CFL ‘Battle of Ontario’ On Tap For Saturday

The Toronto Argonauts and Hamilton Tiger-Cats have been playing football against each other since 1950 though in recent years it’s been a pretty one sided affair. The Argos finished with the worst record in the CFL last season going 4-14 overall. They were a reasonable 4-5 on their home field at BMO Field but were done in by a pitiful 0-9 road record. Hamilton didn’t have a great season last year but relative to their provincial rivals it was much better. The Tiger-Cats went 8-10 overall with a 4-5 record both at home and on the road. Hamilton sputtered down the stretch, losing their last three games of the year while Toronto dropped their final two contests of the season and four of their last five both straight up and against the spread.

This is the final game of the second week of the 2019 CFL season and will be the first action of the year for Toronto. Hamilton opened their 2019 with a home field win/cover over the Saskatchewan Roughriders. The Tiger-Cats won 23-17 and barely covered as a -5 point home favorite. The 40 points scored went ‘Under’ the total of 48.5. Hamilton put up only 232 yards in their opening game victory over the Roughriders which was the lowest output of any CFL team in Week 1. Hamilton will play this game without wide receiver Luke Tasker who is on the one game disabled list. Hamilton management wasn’t specific about the nature of his injury, suggesting it was merely a ‘precautionary move’.

The biggest storyline in advance of this game concerns a Week 1 hit by Hamilton’s Simoni Lawrence on Zach Collaros in the opening drive of the game. The hit was considered late and high and Lawrence was suspended two games by the league. The CFL’s Players Association decided to support Lawrence in an appeal meaning that he’ll be able to play until it is heard on July 9. As is the case in the NFL, the CFL is concerned about the rash of head injuries in their game–particularly suffered by quarterbacks. His presence will up the intensity for Saturday’s game with Argos’ running back James Wilder, Jr. saying that he ‘wants a piece’ of Lawrence. The real loser in all of this is Saskatchewan QB Collaros who will miss up to six weeks.

Both teams are playing with a new head coach. Hamilton’s Orlando Steinauer got his CFL coaching career off to a winning start last week while Toronto’s Corey Chamblin is coaching his first CFL game since 2015. Hamilton quarterback Jeremiah Masoli is 5-1 in his career against Toronto and the Tiger-Cats enter having covered 7 of the last 10 meetings head to head. Toronto will hope that James Franklin works out as starting quarterback. Franklin came out as the Argos’ starter after Ricky Ray was injured last year only to lose the job to McLeon Bethel-Thompson though he’d regain the starting role by the end of the season. Bethel-Thompson is still waiting in the wings so Franklin has plenty of pressure to deal with.

This should be an emotional game for the home team as the Argos will honor long time quarterback Ricky Ray who announced his retirement during the offseason. At this point, however, there are just too many unanswered questions for Toronto in just about every phase of the game. Things are more settled with Hamilton and they should take the win/cover here.

BET HAMILTON TIGER-CATS -4.5 OVER TORONTO ARGONAUTS

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