Montreal Alouettes' Duron Carter makes a touchdown catch during second half CFL football action against the Toronto Argonauts in Montreal, Sunday, November 2, 2014.Graham Hughes/The Canadian Press
It's a league, and this is a division in it. It follows there has to be a first-place club.
That team, at the moment, is the Montreal Alouettes. After a 1-7 start, the Als have burst through the surface, sputtering – they lead the CFL's East Division with a 9-8 record after beating the Toronto Argonauts 17-14 on Sunday.
The Boatmen (7-10) are in with a shout for a playoff berth despite halting their four-game win streak, but will need a final weekend victory against Ottawa and a Tiger-Cats loss. Montreal clinched a home playoff date with the win. It will either be the East semi-final, should Montreal lose at Hamilton next week, or the division final on Nov. 23.
Montreal's is a notable resurgence, but it's not unprecedented – the B.C. Lions opened the 2011 with five successive losses and won the Grey Cup.
At moments like this, people seek to identify turning points. Als coach Tom Higgins obliged postgame by pointing to a stretch in mid-August in which his team travelled to Saskatchewan and stayed in the Prairies before playing Winnipeg six days later.
Montreal lost both those contests, but is 8-1 since then and has won six in a row.
This is the 19th straight year the Als will play in the postseason, the only team in the league that can say that.
"[The turnaround] is going to be a great TSN Grey Cup documentary, I can tell you that," said wide receiver Duron Carter, who scored the decisive touchdown and hauled in a career-high 11 balls for 181 yards Sunday. "Highlights, low-lights, all of it. We feel great. We feel pretty much unstoppable."
Maybe so, but no one is about to confuse the Als with a great team just yet.
True, they have the kind of ferocious defence that wins championships, but they also have an offence that – how to put this? – struggles to assert its competence.
As an exemplar, take wide receiver Duron Carter, who combines size (he's a sturdy 6-4) and breakaway speed; his dominance is displayed in blinks and glances rather than a steady gaze.
On his best statistical day as a pro, he lost a fumble and dropped a sure touchdown on a trick play – receiver S.J. Green zipped a 50-yard pass up the middle.
"I just misjudged it … that was terrible. I owe receiver money for that; I owe everybody dinner," Carter said. "If you ask me, I had a bad game. I'm just fortunate to be out there and them trusting me with the ball."
The latter remark is an understatement.
Montreal ran 28 pass plays, 16 of them to Carter; of the others, only three resulted in completions.
Never let it be said Montreal's offensive game plan was about a single idea. It was based on at least two.
Tailback Tyrell Sutton hung 135 yards on Toronto's run defence – it was a blustery day, running-back weather – including a 12-yard burst off-tackle on the Als' first play from scrimmage.
Like Carter, Sutton was only semi-enthused afterward.
"I left yards out there, [quarterback Jonathan] Crompton left yards out there, [Carter] left yards out there. This didn't have to be a close game," he said.
The Argos took a well-earned 11-7 halftime lead, their hosts frequently looking befuddled.
On the Als' third series, receiver Brandon London jumped and waved to draw Crompton's attention to the fact he and James Rodgers were lined up against only one Argo defensive back; Crompton never looked to his left, instead throwing an incompletion to his right.
Later, defensive end Brian Brikowski bustled into the Toronto backfield to confront Argo pivot Ricky Ray, then inexplicably didn't tackle him.
There were fumbles. There were dropped passes. The Als bungled a fake punt; they also failed to cover another kick late in the game and Toronto punter Swayze Waters raced up the field to jump on it.
In the end, Toronto couldn't do enough offensively. Three second-half points are seldom a winning recipe.
When Ray was helped off the field with about two minutes left – after being slammed to the turf by John Bowman – the hope of a comeback fizzled.
"They just had a little bit more than us today," Argo coach Scott Milanovich said.
Now, he added, "we find ourselves in the position of pulling for Montreal."
In a tightly bunched division, enemies can quickly become friends.