Argos fall flat in "home" loss to Stamps, while John Hufnagel gets 100th win

Saturday's game was always going to be a difficult one for the Toronto Argonauts, facing the defending Grey Cup champion Calgary Stampeders and doing so in a "home" game held in Hamilton (thanks to the Blue Jays' playoff run and the Rogers Centre's scheduling) before almost none of their fans, but it wound up being even worse than expected. Toronto was outscored 17-0 in the first half, quarterback Trevor Harris had one of the worst games of his CFL career, receiver Chad Owens suffered a late injury and the Argos eventually lost 27-15, which was probably flattering. Meanwhile, Calgary head coach and general manager John Hufnagel earned his 100th CFL win as a head coach in just his 142nd game, becoming the second-fastest to that mark all-time (behind only former Calgary and current B.C. coach and executive Wally Buono). Hufnagel's Stampeders weren't perfect Saturday, but they showed a lot of promise by bouncing back after a disappointing loss, while the Argonauts found a way to substantially regress from the three-game winning streak they had been on.

Many of Toronto's issues in this game stemmed from the subpar play of Harris, who was uncharacteristically bad. On the year, he's completed 72.1 per cent of his passes; in this game, he connected on just 26 of 43 (60.5 per cent), and many of those completions came after the game was well out of hand. He threw for just 264 yards as well Saturday, with one touchdown and two interceptions. Oddly enough, this game came the same week a story emerged in The Toronto Sun suggesting that Harris wants to be made the highest-paid quarterback in the league after this year. Harris will certainly get paid this offseason, whether by the Argonauts or by someone else, but it seems unlikely he'll quite reach those heights, and this game certainly won't help his cause. He's still been very good for Toronto this year, but after a showing like this, there will be more questions raised about if he should keep his starting job if and when Ricky Ray is fully healthy again.

It wasn't all about Harris, of course. Many of his receivers had bad drops, and his offensive line allowed five sacks and countless pressures (albeit against a very good Calgary defence). The Argos couldn't get a ground game going, either, and they abandoned the run almost completely once the Stampeders' lead started to climb; running back Brandon Whitaker finished with just 21 yards on five carries. So, there was more to this loss than Harris' struggles, and there will be more to address coming out of it. The late injury to Owens is also concerning. It looked bad at first and he stayed down for a while, but he was able to walk to the sidelines and tried to return to the game, so he may be all right, but that's a loss that could hurt them. There are also questions to be asked about the defence and the special teams. Bluntly, just about nothing worked for Toronto Saturday.

Some of that has to do with Calgary's own performance, though, and this should be one Hufnagel's reasonably happy with. The Stampeders' defence played well again, as it has for most of the year, but their offence really improved from the disappointing showing it posted in last week's 15-11 loss to Edmonton. Quarterback Bo Levi Mitchell threw for 266 yards, better than the 230 he had last week, but it was his accuracy that grew by leaps and bounds; he completed 21 of 28 passes this time around (75 per cent versus 53.1 per cent against Edmonton) and threw for two touchdowns with no interceptions (versus one and two respectively in his previous outing). He spread the ball around to seven different receivers, too. Meanwhile, running back Jon Cornish was out with injury, and new addition Jerome Messam wasn't used thanks to his unfamiliarity with the playbook at this point, but Tory Harrison (four carries for 37 yards) gave Calgary some rushing production (Matt Walter was held to just 15 yards on eight carries, though). There's still work to do for the Stamps, and the further injuries they suffered here won't help, but this was an impressive bounce-back performance, especially on offence. It was a fitting way for Hufnagel to get his 100th win and keep his team in contention for first place in the West.