Monday was Game Day! Or, at least as close as the Toronto Argonauts have been to one since November 2019.
After a walkthrough in the morning, the team held a scrimmage in the afternoon, complete with CFL officials, getting a chance to see players in a game situation.
It came with the first round of cuts due at 10:00 Monday night.
The team played one quarter, complete with punts, then did some timed situational plays, including overtime.
Quarterback Nick Arbuckle didn’t play, as Head Coach Ryan Dinwiddie said after the game, Arbuckle had “A little ding, a little hammy.” The decision was made to keep the QB out of the lineup and make sure a minor hamstring problem didn’t escalate.
McLeod Bethel-Thompson and Antonio Pipkin took the snaps, and both had their moments. Perhaps the best throw of the day was a frozen rope from Bethel-Thompson to a tightly covered Eric Rogers down the middle of the field, squeezing it some 30 yards downfield into the tiniest of windows.
The brightest light offensively was receiver Llevi Noel, who caught a pass from Pipkin and took it some 50 yards into the end zone, then later caught a long pass before being pushed out of bounds inside the five-yard line.
He’s been lining up in the slot and has looked good throughout camp, scoring a pair of TDs in one practice earlier this week. Needless to say, he’s liking the offence of Dinwiddie and Offensive Coordinator Jarious Jackson.
He talked about the big plays.
“I guess patience,” he said when asked to describe how he scored the TD. “They did a really good job of coaching that whole setup up. I think I just used my patience, I read the defence well, sat in the hole where I needed to be. The quarterback did a great read, and even the adjacent receiver did a great job at stretching the field to open it up for me. From there it was just catch the ball, make the first guy miss and bring it to the house.”
Defensive back Chris Edwards didn’t start practicing until a couple of days ago, but made his presence felt quickly, returning an interception for a touchdown.
“I was at the weak half position to the boundary,” he explained. “I wanted to take some extra reps. I just saw a stop route. When I saw the stop route, I just jumped it, attacked it. The quarterback kind of threw it inside, I caught it and took off with it. It was just a patient football play, just read and react. It was only about 10 yards.”
“I feel like the potential is unlimited,” he added. “We’ve got so much talent here we can do a lot. We’ve got a great coaching staff; we’ve got to keep working with that timing. We’ve got a fast, physical defence. We’ve got big guys up front, big linebackers who can run, I feel like we’re going to have a great year.”
While the defense did give up some plays, it also flew around the field, applying pressure on almost every snap, which helped Edwards record his TD.
Middle linebacker Henoc Muamba loves the system employed by Defensive Coordinator Glen Young, and is thrilled about the character of the teammates who are there to execute those plays.
“The spirit of the team is amazing,” said Muamba. “The guys that are here really want to work. They want to work, they want to do really well, but they’re willing to put the work in. The feeling that I’m getting from the locker room, it’s really exciting to be around so many guys that have accomplished so much, but yet are still eager and willing to work hard.”
The CFL veteran was just getting warmed up.
“I’ll tell you what man,” Muamba continued. “The style of defence we’re going to play is exciting. There’s a lot of guys that I think that are really going to be surprises for a lot of people, but they’re doing a really good job at camp of focusing and they’re improving every single day.”
Overall the coaching staff should be pretty happy with the way things went. Both sides of the ball showed off some great talent but made enough mistakes that there will be several “coachable moments” on video to show where the improvements need to be made.
DOUBLE BLUE NEWS
Members of the organization arose Monday morning to the news that defensive back Alden Darby Jr. had been traded to Winnipeg for offensive lineman Terry Poole.
Argos Vice President of Player Personnel John Murphy explained the reasoning behind the deal to Argonauts.ca.
“If you want a good player, people are going to ask for a good player. It’s a place where we’ve tried to get as much depth as we can and then let training camp play itself out. We’ve talked to them about several different players at that offensive line spot in the last few months and finally found something that worked for both sides. It’s hard to let go of a productive veteran that’s done everything the right way both on and off the field, but you have some limitations on how to get quality players up and into training camp, so to get a guy that has some versatility, that’s been playing, that we’ve liked, that we had a good evaluation on; you’ve got to give something to get something.”