Alex D'Addese/CFL.ca
TORONTO — Not only is Saturday night’s game at BMO Field a Grey Cup rematch but the game also features a head-to-head matchup between the reigning Most Outstanding Defensive Player and Most Outstanding Rookie.
Running back James Wilder Jr. and linebacker Alex Singleton will play against each other for the first time since accepting their hardware at the Shaw CFL Awards in Ottawa during Grey Cup Week.
But don’t expect either of the 2017 award winners to be thinking too much about it.
“You always have to respect the guys you play,” Singleton said during the Calgary Stampeders and Toronto Argonauts game preview call on Wednesday.
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Alex Singleton will meet with the team that handed him his second-straight Grey Cup loss on Saturday night (CFL.ca)
“It’s 12 vs. 12 every time you’re on the field. It’s never really me vs. James in a lot of situations. With the guys in front of him, you saw when he won the award, he brought up his O-linemen. I’m sure he gives all the credit to them, which he should every play. Same for me. I’ve got the front four in front of me, five behind me, guys next to me. It takes 12 guys to be able to make plays. To have those guys around us makes it easier and obviously you just respect the other guy across the ball all the time.”
Not unlike Singleton, Wilder Jr. says he’s going to approach the game like he would for any other.
“No matter if you’re playing the best defence, the best linebackers or maybe the worst defence or the worst linebackers. You have to approach it (the same),” said Wilder Jr., who along with quarterbacks Ricky Ray and Bo Levi Mitchell, joined Singleton on the call.
“You have to prepare. You have to play the same. The way that I take it on, I just always try to look at the opponent as a faceless opponent but having the respect there for them.”
That seems to be the consensus between both teams this week – prepare for the game like you would for the other 18, even if it there are many storylines waiting to unfold.
“We see this as game two of the season,” said Stamps pivot Mitchell. “Just like coach (Marc) Trestman told those guys (Argonauts) that they don’t want to look at this season as back-to-back. They want to go out and try to win another one.”
Singleton agreed with his quarterback.
Ricky Ray and his Argonauts will be looking for a bounce back performance this week against Calgary (Matt Smith/CFL.ca)
“It’s not another Grey Cup rematch,” Singleton said. “We’re not playing the same game again this week. They had the celebration a few weeks ago and they deserve that and should enjoy that but it’s a new season. It’s a new season for them, it’s a new season for us. There’s enough new guys on both teams that it’s not even close to the same game.”
The Stampeders started their 2018 season last week on the right foot last week, defeating the Hamilton Tiger-Cats 28-14 to start the year 1-0.
Toronto, on the other hand, didn’t.
Ray and the rest of the team’s starters did not see any action during the pre-season and perhaps that’s the reason why they weren’t in sync in their 27-19 loss against the Saskatchewan Roughriders. Whatever the reason was, the Argos quarterback knows there’s a lot of work to be done before they hit the field for their first game in front of a home crowd.
“For us, offensively, we just have to have more positive plays out there,” Ray said. “We’re going to lose on some plays, we’re playing good defences, but we can’t have all these self-inflicted missed assignments or jumping offside or a bad read or a bad throw by myself.
“We’ve got to clean that up and play a lot cleaner game because Calgary’s got a great defence too and they’re not going to give you a lot of opportunities from the get-go anyways. If you’re making mistakes, you’re limiting those opportunities anyways.”
