TORONTO — They've officially been teammates for less than a week, but Ka'Deem Carey will aim to become Chad Kelly's best friend Thursday night.
Kelly will make his 2024 debut when Toronto (5-4) hosts the Saskatchewan Roughriders (5-4-1). Kelly was reinstated, with conditions, by the CFL on Sunday after being suspended May 7 for the Argonauts two exhibition games and at least their first nine regular-season contests for violating the league's gender-based violence policy.
Kelly, the CFL's outstanding player last season, takes over an offence that's last in net yards (309.7 per game) and passing (210.9). However, Toronto does lead the league in rushing (123.9 yards per game), with Carey standing third overall with 611 yards (5.4-yard average, five touchdowns).
Carey and Kelly met during Kelly's absence from the team and they've struck up a friendship off the field. But in football circles, there's a time-tested saying that a quarterback's best friend is sound running game which takes the attention and pressure off the passer.
"Chad and I have built an off-the-field relationship so we can pick it up on the field moving forward," Carey said. "In the run game, I'm going to run as hard as I usually do and the receivers are going to catch as well as they do and hopefully we just go have some fun and everything glues like we want it to."
It's a small sample size and the conditions were nowhere near those of an actual game. But Kelly showed tremendous accuracy and velocity on his throws during practice.
Most noticeable was how often Kelly pushed the ball downfield. That wasn't surprising as Kelly routinely did that in 2023, regardless of whether he'd completed a TD strike, was intercepted or had an incompletion.
And that's something that was consistently lacking during Toronto's opening nine games with Cameron Dukes and Nick Arbuckle taking snaps.
"That's one of his strengths and a tool in his tool box," Toronto head coach Ryan Dinwiddie said of Kelly. "Not necessarily that's going to be our gameplan going into where we're going to do that a ton but we had to get the reps in and get him out here and acclimated with the timing with the receivers."
And although Kelly threw for 4,123 yards and 23 TDs last season, Dinwiddie said the ground attack will remain a key element of Toronto's offensive attack.
"It's huge every week," he said. "For any quarterback we have we want to establish the run, that's going to help us with our play-action game and slow down the rush.
"If we're just dropping back all day it's going to be a tough day. We've got to move the pocket around, establish the run game and mix in some screens. We've got to be pretty balanced."
The six-foot-two, 216-pound Kelly also ran for 248 yards (six-yard average) and eight touchdowns in 2023.
American Mark Milton comes into Toronto's lineup to start at one of the halfback positions in place of Mason Pierce.
Establishing the run against Saskatchewan won't come easily as the Riders' defence is allowing just 76.9 yards per game, second-fewest in the CFL. Opposing teams are passing for an average of 304.1 yards per game — second-most overall — but the Riders also lead the league in sacks (26), interceptions (14), fumbles recovered (10) and turnovers forced (29).
And if there's anyone who knows Kelly well, it is Riders head coach Corey Mace, who was Toronto's defensive co-ordinator from 2022 to '23. Mace is also Saskatchewan's defensive co-ordinator.
Offensively, veteran quarterback Trevor Harris will make a second straight start. After missing six games with a knee injury, Harris completed 31-of-39 passes for 355 yards and two TDs in a 27-24 home loss to Montreal last week that extended Saskatchewan's winless streak to four games (0-3-1).
"We're itching just to get it off our back," Mace told reporters in Regina of the streak. "We don't have the feeling like we're a bad team.
"The confidence is still really high. We've just got to find ways to get it done."
But running back A.J. Ouellette (hip), who scored the winning TD in Toronto's 2022 Grey Cup victory, won't suit up for Saskatchewan. He'll be replaced by Frankie Hickson.
Deontai Williams also starts at boundary cornerback, newcomer Trevon Tate opens at right tackle and Canadian Kian Schaffer-Baker comes into the lineup at slotback, backed up by rookie Canuck Ajou Ajou, who also returns.
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