CFL Quick Kicks 2026: Week 1

The Final game of the weekend was in Ottawa as the Ottawa Redblacks welcomed the Edmonton Elks to town. Both teams lost their opener last year then started 1-6 so they both wanted to get off to a good start. Once again it was the visiting team who came away with the spoils as the Elks took up where they left off last year, (Edmonton swept the season series 2-0 last year), and walked out the victors 29-21.

For the first time since 2019, the Edmonton Elks are 1-0. That will have been pleasing to Mark Kilam and his coaching staff who spent a lot of the offseason, camp and preseason talking up the importance of starting better in games and the season. On the other sideline, Ryan Dinwiddie was making his bow as the Redblack’s fourth head coach. Having gone 51–35 with Toronto, and making the playoffs in four of five season there, he and the fans were looking for a more positive start than this.

Before this season began, the Elks running back Justin Rankin stated he wanted to become the first CFL player to reach 1,000 yards both rushing and receiving in a season. With a total of 196 yards from scrimmage on opening night perhaps he has served notice of his determination to get there.

One of the oldest adages and most promoted fundamentals of the game is that the team that doesn’t make mistakes and wins the turnover battle is usually the team that wins. Sounds familiar huh? Well, so it proved again here as the Elks won the turnover battle 4-0 all coming via a missed snap recovery, a turnover on downs, a forced and recovered fumble, and they had three shots at interceptions if their DBs had stickier hands.

The Elks got out to a 13-0 lead in wet and windy conditions thanks to an Austin Mack touchdown before Daniel Adeboboye scored and Ottawa pulled it back within 3 by halftime. Ottawa punted 4 times in a row in the second half whilst Rankin struck big twice. He turned a simple check down into a huge 63-yard play early in the third quarter, setting up a six-point lead. He started off the fourth with another big play, beginning a rush with a spin move at the line of scrimmage before pulling away for a 61-yard score to make it 26-10.

Ottawa made it a one-score game late after a 12-yard touchdown from Justin Hardy and made the 2-point conversion to pull back to 29-21 which was how it finished.

For Edmonton Justin Rankin had 13 carries for 102 yards and a touchdown as well as 5 catches for 94 yards. Cody Fajardo finished the game 23 of 34 for 266 yards and a touchdown whilst defensively Nick Anderson had 7 tackles. On Special teams Vincent Blanchard was 5 for 5 on field goals whilst Javon Leake had 9 kick returns for 154 yards.

Meanwhile for Ottawa Jake Maier finished 22 of 37 for 203 yards and a touchdown, whilst Daniel Adeboboye had 12 carries for 87 yards and a touchdown Nyles Morgan led the way with 7 tackles.

The CFL has experimented this year with an earlier start to the season. Part of that is about the World Cup but part of it us about restructuring where the CFL sits in the Canadian sports calendar. Every home team saw some drop off in attendance from Week one last year, which will give the league pause and be something they should monitor. Let’s hope the rule changes this year, and bigger changes next year don’t have an impact on attendance. At least one owner seems buoyant and optimistic though and it is fantastic to have on field action back again.

This week of the three games one went to overtime, one was a walk-off win, and one was decided by one score. So plenty for Week 2 to live up to as next week the Blue Bombers host Hamilton, Toronto visit Montreal and BC and Saskatchewan kick their season’s off in the reigning champs back yard.