CALGARY – The Calgary Stampeders stayed in the CFL playoff conversation, thanks to a lengthy field goal by Rene Paredes, while the Ottawa Redblacks remained winless after Calgary’s 40-38 victory over Ottawa on Saturday.
Paredes kicked a 62-yard field goal, the longest of his career, with two seconds remaining to end a tug of war between two football teams desperate for different reasons.
The Stampeders (6-8) weren’t mathematically eliminated from playoff contention at the bottom of the West Division, but their margins were thin with four games remaining in the regular season. They trailed the Winnipeg Blue Bombers and B.C. Lions, tied for third in the division, by two points.
“What a game,” said Paredes, the longest-serving Stampeder in his 15th season and who missed 10 games this season with injury. “I’m just happy we got the win and we’ve still got a shot at the playoffs.
“Hopefully it motivates us to keep it going. We know each game from now on is a playoff game for us.”
The Redblacks fell to 0-13 to become only the second team to start a season with 13 straight losses after the Shreveport Pirates in 1994.
Redblacks quarterback McLeod Bethel-Thompson threw five touchdown passes in his first start for Ottawa, which lost a second straight game on an opposing field goal.
Bethel-Thompson cited Greek mythology’s Sisyphus to describe the team’s state — pushing a boulder up a hill only for it to roll back down every time it nears the top.
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“Does anybody know the story of Sisyphus?” the 38-year-old quarterback asked. “Can’t say it any other way, right? We’re right there at the top. Think you’re getting the boulder over the top, down it goes rolling, so it’ll challenge us.
“Take these lessons, take this hardship, and not go against each other, and not go against yourself, and come out of this stronger.”
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The Redblacks host the Stampeders on Saturday in the second game of a home and home.
Ottawa led by a point with 72 seconds remaining. Calgary’s offence got to Ottawa’s 45-yard line, but quarterback Vernon Adams Jr. was penalized for throwing to an ineligible receiver to drop 10 yards.
A missed throw to receiver Tevin Jones left the game on the leg of the 41-year-old Paredes, who hit a 57-yarder earlier, but said he would have missed if not for a tailwind.
Paredes had a breeze behind him again. He drilled the ball through the uprights.
“When I was walking off the field, I said, ‘I believe he’s going to make it,’” Adams said. “I said ‘God, give us a little bit of wind’, he did, and that’s what it was, so I believed from the jump.”
According to the CFL’s 2026 record book, the longest field goal made in the CFL was 63 yards, by both Saskatchewan’s Paul McCallum (2001) and Winnipeg’s Sergio Castillo (2025).
When Paredes threw his helmet in celebration, he nearly cracked the helmet on his quarterback’s leg. Adams was already hobbling after an offensive lineman rolled on his ankle in the third quarter.
“Wasn’t sure Rene had 62 in his leg,” Stampeders head coach and general manager Dave Dickenson said. “We needed it. It was a bit of desperation mode. Obviously didn’t play perfect football or anything like that, but really needed that win and we got it.”
Calgary’s Quincy Vaughn scored a pair of short-yardage rushing touchdowns and Jones and Jalen Philpot each caught touchdown passes from Adams, who finished 28 for 41 in pass attempts for 357 yards. He was intercepted a fifth time in as many games after a clean sheet in his first eight starts.
Paredes also produced field goals from 23 and 19 yards, plus four convert points, in front of an announced 20,113 at McMahon Stadium.
Bethel-Thompson, who came off the bench to generate five point-producing drives in the previous week’s 26-23 loss to Toronto, compiled 379 passing yards and was picked off once.
Keelan White caught three of his touchdown throws and Justin Hardy and Kalil Pimpleton the other two. Kicker Brett Lauther missed a field-goal attempt from 43 yards, but was good from 37 yards and added five convert points.
“We feel like the win’s been coming for a few weeks,” Redblacks head coach and GM Ryan Dinwiddie said. “The guys are fighting. I don’t think they quit. I don’t think they quit all year. Now are we making plays we need to make? No.
“You don’t have a win at this stage, I’m surprised we don’t have full-out brawls in the locker room, so those guys have been sticking together and I appreciate that.”
The Stampeders were minus top rusher Dedrick Mills (hip). Deonta McMahon came off Calgary’s practice roster for the game and rushed for 102 yards.
Calgary led 17-14 at halftime. Temperature at kickoff was C 22 with winds gusting to 44 km/h.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 19, 2026.
© 2026 The Canadian Press
