CFL 'Quick Kicks' 2026: Week 10

By Chris Lawton

Welcome to week ten 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.

Let’s dive right in.

The first game of the weekend took the Calgary Stampeders across to Toronto for a Thursday night meeting with the Argonauts at BMO Field, and after everything that unfolded it’s fair to say both sides will be glad it’s in the rear-view mirror. Toronto came out 33-30 winners in front of 16,160 fans, a result that owed as much to what Calgary gave away as to anything Toronto did especially well.

Chad Kelly’s first game back off the bye following his neck injury in BC was a torrid one. He completed 30 of 43 for 349 yards and a touchdown, but threw four interceptions, the worst of them a 67-yard pick-six by Adrian Greene that briefly handed Calgary the lead in the third quarter. It was the second four-interception outing of his season, and not the kind of return he’ll have wanted, though he did enough late on, driving Toronto downfield to set up Brady Lidster’s game-winning field goal with 11 seconds left.

Vernon Adams Jr’s remarkable run without an interception, stretching back to the start of the season and standing at 21 touchdowns to just the one pick, finally ended too, Tarvarus McFadden reading his eyes perfectly in the corner of the end zone late in the first quarter. Benjie Franklin added a second on the final play of the game. Adams finished a relatively quiet night by his standards, 12 of 22 for 159 yards and a rushing touchdown, a world away from the 405 yards and six touchdowns he racked up on this same opponent back in the Stampede Bowl. Toronto’s defensive line deserves real credit for that, sacking Adams four times, three of them coming from Shawn Lemon, who now has three sacks in just two games since arriving in Toronto.

Special teams had a hand in this one too, as they so often do. Janarion Grant took a punt back 64 yards for a touchdown, his second return score of the season and the 12th of his CFL career, moving him into outright second on the league’s all-time list behind only Henry ‘Gizmo’ Williams, who holds the record with 26. When I asked around afterwards whether Grant knew where that placed him in the history books, he said he genuinely had no idea, and that his focus is purely on getting his team into the end zone rather than the record books looking after themselves.

Calgary will rue a run of self-inflicted errors that undid a night in which their defence actually forced five turnovers. A holding penalty wiped out a touchdown and pushed the Stampeders out of realistic field goal range in the third quarter. A sack on their own nine-yard line pinned them deep, and Sam Hicks made them pay on the very next Toronto possession with a 40-yard touchdown run, his second of the night, on a play where Calgary had just 11 men on the field. Then, with the game there to be won, Dedrick Mills was stuffed on third-and-one by Bubba Bolden at 1:35 remaining rather than the Stampeders opting to punt for field position, a decision head coach Dave Dickenson later admitted he wasn’t sure was the right call, citing a team he felt was running on fumes after a short week. It’s the sort of night that will sting more with time than it did in the moment.

MOP of the game

Sam Hicks RB, Toronto Argonauts: 5 carries for 54 yards including a 40-yard touchdown in the fourth quarter, plus 3 catches for 8 yards including a 5-yard score.

The second game of the weekend, and the one that produced the most eye-catching numbers of the round, saw the Saskatchewan Roughriders host the winless Ottawa REDBLACKS at Mosaic Stadium, and there was little argument about the outcome as the Roughriders ran out 42-20 winners in front of 29,798 fans to move to 6-2 on the season, taking joint possession of top spot in the West Division. Ottawa, now 0-8, remain rooted to the bottom of the table with their misery showing no signs of abating.

This was a genuinely remarkable effort from Saskatchewan given the state of their injury list. Receivers Kian Schaffer-Baker and Samuel Emilus, along with cornerback Tevaughn Campbell, were all placed on the six-game injured list the day before the game, joining running back A.J. Ouellette and defensive back Rolan Milligan Jr. already on the shelf. With only KeeSean Johnson and Dhel Duncan-Busby remaining from the opening-day receiving corps, Trevor Harris simply found the next man up regardless, throwing for 401 yards, his third 400-yard game of the season, and finishing 30 of 38 with 14 consecutive completions to close things out. Johnson caught a career-high 11 passes for 133 yards and a score, Johnny Johnson III added 117 yards of his own, and Dylan Djete, playing in just his second CFL game and making his first start, caught his first professional touchdown.

There is genuine history attached to Harris’s night too. A 23-yard completion in the first quarter took him past 40,000 career passing yards, making him only the 12th quarterback in CFL history to reach that mark, and he finished with 40,352, leaving him 182 shy of Tracy Ham for 11th on the all-time list. His touchdown throw to Johnson also moved him past Zach Collaros into outright 13th on the CFL’s career touchdown pass list with 223. It says something about how thoroughly this Saskatchewan side controlled the game that Ottawa managed just 12 rushing yards all afternoon, the joint 10th-lowest total conceded by a Roughriders opponent in the club’s history.

Once again it was Tommy Stevens doing the damage close to the goal line, all three of his touchdowns coming in the fourth quarter as Saskatchewan pulled away, giving him a league-leading 11 rushing touchdowns on the year and 13 in his last nine games going back to the 2025 Grey Cup. As head coach Corey Mace put it afterwards, everyone in the stadium and watching at home knows exactly what’s coming when Stevens is on the field in that situation, and Saskatchewan simply keep executing it anyway. Ottawa’s Jake Maier, a former Roughrider himself, threw for 311 yards in defeat, but a Jonathan Edouard interception and a Liam Hoskins sack and forced fumble on his pro debut in that department underlined just how far off the pace the REDBLACKS remain.

MOP of the game

Trevor Harris QB, Saskatchewan Roughriders: 30 of 38 passing for 401 yards, 2 touchdowns and 1 pick, becoming the 12th quarterback in CFL history to pass 40,000 career yards.

The third game of the weekend was a heavyweight collision between East and West, with the Edmonton Elks travelling to Montreal to face the Alouettes at Percival Molson Stadium, and it did nothing to shake anyone’s belief that Montreal are currently the team to beat in this league. The Als won 48-30 to move to 8-1 and head into their bye week on a six-game winning streak, while Edmonton drop to 6-3.

What made this performance stand out was the context around it. Montreal were missing four regular defensive starters in Geoffrey Cantin-Arku, Wesley Sutton, Mustafa Johnson and Najee Murray, yet still found a way to outplay Edmonton who came into the game with the number one ranked defence, in all three phases. Davis Alexander was excellent, going 22 of 28 for 352 yards, four touchdown passes and a rushing score, and while he did throw a poor interception in the second quarter that Edmonton converted into a Cody Fajardo touchdown to tie the game at 14, he shrugged it off entirely, immediately leading a 65-yard scoring drive the other way. Tyson Philpot, who came in without a touchdown catch since Week 6 despite already being the fastest Canadian in CFL history to 1,000 receiving yards this season, ended that drought in some style with three touchdown grabs, the best of them a 56-yard adjustment in the air that stretched Montreal’s lead to 23 points in the fourth.

The third quarter told the real story of this game. Edmonton didn’t score a single point in it, while Montreal turned a Kabion Ento forced fumble and a Tyrice Beverette interception, his first pick of the season and one he’d clearly been waiting on all year, into a touchdown and a field goal to turn a seven-point halftime lead into a 17-point cushion. Special teams played their part too, with DeVonte Dedmon’s kick returns and a blocked punt from Montreal’s coverage unit repeatedly handing the offence a short field. Travis Theis kept doing what Travis Theis does, 100 yards on 14 carries and 41 more through the air, his third 100-yard rushing game of the season and further proof of why he’s fast becoming a fan favourite at Percival Molson.

Justin Rankin, who had torched Montreal for 179 yards when these two sides met earlier in the season, was held to just 62 yards this time by a Montreal defence under Noel Thorpe that answered every question asked of its depth. Edmonton head coach Mark Kilam will also wonder about a decision late in the second quarter, choosing a short field goal on third-and-one from deep in Montreal territory rather than going for it, a call that looks worse in hindsight after Montreal responded with a 56-yard catch-and-run from Tyler Snead to take a lead into the break they never surrendered.

MOP of the game

Tyson Philpot WR, Montreal Alouettes: 3 touchdown catches, part of 10 catches for 131 yards.

The final game of the weekend saw Nathan Rourke make his long-awaited return from injury as the BC Lions hosted the Hamilton Tiger-Cats at BC Place, and while it wasn’t the homecoming performance anyone had circled on the calendar, the Lions ground out a 27-24 win to make it back-to-back victories for the first time all season, improving to 3-5. Hamilton, who battled hard despite starting rookie Jonathan Denis at guard and turning to backup Harrison Frost for much of the game, drop to 3-6.

Rourke’s first pass back was completed cleanly to Justin McInnis, and the drive it started ended in a Zander Horvath touchdown, but that early rhythm proved difficult to sustain. BC punted on four straight possessions afterwards, three of them two-and-outs, and it was clear this was going to be a rusty night for the reigning Most Outstanding Player. He finished 22 of 39 for 370 yards, two touchdowns and an interception, with his numbers propped up by one spectacular play, an 82-yard touchdown to McInnis on a flea-flicker in the second quarter that woke the crowd up after Hamilton had scored on back-to-back drives. McInnis finished with 159 yards and was involved again late on, hauling in a 33-yard catch on the Lions’ winning drive.

Horvath, so influential in last week’s win over Winnipeg, again did the heavy lifting, scoring twice to take his season total to ten touchdowns, and the BC offensive line deserve a mention too, not conceding a single sack all evening to give their quarterback the platform to work from despite the rust. Special teams were more of a mixed bag for the home side, with a blocked field goal against them in the third quarter and Hamilton’s Isaiah Wooden a threat on returns throughout, though it never quite cost the Lions.

Hamilton’s Harrison Frost, thrust into extended duty, found some success through the air, most notably a 47-yard strike to Myron Mitchell that set up a tying touchdown, but a fourth-quarter interception off a tipped pass proved costly, setting up the Lions’ go-ahead score. The Tiger-Cats had one last chance at the death, Marc Liegghio lining up for a 57-yard field goal after BC head coach Buck Pierce made the curious decision to decline an illegal procedure penalty that would have pushed Hamilton out of range in exchange for keeping the clock running. It went wide, and BC survived a night that was far from pretty but counts for two points regardless.

MOP of the game

Zander Horvath RB, BC Lions: 2 touchdowns, 62 yards on 16 carries, as BC made it back-to-back wins for the first time this season.

Until next week, CFL friends!

Standings

Interdivisional Standings This Week: East Division 2 West Division 2

Interdivisional Standings This Season: East Division 8 West Division 12

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

Rated 5 out of 5