The Ottawa Redblacks extended their winless streak with a 16th straight loss in an ugly 46-16 beatdown to the league-leading Montreal Alouettes on Thursday.
Montreal wins 46-16, has lost just once in 2026
Daniel Rainbird · The Canadian Press
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The Ottawa Redblacks are still searching for their first win of 2026.
The team suffered its 16th straight loss in an ugly 46-16 beatdown to the league-leading Montreal Alouettes before 22,482 at Molson Stadium on Thursday, dropping to 0-10 on the season.
"Our margin for error is small," Redblacks quarterback Jake Maier said, "and I think that when a play doesn't go our way, you can feel it a little bit more as a football team that's trying to find their footing."
Maier struggled, throwing two interceptions and completing 14 of 23 passes for 126 yards.
Backup pivot McLeod Bethel-Thompson entered in the fourth quarter and wasn't much better, completing four of nine passes for 55 yards and a pick.
In their first season under head coach and general manager Ryan Dinwiddie, the Redblacks became just the ninth team to lose its first 10 games of a season.
They've dropped 16 straight contests dating back to Sept. 5, 2025 — the longest skid since the Hamilton Wildcats in 1948-49, almost a decade before the CFL was formed.
What's left to play and coach for, Dinwiddie said, is keeping jobs.
"I just told all the guys, we've got to look in the mirror and everybody's got to do their job better. That should be our focus individually," said Dinwiddie, who left the Toronto Argonauts last off-season after winning two Grey Cup titles across five seasons as head coach.
WATCH | Ownership's thoughts earlier this week:
Ottawa, playing with a league-high 17 players on the six-game injured list, also extended its losing streak against the Alouettes to 14 games (since Oct. 10, 2022).
Davis Alexander threw for 260 passing yards and two touchdowns on 20-of-23 completions for Montreal (9-1), improving his record to 20-1 as a CFL starter.
The game was riddled with errors for Ottawa.
Redblacks holder Noah Gettman dropped the ball on a kick attempt and then was stripped by Allouettes Kabion Ento, returning the fumble 49 yards to set up a one-yard touchdown run by Terry Wilson.
Ento was at it again three minutes later, easily picking off Maier's pass intended for Kalil Pimpleton and running for a 29-yard TD to take a 21-7 lead with 8:49 remaining in the first half.
"We started the game really well. I thought they made a really good play in the corner of the end zone there to kind of get the momentum back in their favour," Maier said.
"And then just another unfortunate play here where Ento stepped in front of (Pimpleton) and took it the other way."
"Nobody's fault besides mine and not recognizing that that's the coverage that they were playing, and I just felt like that's where the game really flipped," he added.
Lions up next
Maier has started all 10 games for the Redblacks this season, and Dinwiddie wasn't ready to say whether he would make a change ahead of next week's meeting with the B.C. Lions.
"We've got a 10-day week," Dinwiddie said. "I didn't think (Bethel-Thompson) looked that sharp in there."
With the season all but lost, Ottawa defensive back Alonzo Addae said the message moving forward is to continue to fight.
"We're professional football players and we're getting paid to play a game, so we can't just lay down and quit," he said.
"Keep the fight, keep the spirit high and continue to play out the rest of the season. We've got games left, nobody in the league is going to feel sorry for us."
The Redblacks have eight more opportunities to earn a win.
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