Ottawa Redblacks Avoid Winless Season with Upset Victory Over Toronto Argonauts

(YouTube screenshot of Ottawa Redblacks QB Bryson Barnes shortly after throwing a go-ahead TD vs. Toronto Argonauts on October 16, 2026)

Stop the presses!!!

The Ottawa Redblacks won a game.

They were in danger of becoming the first team in the history of the CFL to go winless.

With two games left in the season, the Redblacks had a record of 0-16 with 22 losses in a row going back to last season. Their lone Grey Cup championship a decade ago seems so much further removed.

But tonight the Redblacks pulled off a last minute 40-39 victory over the playoff bound Toronto Argonauts on the strength of quarterback Bryson Barnes, who was making his first career start. Barnes completed 27 of 37 passes for 335 yards with two touchdown passes to wide receiver Ayden Eberhardt. 

As some of you may know, I lived in Ottawa for most of the 1990s where I attended Carleton University as an undergraduate and graduate student with some time spent working in the civil service before making my way to Boston in 2000. 

For several years, I lived in the Glebe and was within walking distance of Lansdowne Park (later known as Frank Clair Stadium and now known as TD Place) and attended a handful of Ottawa Rough Riders games. The Rough Riders were not very good when I lived in Ottawa and would disband in 1996. Brent Dowdall, who was a classmate of mine at Carleton, would write a book about the fall of the Rough Riders in 1999 called Turnover. 

In 2002, football would return to the National Capital Region with the establishment of the Ottawa Renegades. But they too were mired in failure and would be gone by 2008. The CFL took another chance on Ottawa in 2014 with the founding of the Redblacks.

Like their predecessors, there has been more failure than success with only three winning seasons. Even when they won the Grey Cup, they actually had a losing record of 8-9-1 but would finish first in a weak CFL East Division. So weak in fact that the Redblacks had to play East final against the Edmonton Eskimos in a crossover format before upsetting the Calgary Stampeders in the Grey Cup. 

Back to the present, the Redblacks have one more regular season game next week against the Hamilton Tiger Cats. The Ticats are 5-12 this season. Could the Redblack win two in a row? Stranger things have happened.