Matt Cauz
CFL.ca
A lot of very smart football people will tell you that three weeks is way too soon to start making dire predictions or jumping to crazy knee jerk reactions. I, unfortunately, am not one of those cool headed people.
With so few games in the regular season I believe that football is the one sport that allows you to make some fairly accurate observations after a smaller amount of time. Think about it, three games in the CFL is the equivalent of more than 25 in baseball. So with that in mind please allow me to overreact and jump to some conclusions that I think most of you will probably agree with me.
First, the obvious one, the league is divided into two sides, the Montreal Alouettes and everyone else. Barring a massive injury, this team will not lose more than one or two games.
This team is on a mission to erase the embarrassment of losing at home as the clear favourite in last year’s Grey Cup. They started the season knocking out the defending champion Stampeders by 13 then hung up 34 and 33 point blowouts to the supposed class of the West in wins over Edmonton and Saskatchewan.
Everyone knows most of the stars on the Alouettes but I want to highlight one player who may have slipped under the radar. Of course at 6’ 7’’, 329 pounds I’m not sure how Jeff Perrett, the Alouettes starting right tackle, could ever escape notice. Drafted in the 3rd round from Tulsa, the man was destroying the Roughriders offensive line. He erased LB Renauld Williams on Avon Cobourne’s six-yard touchdown run in the third and later he sealed the corner helping spring Cobourne for a 22-yard gain. What amazed me was Perrett’s ability to take out his man and still get to the next level and get a piece of another defender. How did he slip to the third round?
One final point about Montreal. The play of the game on Saturday, the 30-yard completion to Ben Cahoon between two defenders where Cahoon literally caught the ball off of Tad Kornegay, was actually one of the few bad throws made by Anthony Calvillo. No quarterback should ever make that throw! The ball practically hit the defender and technically Cahoon was not open. But that’s just the sort of trust that Calvillo has for Cahoon and who can blame him after the display of athleticism that Cahoon mustered up on that catch?
Last week I said that it was too soon to even entertain the notion of reducing Henry Burris’ playing time. And after watching Burris dissect Toronto I think I made the correct obvious observation.
Burris looked great against Toronto, consistently using his feet to get out of trouble giving his receivers ample time to get open. Aside from a couple of corner blitzes from Lin-J Shell, the Argo pass rush had little effect on Burris. What was most remarkable was his ability to convert on long yardage situations. Two of Burris’ most impressive throws from the third quarter, a 57-yarder to Jeremaine Copeland and 27-yards to Ryan Thelwell came on 1st and 17 and 2nd and 19 respectively. The only difference between Burris’ play in Week #3 versus the first two games was a reduction in dropped passes and the receivers and Burris finally being on the same page and properly communicating on the field.
Enough positive talk, let’s get back to another knee jerk reaction that makes some sense. Let me join in with countless B.C. Lions fans and say that Wally Buono needs to seriously consider starting Jarious Jackson, at least for Week #4 against Calgary.
Who knows if Buck Pierce is really going to be 100% after that Elliot Richardson hit he took on Thursday. When it comes to head injuries why take that chance? Even if Buck is ready to go I’m not sure Buono should automatically start him considering the team started 0-2 with Pierce under centre, and with the way that Jackson was killing the Eskimos with the deep ball … well how can you not give him another start?
I can just imagine how that conversation between Buono and Pierce would go:
Buono: “What’s that Buck, you’re ready to go? Hey that’s great, glad to hear it! Why don’t you just rest up for a couple more days and I’ll give you a call when we need you. No, no I’m sure, why don’t you just kick back and relax? Hey the second season of ‘So You Think You Can Dance’ is just a couple weeks away and I hear that Tre Armstrong is even sassier than ever. Why don’t you PVR it for me and keep me up to date with what’s going on?”
(By the way I have never seen the show nor do I understand why “Tre” spells her name that way … moving on.)
I appreciate that Buono wants to be loyal and that Jackson can be wildly inconsistent but his arm strength is perfectly suited for the weapons B.C. has at wide-out.
I’d say there is a quarterback controversy in Winnipeg but really is anyone in Winnipeg getting that excited for the dawn of the Bryan Randall era? Best news for Argonaut fans is that, according to Head Coach Mike Kelly, Stefan LeFors will be starting against Toronto. Of course according to Kelly, LeFors was pulled against Hamilton because he couldn’t rotate his upper body. I think that might be CFL code for, “can’t throw the ball downfield.”
One last the sky is falling observation … I’m predicting that Richie Hall will be the first coach fired. Is that fair? No, of course not. But in pro sports coaches get fired all the time, often before their first cheque with their new team has even cleared.
Edmonton has lost its last two games by a combined 90-38 and Ricky Ray is in a massive slump. I don’t know how much this has to do with a complete lack of a running game but Ray just doesn’t look comfortable. He had trouble completing his out patterns early in their loss to B.C. and beyond the second quarter where he was able to dink and dunk his way to a couple of scores he just isn’t looking like the All-Star quarterback we expect to see.
Edmonton is last in scoring and has yet to develop any sort of physical identity on offense. I don’t think we’ll be seeing Jason Maas anytime soon but I also don’t see Ray’s numbers getting better anytime soon.
A couple quick hitters to ensure this column is well over 1000 words:
(1) Congrats to the Ti-Cats for winning two games in a row! The last time that happened (September 2006) no one knew what Twitter was, Barack Obama was just a State Senator and we were still a year away from learning about the glory that is Megan Fox.
(2) I know the 2009 Argonauts are better than last year’s model but hearing the announcers highlighting just how much better the team is while they’re getting their rear-ends handed to them just seemed a bit odd. We get it, they are better than the team that went 0-9 down the stretch. To be fair losing on the road to Calgary, a team due for a win and to Saskatchewan is not the end of the world for the Boatmen. Now if they lose to Winnipeg this week…
(3) By the way, TSN please I’m begging you leave Arkee Whitlock alone! The man cannot be in a good place. I felt worse for Arkee Whitlock in Week #3 than I did in Week #2. Every chance they got they kept reminding the viewers of Whitlock’s horrible Week #2 debut. And just in case you had the volume down they made sure to show a montage of Whitlock’s miscues against Montreal. I think late in the third quarter they gave out his ATM c
ard number and informed everyone that his dog died and his girlfriend had dumped him.
(4) On the plus side I liked Matt Dunigan’s commitment to his ’60s hippy outfit and Jermaine Franklin has thrown the gauntlet down as best dressed sideline reporter. John Lu, your title has been taken; the ball is now in your court my friend.
(5) The only explanation for the Argonauts play calling these past two weeks is they want Jamal Robertson to be well, and I mean well, rested for the playoffs. Calgary came into Week #3 giving up 320 yards on the ground in the first two weeks, yet Robertson had just five carries on Friday. Say what you want, but late in the season Toronto is guaranteed to have the healthiest set of running backs in the league.
