CFL Week 2 Predictions: Ottawa looks for a bounce back at TD Place, while Calgary looks to go 2-0.

With one week of the 2025 CFL season in the books, many of the season’s storylines are starting to take shape. Will Hamilton rewrite their own by avoiding another early hole? And can Calgary continue their turnaround with a win over the Grey Cup champs?

(Image Credit to: 3DownNation)

(Image Credit to 3DownNation)

For context, I went 1-3 with my picks for last week's games, only getting the Riders victory over the Redblacks right. 

At least my fantasy team scored over 110 points. 

Yay?

Anyways, here are my picks and analyses for Week 2 of the CFL season. 

BC Lions (1-0) vs Winnipeg Blue Bombers (0-0):

The Winnipeg Blue Bombers last game was their loss in Grey Cup 111 to the Toronto Argonauts. They have now had just about seven months to digest the loss and now they will pick it up again as they kick off their season with a home-and-home series with their divisional rivals the BC Lions, who scored a dominant 31-14 win over the Edmonton Elks in their home opener. 

While the Lions offence did take a while to get going, the defence did its job consistently. The Lions defence held the Elks to just 14 points, while sacking Edmonton quarterback Tre Ford twice and forcing him into an interception. 

What will be key for the BC Lions if they hope to earn the win against Winnipeg is if the offence can show up and the defence can play another full sixty minutes. While Winnipeg did struggle in last year’s home opener, ultimately losing it to the Montreal Alouettes, there’s no guaranteeing that happens again. But with Blue Bombers quarterback Zach Collaros set to miss this home-opener due to a missed drug test, I’m leaning towards the Lions to continue their strong second-half performance against Edmonton in their first road game. 

The pick: Lions 28, Blue Bombers 18

Montreal Alouettes (1-0) vs Ottawa Redblacks (0-1):

Even while recognising that they lost 31-26 to open the season, I will give the Ottawa Redblacks credit for one thing. The offence did look good, particularly running back William Stanback and wide receiver Eugene Lewis, who both scored touchdowns on their Redblacks debuts. 

That’s all that was good for the Redblacks in their opening game. The defence was simply atrocious; outside of the first and the final three Rider drives, there was no defence to be found. That said, the secondary was brand new, with all of the members of the secondary being brought to the team over the offseason, and so it should be normal for it to not look good in the opening few games. 

Outside of the defence, quarterback Dru Brown gave up two backbreaking sacks late in the game and laboured through most of the final five minutes. Had he gotten rid of the ball in either scenario, we might be talking about a slightly-different outcome.  

Now one may say “Oh Noah, the Redblacks almost came back from down 31-14. It got close at the end.” That may be true, but the Redblacks simply did not play their best football today. 

As for the Alouettes, if one word could be used to describe their 28-10 Week 1 victory over the Toronto Argonauts, it would be the word dominant. Quarterback Davis Alexander looked really good for Montreal, and so did the run game, which consistently put the Alouettes in manageable second-down situations. Meanwhile, the defence showed up for Montreal by sacking Argos quarterback Nick Arbuckle three times and turning the ball over three times. 

The Alouettes will look to take the positive start to the season down Highway 417 to Ottawa as they will look to knock off the Redblacks in their home opener. As it took the Redblacks until the second half in their game against Saskatchewan to really get the offence going, I would not be surprised if Montreal buckles down in the first half and gets an early advantage. And considering that the Redblacks defence was nowhere to be found for most of the Saskatchewan game, the onus will be on Ottawa’s offence to get points on the board or else risk getting run off the field. If Ottawa’s offence can play a sixty-minute game and the defence starts to gel, the Redblacks should have a shot at winning. If not, then advantage Alouettes. I think we are going to see a lot of points scored at TD Place, and the Redblacks should be competitive in some form, whether it be in a late surge to try and win the game or early on in an effort to keep Montreal in check. However, I think Montreal looked a lot better in their respective opening game, and the overall confidence in the Alouettes locker room should work wonders in this Week 2 encounter. Both teams will score over 20 points, but it will be the Alouettes who score more. A lot more. 

The pick: Alouettes 37, Redblacks 21

Calgary Stampeders (1-0) vs Toronto Argonauts (0-1):

To say a lot went wrong for the Toronto Argonauts as they kicked off their Grey Cup defence is a massive understatement. 

Penalties? A lot of them. 

Turnovers? I counted a lot of those too. 

The Argos couldn’t even get a first down for much of the first quarter. The Alouettes didn’t just beat the Argos 28-10, they dominated them. The Argos had more procedure penalties due to cadence issues than they had drives into Alouettes territory. 

And the Grey Cup winning defence? Didn’t see many Grey Cup winning plays tonight. Though to be fair they were on the field almost ten minutes more than the Alouettes defence was. And quick turnovers and two-and-outs from the Argos offence did not help the defence at all, especially as it bent and eventually broke as the game went on. 

Now, the Argos must get things turned around quickly for their home opener against the Calgary Stampeders, who started the Vernon Adams Jr era off with a 38-26 win over the Hamilton Tiger-Cats. While Vernon Adams did turn the ball over twice and conceded a safety that kept a Tiger-Cats comeback effort alive, he did also throw for almost 300 yards in his debut, while also running for 33 yards. 

With Nick Arbuckle set to start once again for the Toronto Argonauts, the result of this game could hinge on his performance in Week 2. If he can’t get the offence scoring touchdowns, then it could be a very long game for the Argos and their fans. If the offence looks more like it did last season, then the Argos have a good chance to win. 

I think the Stampeders look like the better team going into this game; even though the defence is still a big question mark, I do like the idea of Vernon Adams Jr. and the Calgary offence outplaying that of the Argonauts. And now that I remember that the Argos couldn’t stop the Alouettes ground game and that Stampeders running back Dedrick Mills rushed for three touchdowns against Hamilton, I feel all the more confident picking Calgary to upset the defending Grey Cup champions. 

The pick: Stampeders 30, Argonauts 17

Saskatchewan Roughriders (1-0) vs Hamilton Tiger-Cats (0-1):

It got a little too close at the end for Saskatchewan, but they still won 31-26 over Ottawa and they are 1-0. That is all that matters. While quarterback Trevor Harris did look good in the opener, successfully exploiting a weak Redblacks secondary to give his Riders team a decent advantage, the defence didn’t look all too strong. Sure, they didn’t give up twelve points in every quarter, but you have to play a complete game on both sides of the ball. The defence didn’t really do that, and as a result, the game got way too close for comfort. 

But now they can take the win and prepare to head to Hamilton to take on the Tiger-Cats, who are coming off of a 38-26 loss to the new-look Calgary Stampeders. While the Tiger-Cats offence had its moments in that game, it was going off the field way too often. And the defence looked good in the first half, keeping Calgary from running away until the final minute of the second quarter and getting some crucial interceptions out of the hands of Stampeders quarterback Vernon Adams Jr. But a short field early in the second half after a muffed kickoff return by Hamilton, combined with three straight punts, saw the Stampeders stretch what was a nine-point lead at the half to a twenty-four point lead early in the fourth quarter. 

This game could go one of two ways. Either the defence for both the Riders and the Tiger-Cats gets going and we see a low-scoring affair. Or the defence becomes non-existent for both sides once again and we see a shootout between two quarterbacks - in the Riders’ Trevor Harris and the Tiger-Cats’ Bo Levi Mitchell - who are more than capable of putting up strong offensive efforts. The defensive matchup seems relatively even, so if this game does indeed come down to the play of the offence, then I am going to put my faith in Bo Levi Mitchell to win his 100th CFL game and to get Hamilton its first win of the season. 

The pick: Tiger-Cats 31, Roughriders 25

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Article written by Noah Guttman