CFL 'Quick Kicks' 2026: Week 18

By Chris Lawton

Welcome to week eighteen 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.

Edmonton took the week off, leaving four games spread across Friday and Saturday, (dates at times referenced at Touchdown Towers are UK times), and the weekend turned out to be as much about the record books as the standings. One franchise finally claimed an unwanted record outright. A Canadian receiver rewrote three of them in a single evening. A 40-year-old kicker scored every point his team put on the board. And Saskatchewan discovered that having the chance to clinch a playoff spot and actually clinching one are two different things. Special teams had plenty to say again, so kettle on, biscuits out, there’s a lot to get through.

The first game was in Ottawa, where the Hamilton Tiger-Cats ended a five-game losing run by beating the still-winless REDBLACKS 34-16. For thirty minutes it looked like the night Ottawa would finally get off the mark. They led 16-13 at the break, only the second time all season they’ve been ahead at halftime. Then the second half arrived, as it tends to. Hamilton outscored them 21-0, and Ottawa managed just four first downs and 54 of their 293 yards after the interval. Harrison Frost, nobody’s idea of a lock in this offence, completed 28 of 35 for 342 yards and two touchdowns, including his final fourteen passes in a row. Kenny Lawler, quiet for much of the year, finally got fed: six catches, 132 yards, two scores, one of them a 41-yard bomb against a rookie defensive back. Larry Rountree III added 128 yards on 19 carries, and Hamilton piled up 470 yards in total. Ottawa’s play-calling was baffling. They ran for 98 yards at a healthy clip yet handed the ball off just nine times to 31 passes, with a shaky pass-blocking line leaving McLeod Bethel-Thompson under heavy pressure all night.

Special teams offered a subplot. Ottawa shipped reliable kicker Brett Lauther (94.1 percent on field goals) to Saskatchewan at the deadline for a fifth-round pick and handed the job to 23-year-old Dutch Global kicker Paul Geelen, who went three-for-four on his pro debut from 44, 17 and 49 yards. Not bad for a debut, though I suspect Ottawa fans would settle for a win over a kicker.

The loss makes this Ottawa’s fifteenth straight to start 2026, which passes the fourteen the 1994 Shreveport Pirates managed and gives the REDBLACKS sole ownership of the worst start in CFL history. Last week I noted the odd symmetry of tying Shreveport. This week the comparison has turned unflattering, because the Pirates at least won their fifteenth game. Ottawa’s last win was 393 days ago, which makes this their 21st consecutive defeat across two seasons, the second-longest losing streak in Canadian football history. Only the old Ottawa Senators/Rough Riders of 1928-32, with 25, are ahead of them, so that record at least can’t be broken this year. Head coach Ryan Dinwiddie has apologised to the fans and admitted he knows many want him gone and has said he’s leaning towards starting rookie quarterback Bryson Barnes for the remaining games. There are three left, starting in Vancouver, to avoid becoming the first winless team in league history. One small consolation: Justin Hardy’s eight catches moved him into a tie with Greg Ellingson for sixth on Ottawa’s all-time receiving yards list, on 4,866.

For Hamilton, the win comes with a bonus: Bo Levi Mitchell has confirmed he’ll be back for 2027, which gives the Ticats something to look forward to while the Grey Cup drought rolls on into its 27th year.

Player of the Game: Harrison Frost, QB, Hamilton Tiger-Cats. His most composed outing of the year, with Lawler a very close second. 28-of-35, 342 yards, 2 touchdowns.

The second game was in Saskatchewan, where Calgary beat the Roughriders 37-31 to take the season series and level the teams on eight wins. Vernon Adams Jr. was in fine form again, completing 22 of 29 for 242 yards and four touchdowns without an interception. He did it in the same week he’d been called out as the man to beat Saskatchewan, and the Stamps scored 14 points off turnovers. Trevor Harris threw for 453 yards and four touchdowns, but three of those came inside the last five minutes with the game gone, and the Riders have now lost three in a row for the first time this year, going 2-5 in their last seven after a 6-2 start.

Special teams were a big part of the story. Rookie returner Quali Conley, who had never returned a punt in college or in the 2025 NFL preseason, muffed his first professional one. Calgary recovered and turned it into their first touchdown. The kicking carousel in Regina didn’t help either. Dawson Hodge made two of four, with the misses coming from 53 and 45 yards, and Lauther, freshly acquired from Ottawa, sat in street clothes because he’d only arrived Wednesday night and hadn’t had time to rehearse with the snapper and holder. It was a strange one: a team trades for a kicker and then watches the old one miss while the new one watches from the sideline. Head coach Corey Mace didn’t help matters by hesitating on a challenge, which is understandable given he’d gone two-for-ten on them before this game.

KeeSean Johnson became the fifth Rider with a 100-catch season (he’s on 101) but left injured with a knee and ankle problem. Calgary’s Damien Alford, the first overall pick in 2025, also scored his first touchdown of the season, a 48-yarder on one of only fourteen targets he’s had in ten games.

Player of the Game: Vernon Adams Jr., QB, Calgary Stampeders. Back-to-back weeks on this list, and it’s hard to argue with four touchdowns and no turnovers on the road. 22-of-29, 242 yards, 4 touchdowns.

The third game was in Toronto, where the BC Lions won 24-17 despite not scoring a single touchdown. They scored eight field goals, all of them by Sean Whyte, who went a perfect eight for eight, including a 48-yarder. That’s a Lions franchise record for a single game and one short of Vincent Blanchard’s CFL record from last week. Whyte is 40 and made his CFL debut in 2009, when Blanchard was eleven. Do the sums: 8 x 3 = 24, so every BC point came from his boot. Offensive coordinators generally dislike this sort of thing, and with some justification: BC drove inside the Argos 20 and kicked four times from the red zone without finding the end zone. Nathan Rourke, held under 50 percent and to a season-low 254 passing yards, was the main culprit, though he added 50 on the ground. Receivers dropped passes, he missed his usual targets, and the Lions also nearly blew the half with a quarterback draw that ran the clock out.

Toronto had Chad Kelly’s absence to blame. He was ruled out on Friday morning with a throwing-hand injury, after being strongly hinted as playing. Nick Arbuckle went 27 of 33 for 292 yards and two touchdowns, but threw two interceptions, one of them in the red zone to TJ Lee with 2:45 left. Then came the goal-line stand. On Toronto’s final drive, with three downs to find a yard, Darnell Sankey stopped a checkdown at the one, stuffed Arbuckle on second down, and then helped drag down fullback Sebastian Parsalidis on third. That’s the beauty of the three-down game: one stop and you’ve got a turnover on downs. It ended the Lions’ run of five straight defeats at BMO Field and handed Toronto their first loss since the 29th of August.

On the officiating, there was a phantom fumble of sorts. Toronto defensive tackle Ralph Holley scooped up what looked like a loose ball and ran 90 yards for a touchdown, only for review to confirm Zander Horvath had never actually fumbled it. That’s a lot of running for a 285-pound man to be told it didn’t count.

Player of the Game: Sean Whyte, K, BC Lions. Eight from eight, a Lions record, and every point his team scored. 8 field goals (including a 48-yarder).

This Labour Day matchup has been played since 1949. Saskatchewan has always been the host for this one. This year will mark the 58th time the game has been played. Because this Labour Day matchup has been played 57 times between 1949 and 2022. Saskatchewan won the first contest 20-9 in 1949. But Winnipeg won the most recent game 20-18 in 2022. The Blue Bombers also won in 2021. Prior to that however the Riders had won three in a row and 14 of the last 16 Labour Day contests between these two.

The contest was not played in 1955–1960, 1964–1969, 1971, 1973, 1976, 1981 and during the cancelled 2020 season. Prior to that it had been played continuously since 1982.

Overall Saskatchewan holds a healthy 37-20 edge in this game over the Blue Bombers.

The fourth game was in Montreal, where the Alouettes beat Winnipeg 37-10 at Percival-Molson Stadium, avenging an August thrashing in Manitoba and clinching first place in the East in the process. It was the club’s 80th anniversary, with Mike Pringle, Ben Cahoon, Jamel Richardson, Marc Trestman and Jim Popp all on hand, and the first sellout of the season. Davis Alexander went 30 of 40 for 440 yards and a touchdown, and Montreal had 548 yards, 30 first downs and the ball for 40:38, just shy of the CFL record 43:22 set by BC in 2019. Winnipeg had 182 yards, six first downs, and a defence that didn’t get a stop until late in the second quarter.

And then there was Tyson Philpot. His 46-yard catch at the end of the first half broke Terry Evanshen‘s 1967 record for receiving yards by a Canadian in a season (1,662). Later in the game, his 117th reception beat Brad Sinopoli‘s Canadian record of 116, set in 2018, and he’d already passed Cahoon and Richardson’s 112 for the Alouettes’ single-season mark. He finished with eleven catches for 207 yards, taking him to 119 and 1,735 for the year, with three games left. Allen Pitts‘ all-time CFL record of 2,036 yards, set in 1994, is now 302 yards away, and Hal Patterson‘s 1956 club record of 1,914 needs just 180. Philpot, a University of Calgary product, was held to under a thousand yards in every previous season of his career; he got there this year in eight games.

Winnipeg’s evening was grim, though special teams gave them one small moment of sense. After last week’s 128-yard missed-field-goal return by Janarion Grant, Mike O’Shea declined to send Sergio Castillo out for a 58-yard attempt before the break. Trey Vaval returned kicks for 165 yards, though the offence did little with them. Dru Brown was 11 of 16 for 161 yards, Brady Oliveira managed 44, and the Bombers, now 7-8, host Calgary on Saturday in a game that could decide whether they extend their nine straight playoff appearances.

Player of the Game: Tyson Philpot, WR, Montreal Alouettes. Three records in one night, in front of the men who held two of them. 11 catches, 207 yards.

The State of Play

So that’s Week 18 filed away. Montreal have the East wrapped up and look like the team to beat, with Toronto locked into second and nursing a grudge after a kicker beat them. The West is where it gets tight. Edmonton (11-4) is all but certain to finish first, BC (9-6) sit comfortably in second, and then it’s a three-way scrap between Calgary, Saskatchewan and Winnipeg for what’s left. The Riders now face two games against Montreal and one against Edmonton, which looks like a hard way to rescue a season.

Out east, Ottawa now owns the record outright and have three games left to avoid a very different one. Hamilton at least has a win and a returning quarterback to talk about. And special teams, as usual, had a hand in nearly everything: a muffed punt, a benched kicker, a record-tying field goal binge, and a coach deciding against a kick.

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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