Downtown Dru Brown stole the show in a comeback win for the Blue Bombers in Edmonton in the first CFL game of week 10. High points and low points from all quarterback performances in week 10 as well the 3 stars of the week for the position group. QB rankings heading into week 11, 3 Stars of the Week for week 10.
Stars of the Week:
1st Star: Dru Brown (WPG)
24 attempts, 17 completions (71%), 307 yards, and 4 touchdowns.
2nd Star: Chad Kelly (TOR)
28 attempts, 21 completions (75%), 417 yards, 4 touchdowns, 1 interception, and 3 rushes for 17 yards.
3rd Star: Vernon Adams Jr. (BC)
32 attempts, 23 completions (72%), 322 yards, 4 touchdowns, 1 interception, and 1 rush for 4 yards.
Other Articles:
Montreal Alouettes Week 10 Takeaways, BC Lions Week 10 Takeaways
Mike Mitchell’s Week 11 Power Rankings
Week 10 QB Weekly, Week 10 RB Weekly, Week 10 WR Weekly
Week 9 First and 2nd Team Top Performers, Week 8 1st and 2nd Team
Week 9 QB Weekly, Week 9 RB Weekly, Week 9 WR Weekly
CFL First Period All-Star Team (Weeks 1-7)
1. Chad Kelly, Toronto Argonauts, Previous Ranking #QB2
Chad Kelly had 1 bad play in week 10 and it was making a bad read on an out route which Cariel Brooks picked up off and ran back 42 yards for a RedBlacks touchdown.
Kelly had a monster game against the Redblacks completing 21 of his 28 passes (75%) for 417 yards and 4 touchdowns. He also rushed 3 times for 17 yards.
Kelly demonstrated an ability to bounce back after mistakes. He threw a pass behind a receiver in the face of pressure and then the next play found DaVaris Daniels in space 15 yards downfield who picked up some YAC making it a 44-yard play. The drive after the pick 6 was a 74-yard drive that was all passing plays aside from a 6-yard rush by Kelly to put the ball at the 1-yard line before Cameron Dukes came in to punch the ball in with a 1-yard QB sneak.
Kelly showed a lot of poise in the face of pressure such a play in which he flipped the ball to A.J. Ouellette as he was getting tackled who then ran 12 yards for a touchdown. On another play, he rolled to his right escaping pressure, and found David Ungerer by the right sideline for a 20-yard gain. Kelly was pressured again late in the third quarter and rolled to his right before finding Daniels for a 14-yard touchdown.
2. Vernon Adams Jr., BC Lions, Previous Ranking #QB3
Vernon Adams Jr. was fantastic in week 10. He completed 23 of his 32 passes (72%) for 322 yards and 4 touchdowns. He did throw an interception over the middle on a bad read when deep in Calgary’s territory but other than that it was a pretty perfect performance.
Adams was great from the start with his first pass being a 21-yard completion to Jevon Cottoy when rolling to his right. He was also great minimizing the effect of Calgary’s pass rush when they got pressure on him. Early in the 2nd quarter, Adams side-stepped pressure avoiding a sack before making a short pass to Keon Hatcher. He evaded another sack as the pocket collapsed and scrambled for a short gain.
He had a great 46-yard pass to Keon Hatcher down the middle near the end of the first half. He found Hatcher again for 21 yards in the face of pressure in the fourth quarter. Adams rolled to his left after being pressured and threw a touchdown pass to Lucky Whitehead who got open in the endzone.
3. Zach Collaros, Winnipeg Blue Bombers, Previous Ranking #QB1
Zach Collaros was not having a good game before leaving the game early in the 2nd quarter. He completed 2 of his 5 passes for 6 yards with the final throw being a bad decision as he tossed the ball away to avoid a sack before getting injured and the pass was intercepted for a pretty easy pick 6. Edmonton did do a good job putting pressure on him during his 5 passing plays.
4. Cody Fajardo, Montreal Alouettes, Previous Ranking #QB4
Did not play in week 10 due to a left shoulder injury.
5. Dru Brown, Winnipeg Blue Bombers, Previous Ranking #Unranked
Downtown Dru Brown came into the game early in the 2nd quarter following the injury to Zach Collaros with the Bombers trailing 22-0. Brown led Winnipeg to a 38-29 victory despite the deficit he faced. He completed 17 of his 23 passes (71%) for 307 yards and 4 touchdowns.
Brown made a lot of great plays such as a play on his second drive in which he extended the play by rolling left and threw a good pass to Rasheed Bailey at the sideline for a 23-yard gain. He found Bailey again later with an accurate throw down the middle for 20 yards.
He frequently evaded pressure from the elks such as on a 2nd and 20 he scrambled to the right after being pressured and found Rasheed Bailey for a 27-yard first down.
He also connected with Dalton Schoen, Brady Oliveira, Nic Demski, and Kenny Lawler for touchdowns.
6. Dustin Crum, Ottawa RedBlacks, Previous Ranking #QB6
I would say that this was Dustin Crum’s best game of the season so far. He completed 21 of his 26 passes (81%) for 292 yards and 3 touchdowns. He also added 42 rushing yards on 9 rushes.
In the 1st quarter, he threw a really well-placed ball to Jaelon Acklin for a 55-yard touchdown. Crum made some really nice runs escaping pressure from Toronto pass rushers. He did a really good job evading pressure on a play at the end of the first quarter escaping a sack and turning the play into a 3-yard gain rather than a loss.
In the third quarter, Crum had a couple of rushes in a row and then was pressured and did a good job picking up 5 yards despite being swarmed by Argo defenders on that play. He had a 9 yard run in the 4th quarter escaping pressure.
His 81% passing percentage was very inspiring for a RedBlacks team that has seen a lot of adversity this season. Ottawa may have lost the game but the passing game showed a lot of signs to inspire hope for the future. It was also good to see Jaelon Acklin get going as he had 157 receiving yards.
7. Tre Ford, Edmonton Elks, Previous Ranking #Unranked
Tre Ford completed 12 of his 16 passes (75%) for 189 yards and a touchdown with 1 interception. He also rushed 5 times for 50 yards and a touchdown.
The Edmonton Elks desperately need something to feel hopeful about. Taylor Cornelius did not play as well as Edmonton needed him to but he took far more than his fair share of the blame for Edmonton’s losses as a lot of the games so far this season there was not much pass protection so General Cornelius was set up to fail.
Edmonton’s offensive line likely had their best game of the season in week 10 coming off of their bye week as there were multiple times where Ford had really good protection against a Winnipeg defense that is very good at rushing the passer. There was a play in the first quarter where Ford dropped back to pass before he was pressured and he took off to his left for a 17-yard gain. He ran the ball later through an opening on a pass play for an 8-yard touchdown. He had another good run in the 4th quarter down the middle for 16 yards.
Ford’s best throw of the night was a 53-yarder down the middle to Dillon Mitchell in double coverage. Ford also had a 70-yard touchdown thanks to Kyran Moore picking it all up with YAC after a cornerback missed a tackle on a short pass behind the line of scrimmage to the left side when Winnipeg was blitzing.
Outside of those 2 big passing plays Ford only had 66 yards through the air. At times it felt he was going to the rushing well too often such as a play in the 2nd quarter where he had good protection but ran anyway and did not see an open receiver and the Winnipeg linebackers were waiting for it as the play was just a 3 yard gain. He overthrew Mitchell over the middle in the 2nd quarter and put it behind Moore in the third quarter resulting in an interception.
Ford showed flashes of brilliance and high potential in the loss to Winnipeg. While he might not be the magical answer to make the Elks a winning football team he is just the man to play under center for them if the Elks struggle in pass protection moving forward due to his ability to escape and rush downfield.
Another positive of Tre Ford’s performance was that it was the highest CFL TSN audience so far this season for an Elks’ game with 648,000 average viewers. Who would have thought that Canadians get excited about a Canadian Quarterback.
8. Taylor Powell, Hamilton Tiger-Cats, Previous Ranking QB#9
On the bye in week 10.
9. Mason Fine, Saskatchewan Roughriders, Previous Ranking #QB5
Mason Fine left the game after sliding with 5 minutes left in the first half.
Saskatchewan’s head coach Craig Dickenson said after on 620 CKRM’s post-game show. “I don’t know how serious it is but certainly wasn’t good enough to come back. I would guess two to three weeks.”
Prior to the injury, Fine had completed 5 of his 9 passes (56%) for 20 yards. He also rushed 3 times for 14 yards. He was not very accurate against Montreal and had 2 throws that were nearly intercepted by Montreal’s Reggie Stubblefield. He also threw a short pass into the dirt on an open Shawn Bane Jr. for what would have likely been a first down on a short pass on a 2nd and 6.
10. Jake Maier, Calgary Stampeders, Previous Ranking #QB7
Jake Maier completed 17 of his 31 passes (55%) for 131 yards. He had a 15-yard pass and 3 10-yard passes, everything else was under 10 yards. There’s not a whole lot to discuss with his game Calgary was not often pushing the ball downfield. Maier did have a good 10-yard scramble near halftime.
In the third quarter, he overthrew Tre Odoms-Dukes on a 3rd and 2.
In fairness to Jake Maier BC’s edge rushers were making life difficult for him and often putting pressure on him. He’s had a few games in a row now that have not been very productive so Stamps fans will probably want him to air it out against Winnipeg on Friday.
11. Caleb Evans, Montreal Alouettes, Previous Ranking #Unranked
Evans completed 8 of his 13 passes for 149 yards and a touchdown with 1 interception. He also rushed 11 times for 66 yards and 2 touchdowns.
Evans made good use of his legs such as when he was pressured during the first drive as Robertson came in around the edge and he used his legs to pick up 27 yards on the ground. He also had a nice short run making the first man miss with a spin move picking up 6 yards. There was another particularly good run in the 4th quarter in which he made a would-be tackler miss on his way to a first down.
Had a great throw over the middle finding Austin Mack over a defender about 20 yards downfield who then picked up 35 YAC on the way to a 56-yard touchdown. There was another big chunk play that came on a screen play in which Walter Fletcher picked up 68 yards. Without those 2 plays the statline is just 6 of 11 for 25 yards.
A couple of the throws were not accurate such as an overthrow to Austin Mack down the right sideline or a soft throw to Tyler Snead who had 2 defenders on him.
It did seem apparent that Evans was on a short leash in this game based on the play calling and high frequency of short passes. I would have liked to see what Evans might have been able to do if the leash was taken off when Montreal had a 28-point lead to start the 4th quarter. It’s not often there’s such a big lead in a game to let a young QB go cook freestyle so I do believe that was a missed opportunity by the coaches to give Evans a test.
12. Jake Dolegala, Saskatchewan Roughriders, Previous Ranking #Unranked
Dolegala entered the game with 5 minutes left in the first half. He completed 11 of his 20 passes (55%) for 107 yards with 1 interception. He also had 1 rushing touchdown in a QB sneak and a rush for 3 yards.
