How did the Ottawa Redblacks get rolled over by the Toronto Argos in a home game they needed to win?

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Redblacks quarterback Jake Maier also shrugged off the last-second field goal.

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“Whatever their reason is, I really, I really don’t care, to be honest with you,” he said. “That’s more so for you guys to talk about. We play them two more times, which is nice.”

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Ahh, so you’ll remember that next time you face the Argos.

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“No, it’s not about them, it’s not about what they decide to do,” Maier said. “It’s about us playing our second game here, where we didn’t deserve to win. Eventually, we’re going to play a game where we deserve to win, and I look forward to that day.”

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For the record,  the Argos celebrated Saturday as they had just won the Grey Cup for a different reason.

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“Because it was Mike Miller’s first win as a professional head coach,” Kelly said. “We know how hard he’s worked and what he’s been through. We’re so proud of what he’s been able to accomplish.”

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I still think the Redblacks should have been pissed about that last-second field goal.

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Argonauts quarterback Chad Kelly delivers a long pass during the first half of Saturday’s game against the Redblacks. Photo by Ashley Fraser /Postmedia

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Why couldn’t the Redblacks keep up with the pace Kelly was setting?

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A variety of reasons, really.

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They corrected their problem with penalties, taking just five for 50 yards, while the Argos were flagged nine times for 122 yards. But turnovers killed the Redblacks, especially the one on downs when they trailed by 12 points with just under three minutes left and they couldn’t get in with a hat trick of chances from the one-yard line.

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They also couldn’t turn Kelly’s picks into more points.

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They also had a sickly running attack. Former all-star Greg Bell had just 29 yards on 11 carries in his Redblacks debut, and that included one carry for nine yards.

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“It’s only a matter of time until we get things going for him,” said Maier, who denied that he felt he had to score every time he stepped on the field just to keep up with Kelly. “You try not to live in that world … You just try to execute our offence and not do things that are out of our system and out of our reads from a quarterback standpoint, from a receiver standpoint.”

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Dinwiddie plans to simplify things for the offence.

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“I told them I’m going gonna try to shrink (the playbook) about 50 plays,” he said. “Let’s just make sure we get multiple reps at what we feel we’re good at and build confidence. Sometimes you have a bunch of plays, like 80, and then you waste 30 of them. They never get repped in the game, but you rep them in practice. So we’re gonna find ways to shrink it and get good at what we should be good at.”

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Why couldn’t the defence do a better job of containing the Argos offence?

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Middle linebacker Nyles Morgan had a big day with 10 tackles, the same as Toronto’s Isaac Darkangelo (who is the brother of former Ottawa Charge player Shiann Darkangelo).

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But Ottawa allowed 79 rushing yards (on 16 carries) by Sam Hicks, and Quebec native Kevin Mital burned the Redblacks with eight catches for 178 yards.

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Argonauts running back Sam Hicks carries the ball on a first-half rushing attempt. Hicks finished the contest against the Redblacks with 79 yards on 16 carries. Photo by Ashley Fraser /Postmedia

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And then, of course, there was Kelly.

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“We let him sit in the pocket, we didn’t pressure him as good as we wanted to,” Dinwiddie said. “We thought we would get some pressure, we’d get some turnovers … I think early on they were just having the run action so our D-line couldn’t get their hands up; they were throwing a quick game. I’ve got to sit down with Will (Fields, defensive co-ordinator), gotta sit down and look at that.

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“You can’t give them easy completions (like that) throughout the first half. And then we start the third quarter, and we let Kevin Mital run right through the middle of the field … It was just too easy at times for Chad. We’ve got to look at it and go from there, but that wasn’t winning football.”

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