BRISTLIN' BOB: Dyce objects to suggestion slumping Redblacks backed into a playoff spot

The Ottawa Redblacks will face the Toronto Argos in the East Division semi-final on Saturday, Nov. 2 at 3 p.m.

All that’s left to decide is the venue.

Toronto’s 14-11 victory in Winnipeg on Friday officially eliminated the Hamilton Tiger-Cats from the playoffs, leaving the Argos and Redblacks in a battle for second place and the right to face the Montreal Alouettes in the division final.

The Argos hold a one-point lead on Ottawa, but the Redblacks have a game in hand.

They’ll make that up Monday afternoon (1 p.m.) when they take on the Alouettes at Percival Molson Stadium.

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The Redblacks have lost their last three games but secured a spot in the playoffs last week, when they were on a bye and the possibility of a West Division team crossing over to the East for a post-season berth was eliminated.

While they are on their longest slide of the season, head coach Bob Dyce bristled Friday afternoon when a reporter suggested the Redblacks clinched a spot “maybe not the way you wanted” before asking what the focus would be on the rest of the regular season.

“Can you explain how it’s not the way I wanted?” said Dyce, “because our goal is to get into the playoffs. You can’t get in and win unless you get into the playoffs.

“So we’re extremely proud of the fact that we’re in the playoffs. You know what? Every victory throughout the season means something, and it shows that we earned the victories that we had. We were the third team to qualify for the playoffs, so we’re extremely proud of that, and now we have that opportunity. But that’s way in the future. Right now, we’re just focusing on Montreal.”

Whether they win or lose in Montreal, the bigger game for the Redblacks will be next Saturday, when they’re in Toronto for a 3 p.m. showdown that could very well decide second place.

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How important are hosting rights in a Redblacks-Argos game?

Very.

Ottawa is 6-1-1 at home and 2-5-0 on the road.

Toronto is 6-2-0 at home and 3-5-0 on the road.

In the only other meeting between the teams this season, Dru Brown threw for 349 yards and a touchdown, Dom Rhymes caught 10 passes for 138 yards and the Ottawa defence intercepted Chad Kelly four times as the Redblacks had their highest offensive output of the season in a 41-27 victory at TD Place.

“At the end of the day, that’s what you play for,” Dyce said when asked about the importance of home-field advantage. “We love our fans here. Our fans support us well, and having them backing us in the stands would be an outstanding thing, right? But the way for us to do that is to focus in and beat Montreal.”

The Redblacks are 0-2 against the Alouettes this season after a 47-21 at Molson Stadium in Week 3 and 24-12 at TD Place in Week 16.

Injuries have played a role in the Redblacks recent woes, but they’ve had struggles with “controllable” issues throughout the season.

Along with struggling to push the ball over the goal line – they’re dead last in red zone touchdowns with 17 – their turnover ratio is second worst (-11) in the CFL and they’ve been penalized more than any other team in the league with an average of 79.7 yards worth of flags per game.

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Whether they can do it or not, improving their discipline and playing “cleaner football” down the stretch is the goal.

The penalties are particularly hindering.

“Without a doubt,” said Dyce. “What we want to do is, what we’re really focusing on this week, is the tasks at hand. We know that we can control the control levels. With things like penalties, we control whether we do that, right? We’ve got to make sure we take care of the preventables. There’s going to be odd technical here and there, but we can control the unnecessary roughness. We can control those things. Because now it’s not a matter of personal pride or ego or things like that, someone bumps you first. It’s a matter of the team has to be first. And so those, we’ve got to control those controllables.

“And we got to make sure we take care of the ball. You look at the last games, every weekend, all the games have playoff  implications. It’s like playoff football. And you look at the teams that won, they won the turnover battle. We have to make sure that we were securing the football at all times, and we have to be aggressive on defense to make sure we get our opportunities to take it away.”

Those messages have been preached by Dyce all season long.

It’s more important than ever for the Redblacks to start paying attention to the details that could end their season before they want.

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