Toronto Argonauts playoff history, by the numbers
The Argos beat the Winnipeg Blue Bombers in the 2022 Grey Cup. Here’s their full modern-era post-season history.
Fun fact: The Toronto Argonauts were founded in 1873. That makes them older than the telephone (1876), the internal combustion engine (also 1876! What a year…), electric light (1879), and the automobile (1885).
They’ve been using the same name that entire time, which is a record among North American pro sports teams, and only three such teams (the Atlanta Braves, Chicago Cubs, and Hamilton Tiger-Cats) have a claim to being around longer.
So you know their playoff history is storied, and that their latest run — the Argos beat the Winnipeg Blue Bombers for the hallowed Grey Cup on Sunday, Nov. 20, in Regina — was hardly their first regatta.
That said, that playoff history is a little tough to parse in its entirety. Since the Argos long pre-date the sport as we know it today, it’s hard to fully summarize what happened as the team hopped leagues and the game of Canadian football evolved around them.
However, the founding of the Canadian Football League in 1958 gives us a concrete modern era to focus on. With that parameter set — and a lot of help from the indispensable CFLdb — we went database diving to create a by-the-numbers Argos playoff history.
Read on for the breakdown.
36
Post-seasons made
To get us started, here’s a broad overview comparing the Argos to the rest of the CFL in a number of categories:
Team | Post-seasons | Games* | Grey Cup wins |
---|---|---|---|
Edmonton | 50 | 98 | 11 |
Hamilton | 49 | 96 | 6 |
Calgary | 47 | 98 | 7 |
Winnipeg | 44 | 87 | 9 |
Montreal | 43 | 72 | 6 |
BC Lions | 41 | 66 | 6 |
Saskatchewan | 39 | 81 | 4 |
Toronto | 36 | 64 | 8 |
Ottawa | 35 | 69 | 6 |
*Including Grey Cup games
As you can see in the table above, Toronto has made the playoffs 36 times since 1958. That doesn’t compare favourably to the rest of the league. Only Ottawa has made fewer post-seasons, and it’s important to note there were several years in the ’90s and 2000s when they didn’t have an active team. (Montreal was also inactive for eight seasons.)
This relative dearth is largely due to the fact that their first several seasons in the CFL were bleak. The Argos missed the playoffs in seven of their first nine years in the new league.
64
Post-season games played
As above, this figure doesn’t look great next to the Argos’ CFL peers. It’s the lowest total in the CFL, even compared to the Ottawa Rough Riders/Renegades/Redblacks.
In Toronto’s first CFL playoffs in 1960, they bowed out to the aforementioned Rough Riders (yes, we’re spelling that correctly) in the East Division Finals by losing both games of a two-game series.
But they got payback, and quickly. Their first CFL post-season win came in the divisional semi-finals versus the Rough Riders in a 43–19 blowout the following year.
There were some lean years in terms of post-season action to come, however. On top of the rough early patch, the Argos played just two playoff games in a 10-year period between 1972 and 1981.
That said, they played 15 combined in the next 10 — one of their most consistent stretches in team history.
.539
Post-season win percentage
So we’ve gotten through the bad news. The good news begins with what they’ve done once they’ve gotten into the playoffs.
Despite their relatively low number of playoff games over the years, the Argos have a .539 winning percentage in the post-season (including Grey Cup games). That puts them third among the current set of franchises, behind only Edmonton (.561) and Winnipeg (.540), and ahead of the following list:
- Ottawa (.507)
- Calgary (.490)
- Montreal (.472)
- Saskatchewan (.469)
- Hamilton (.464)
- BC (.424)
.727
Grey Cup win percentage
It gets better.
The Argos are first all time among current CFL franchises in win percentage specifically in the big game. Their closest competitors are BC and Ottawa, who each own a .600 winning percentage.
The Argos’ ability to play big when it’s mattered most means that despite their low number of playoff appearances and games on the whole, they’ve won…
8
Grey Cups
The Grey Cup was first awarded in 1909, and the Argonauts won it 10 times in the pre-CFL period. But it was immediately made the championship trophy of the new league upon its founding in 1958.
Of the 65 times it’s been handed out since then, the Argos have won it eight times. Only Edmonton and Winnipeg have won more.
Here’s a list of each one of the Boatmen’s big wins:
Year | Opponent | Final score |
---|---|---|
1983 | BC | 18–17 |
1991 | Calgary | 36–21 |
1996 | Edmonton | 43–37 |
1997 | Saskatchewan | 47–23 |
2004 | BC | 27–19 |
2012 | Calgary | 35–22 |
2017 | Calgary | 27–24 |
2022 | Winnipeg | 24–23 |
With their 2022 win, the Argos have now beaten every West Division team in the Grey Cup in the modern era.
While the Argos had never met Winnipeg in the big game since the founding of the CFL, they had beaten the Bombers to secure the trophy in the pre-CFL era six times in six tries between 1937 and 1950.
Code and markup by Kyle Duncan. ©Torontoverse, 2022