THIS WEEK IN THE CFL - WEEK 16

Week 16 kicks off on Friday night when the Saskatchewan Roughriders bring their two-game winning streak to the nation’s capital to face the Ottawa REDBLACKS. Ottawa will be looking to avenge their Week 5 loss in Saskatchewan and maintain first place in the East Division.

Saturday afternoon features a marquee West Division battle. BC visits Winnipeg in the first game of a home-and-home series. The next two games for both clubs will likely decide who will host a playoff game in November. BC has the second-highest amount of wins on the road this season with five.

Thanksgiving Monday features a double-header beginning in Montreal when Edmonton visits Percival Molson Stadium. With the crossover potentially in affect, both squads will be looking to keep pace with teams in their division.

To conclude the week, Calgary has a chance to extend their winning streak to 12 and secure the West Division title when they hit the road to Toronto. The Argonauts will be looking to keep pace in a tight East Division race and snag their third home victory.

Week 16 Grey Cup Playoff Scenarios

QB SACKS

• Over the past two seasons, 30 different starting quarterbacks have been sacked multiple times.
• Trevor Harris leads this dubious category, having been sacked 72 times. However, he has also led his teams on 60 TD drives, the second most for any quarterback in that span and the fourth-best TD% (17.5%).
• In comparison to Harris, Bo Levi Mitchell has started in six more games and has 33 fewer sacks and 23 more touchdowns with a 19.3% TD%.
• Hamilton Tiger-Cats quarterback Zach Collaros owns the best TD% in 2016 (22.5%) ahead of BC’s Jonathan Jennings (19.9%).

CHASING HISTORY: BO LEVI MITCHELL & KENNY PLOEN THROUGH 48 GAMES

• Kenny Ploen went 40-8 (.833) in his first 48 QB starts between 1957-1960
• Calgary’s Bo Levi Mitchell has an even better record of 40-7-1 (.844) through the first 48 games.
• Mitchell will try to join Ploen by matching his record for the longest winning streak by a starting QB. Ploen won 12 games in a row in 1961; Mitchell enters Week 16 with 11 wins in a row and the potential to make it 12 when the Stampeders take on the Toronto Argonauts this Monday.
• Another CFL great that Mitchell could pull ahead of is Warren Moon. Moon owns the record for longest unbeaten streak by a starting quarterback, set at 13 games in 1981-82.
• In the games remaining in 2016, Calgary can extend their winning streak to a maximum of 15 games. If Calgary wins their next two games they can take over the record of longest single-season winning streak.
• Calgary can also extend their unbeaten streak to a maximum of 17 games. Their current 13-game unbeaten streak is currently the 5^th longest in CFL history and is tied for the longest single-season unbeaten streak with the 1981 Edmonton team.

SCORING IN WEEK 15

• Last week in the CFL teams compiled a combined 241 points, an average of 60.3 points per game.
• That’s the highest average since Week 2 in 2015 where there was an average of 60.8 points per game.
• There were 24 touchdowns scored last week, or an average of six touchdowns per game - the highest for any week this season.
• Week 15 averaged 802 yards per game. That’s equivalent to every team each scoring 30 points and 400 yards per game.
• The BC vs Ottawa game led the charge: Jennings and Harris combined for 833 passing yards and 998 yards of net offence (Ottawa had 529 yards).

THREE-MINUTE DRILL

• Andy Fantuz caught 15 passes for 130 yards against Calgary last week. That matches the second-highest total of catches in a single regular season game.
• The all-time record is 16 and is held by four players: Terry Greer (TOR, 1983), Brian Wiggins (CGY, 1993), Derrell Mitchell (TOR, 1998) and most recently Arland Bruce (HAM, 2010).
• Fantuz also extended his streak of games with at least one reception to 72. Don Narcisse recorded 216 straight games with a catch (1987-1999).
• Solomon Elimimian reached 100 tackles on the season after his 13-tackle performance in Week 15. He is on pace for 138 tackles, five short of the record he set in 2014.
• Elimimian’s teammate Adam Bighill is on pace to reach 100 tackles and is currently 11 tackles short. No CFL team has ever had multiple players with 100 or more tackles in the same season.
• Bear Woods is three tackles short of 100 on the season.
• West Dominance: The West has won 10 straight games against East Division opponents and is 15-8-1 overall this season.
• August 20^th was the last time an East team won versus a West team (Hamilton beat Saskatchewan 53-7). The longest streak by one division over the other is 20 games, set by the West in 2008.
• Edmonton QB Mike Reilly is currently on pace to pass for 6,053 yards this season. He needs to average 323 yards per game to reach the elusive 6,000-yard mark.
• Mike Reilly and Bo Levi Mitchell each have 11 games with 300+ passing yards this season. The single season record is held by Doug Flutie in 1991 where he had 14 games with 300+ passing yard games with BC.
• Last week there were eight challenges in four games.
• Since the rule change on coaches’ challenges, challenges have dropped 12% to 2.17 per game.
• The percentage of challenges resulting in overturned rulings has stayed the same at about 41%.
• Adarius Bowman has recorded 103 receptions this season. He is on pace for 132 receptions, which would be the second-highest amount of receptions in a regular season of all-time.
• Scoring race: Justin Medlock retook the lead with 172 points, four ahead of Rene Paredes’ 168. Each of them threaten the CFL field-goal record of 59 in one season. Medlock has 45 field goals and Paredes has 46 – the record is 59, set by David Ridgway in 1990.
• Shawn Lemon has nine sacks in his last seven games to take over the league lead with 12 this season.