When the Hamilton Tiger-Cats and Toronto Argonauts meet at Tim Hortons Field tonight the story was supposed to be Bo Levi Mitchell up against Chad Kelly, as it was in Week 2 when the Argos set the tone for their still undefeated season with a dominant victory over Hamilton.
In that game Wynton McManis rattled Mitchell as he rolled to his right in the end zone and hit the turf awkwardly, resulting in a trip to the injured list from which he hasn’t returned.
Toronto has worked first-year starter Kelly in nicely from week-to-week, constantly expanding his workload and trust on ‘gotta have it’ passing situations. What has led the way for Toronto though is the running game, specifically AJ Ouellette.
As Ouellette has thrived, James Butler has surprised in Hamilton. Not for his inability to produce when entrusted with the rock, but his limited usage rate.
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Hamilton might have found something in Week 5 against the Ottawa REDBLACKS at home, when they took their CFL-low first-down run play call percentage and bumped it significantly with plenty of success. Winning first down on the ground was a surprise for Hamilton fans, who haven’t seen a consistent dedication to that style in quite some time. For the Argos, that’s been the message all year: wear down opponents with a steady barrage of 300-pound lineman rolling downhill, only to see Ouellette waiting for impact when arriving at the ball.
Ouellette and Butler could not be much different in running style, development or path to their current team but none of that will matter when they tighten down the shoulder pads and chin straps Friday night.
Butler is ranked second in the CFL with 6.6 per cent of his team’s rushing attempts, which is another rare sight for a Black and Gold backfield that has typically spread the carrying wealth around to three or four players each of the last five seasons. Ouellette ranks just behind at 6.1% of team carries as he has become the leading man in a tandem with legendary National Andrew Harris.
Ouellette leads the CFL with four rushing touchdowns after a legendary three-score game in Edmonton, while Butler has three on the season with both threats to up their tally on Friday Night Football on TSN.
Where Butler is really starting to make his push for more carries is in PFF’s missed tackles forced metric. Butler leads the CFL with 25 (seven ahead of Edmonton’s Kevin Brown) at a rate of 0.38/rush attempt. The more Butler touches it and makes people miss, the more diverse the Hamilton running attack and offence as a whole will become.
The problem now of course is Butler playing leading man in an offence which has moved from Mitchell to Matthew Shiltz, and now third-stringer Taylor Powell, with Kai Locksley still learning the playbook and limited ‘play now’ options available via trade or free agency.
Ouellette has been a force for the Argos out of the gate this season, with four rushing touchdowns in four games (Walter Tychnowicz/CFL.ca)
Both Toronto and Hamilton are prototypical ‘inside zone’ running teams with Toronto (45.7 per cent of attempts) leading Hamilton (42.2 per cent of attempts). Hamilton runs more outside zone, which makes total sense to get bodies moving and give Butler a chance to make all those bodies miss in space as described earlier.
The one PFF stat I love the most (because it’s something I’ve personally tracked for years) is opportunity rate, which is the percentage of snaps resulting in a pass target. When only looking at backs, the upper hand here goes to Butler (6.7 per cent) as well with Ouellette being much less involved in the passing game (3.3 per cent).
My projection of these two for Friday night is a classic hard charging game from Ouellette will come, with punishing downhill runs and a Hamilton defence that needs its front four to free up backers to make a play or two behind the line of scrimmage.
The real dark horse is Butler, whose wiggle in space and steady hands in space will stretch the Argos’ linebackers from sideline-to-sideline, maybe even as a decoy with the odd receiver run that Hamilton is never afraid to employ countering back inside.
It’s not Labour Day, it’s not the first matchup of the year, but it is Hamilton-Toronto and every snap matters between these two regardless of date, time or place. Don’t tell James Butler or AJ Ouellette anything otherwise.
