Ticats lose but show off intriguing new no-huddle offence
There’s work to be done after Hamilton Tiger-Cats 31-22 pre-season loss to Ottawa Redblacks, but it showed flashes of how effective a weapon it could be, writes Scott Radley.
Determining what nuggets from Saturday’s Tiger-Cats 31-22 loss to Ottawa are useful to chew upon and what are just empty gristle requires us to wade through a thicket of caveats.
It was a preseason game. That’s a big one. The playbook was kept rather basic. The guys you’d think will be starters played only half the game or less. There’s rust to be knocked off after a long offseason. Some guys are still new to Canadian football. The small crowd wasn’t a factor as it would be later in the year. We could go on.
Point is, reading too much into what happened in the first outing of the year is dangerous. Including the score.
Half of the past four Grey Cup winners won their preseason opener and half lost theirs. Using an exhibition game in May to determine whether a team is going to be good or bad is like grading an orchestra based on its triangle player.
Yet there is one thing we saw that deserves to be closely watched going forward.
No, we’re not talking about the silly penalties and dropped passes and other sloppiness that hurt the black and gold. They weren’t ideal but they offer little real insight unless they happen again on Friday when the Ticats return to the field for Preseason Game No. 2 against Toronto (7 p.m. in Guelph) or into the regular season.
Rather, it’s the no-huddle offence Hamilton ran throughout the game.
“Love it,” says quarterback Bo Levi Mitchell after a tidy 10-for-16, 139-yard passing day (that ended just before halftime) with one lovely touchdown pass and no turnovers. “Love it.”
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