Argos Embarassed At Home By Lions
Posted July 29, 2006 12:00 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
It was ugly.
There’s no other way to describe what happened to the Toronto Argonauts Saturday night, after they suffered a brutal 28-8 thumping at the hands of the B.C. Lions.
The return of Damon Allen did nothing to inspire the Boatmen, who fell behind early and never got off the mat, missing a chance to even their record at 3-3.
Instead the Lions simply had their way, running roughshod in front of a Rogers Centre crowd of 28,356 while improving their record to 4-3.
Running back Joe Smith ran for 80 yards and three touchdowns, quarterback Dave Dickenson went 14-of-23 for 239 yards, and slotback Geroy Simon made five catches for 155 yards.
B.C.’s other score came from Ryan Thelwell, who caught a touchdown from Dickenson to open the scoring. With the win, the Lions sweep the season series with Toronto, having won the first meeting 26-19.
Keeping the starting quarterback secret until game time didn’t prove to be a particularly effective strategy for Toronto, as the 43-year-old defending league MVP celebrated his birthday with one of his more disappointing efforts to date, one in which his rust was painfully obvious.
Kicker Noel Prefontaine did all of Toronto’s scoring on a pair of singles until running back Jeff Johnson recovered own his fumble in the B.C. end zone with 51 seconds left. The late score made the final look slightly more respectable, but didn’t keep it from being Toronto’s most lopsided loss this year.
Adding injury to insult was the loss of running back John Avery, who was unexpectedly scratched with a left leg injury after being slated to start in place of Ricky Williams, out with a broken forearm.
So Johnson got the call instead, but was used sparingly while the game slipped out of Allen’s hands. He was intercepted three times and finished 16-of-33 passing for 256 yards.
What’s perhaps the most upsetting for Argos fans is that before the game the club paid tribute to its 1983 Grey Cup champion club, and with several of their legends in attendance couldn’t have looked less like a current contender.
Toronto will try to get back into the win column Thursday, August 3 when they head to Montreal to take on the Alouettes.
