Toronto Argonauts pull away in second half to beat lowly Edmonton Elks

The Toronto Argonauts improved to 2-0 on the season after a resounding 43-31 victory over the Edmonton Elks at Commonwealth Stadium.

It took a well-rounded effort on offence along with some big plays from the defence for Toronto to extend Edmonton’s tough start to the season. While the Elks have many questions going forward, the Argos made sure to show that they could build off their season-opening win.

It was a competitive first half between the Argos and Elks with quarterback Chad Kelly bouncing back from a pick-six as Toronto took a 18-17 lead.

Where Toronto took over was in the third quarter as they scored 18 unanswered points before Edmonton moved on to third-string quarterback Jarret Doege. The third quarter was the best one for the Argos defence as they gave their offence every opportunity to take the lead.

Toronto’s defensive front finished the game with six sacks, two fumbles and an interception that was returned for a touchdown.

Kelly finished the game 12/23 throwing for 264 yards and a touchdown while adding 21 yards on the ground. It also helped that the running game came through with 191 yards led by A.J. Ouellette who had 84 yards and three touchdowns.

Dinwiddie liked Kelly’s ability to bounce back from early interception

What the Argos did not have to deal with in their season-opener was a mistake from Kelly.

As he attempted to throw a pass to Cam Phillips, Loucheiz Purifoy read exactly where Kelly was going with the football and jumped the route and took the interception in for a touchdown.

Dinwiddie said after the game that the interception wasn’t all Kelly’s fault as Phillips didn’t run the route exactly as designed but Kelly should have run the check-down play or kept the football. What the Argos head coach liked most from Kelly was that he didn’t let the turnover change his mindset.

“I thought for the most part you know he bought in and continued to grow,” Kelly said. “He's a mentally strong kid I'm not worried about if he makes a mistake because I know he's gonna bounce back.”

The play of the game came as Kelly found a way to escape from a sack and find David Ungerer III for the touchdown. The impressive part of the play was not his ability to avoid the sack but to also find the open receiver.

“That’s one thing that Chad's got in  his toolbox and it's fun for me as a coach, I haven't had a quarterback as athletic as he's been,” Dinwiddie said. “It's great when things aren't there or breaks down, he's strong enough to battle through the tackle. It's fast enough to extend the edge. Dave seen it, you've seen some scramble rules. So he ran up the sideline and there's someone there and then he'll fall out to the side so it was a great play by both those guys.”

Defence showed championship form but left opportunities on the field

The Argos went into this game without Shawn Oakman on the defensive line but that didn’t hold that group back as they put up six sacks on Edmonton.

Adarius Pickett showed his value once again with five tackles, including a tackle for a loss and two sacks. Some of the unheralded performances came from players like Daniel Robertson, Royce Metchie and Jonathan Jones.

While the defence looked good on paper, Dinwiddie believes there were some plays left on the field.

“We missed a lot of tackles in the backfield and we knew we had to keep them in the pocket,” Dinwiddie said after the game. “I thought for the most part of we knew they weren't going to be able to athletically block us… we got to do a better job of finishing plays and I told our guys that we got a little bit worn out. So conditioning is gonna be very important this week because we got to make sure we get sorted out because I thought we got tired and that led to us giving up points.”

Next up for the Argos are the B.C. Lions who are coming off a dominant win over the Winnipeg Blue Bombers and will be a tough test.