Toronto’s No. 1 passing offense will square off against host Winnipeg’s No. 1 passing defense on Friday night.
The Argonauts (8-6) are the CFL’s hottest team with three straight victories and four in their last five games.
The Blue Bombers (7-6) are coming off a bye week and have alternated wins and losses in their last six contests.
Winnipeg won the first meeting 30-21 on July 10 despite Toronto’s Chad Kelly passing for 320 yards and two scores.
The Argos lead the CFL with 359.1 passing yards per game and the Bombers allow a league-low 272.2 per game.
Toronto is coming off a 24-19 victory last Saturday against Edmonton in which Kelly threw for 373 yards with his 30th and 31st TD passes of the season but also his 21st and 22nd interceptions.
Kelly, the 2023 CFL Most Outstanding Player, needs 223 passing yards at Winnipeg to reach 5,000 for the first time.
After missing the playoffs with a 5-13 record in 2025, the Argonauts clinched a berth with the win over the Elks.
“That’s first and foremost,” Kelly said of reaching the playoffs. “It doesn’t matter how you do it, (getting) a win is very difficult in this league.”
The Blue Bombers will be without their starting quarterback. Zach Collaros, the CFL MOP in 2021 and 2022, left the Sept. 12 win against Saskatchewan with a head injury and missed multiple practices to start this week.
Collaros, 38, was placed on the six-game injured list on Thursday.
Veteran backup Dru Brown made four starts earlier this season when Collaros was sidelined with a neck injury. That included the loss to the Argonauts when Brown was 25-of-31 passing for 339 yards with a TD and a pick.
“There’s guys who are ready to step up and honor their teammates and if Zach can’t go, there’s guys that’ll step up and honor his work,” Winnipeg coach Mike O’Shea said before Thursday’s announcement.
While Toronto knows it is going to the playoffs, Winnipeg remains in a dogfight in the crowded West.
“I just want them to understand that as we talked about a month or more ago — just keep your head down, keep grinding and we’ll end up where we end up,” O’Shea said.
–Field Level Media
