returning to a former haunt hauled in 8 of those passes for 75 yards and a touchdown.

Sadly, Ottawa returner DeVonte Dedman was carted off here. Dedmon has been an excellent returner for Ottawa, but their fans will have been happy to see they have an immediate replacement as Kalil Pimpleton replaced Dedmon as the returner and took a punt back 97 yards for a touchdown bringing the score to 22-17 to Edmonton at the time.

It seems like we have mentioned a good few return touchdowns this week and you love to see it. CFL special teams rules really are designed to highlight the skills of the kick and return games, and the wider field helps here too.

Ottawa coaching staff have been preaching about cleaning up the penalties and the 9 infractions totalling 188 yards certainly didn’t help their cause here. Overall though this was an entertaining game with over 500 passing yards, 200 rushing yards and 400 kick return yards between the teams and Elks Head Coach Mark Kilam picked up his first ever win.

MOP's of Week 5:

O – Kenny Lawler WR, Hamilton Tiger-Cats: 6 catches on 7 targets for 207 yards and 3 touchdowns.

D – Damon Webb DB, Calgary Stampeders: 8 tackles, 1 interception, touchdown.

ST – Isaiah Wooden KR, Hamilton Tiger-Cats: 5 kick returns for 166 yards and a touchdown, 4 punt returns for 98 yards. 264 total return yards.

Interdivisional Standings 2025 This Week: East Division 0 West Division 2

Interdivisional Standings 2025 season: East Division 2 West Division 7

Week 6 starts out with Calgary visiting Saskatchewan and all three games will be in Division games with all the games being into the early hours UK time. That said, all of these games are available free on CFL+. The league’s free streaming service is a great way to check out some CFL action and see what you think of it. They are also available to catch up the next morning so there is every chance to see some three-down action.

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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