Matt Cauz
CFL.ca
All right before we get to the Game Of The Year, one of the best regular season games I have ever witnessed, you have to indulge me for a moment.
Here’s my impression of a Saskatchewan Math Class:
Green & White Clad Teacher: All right boys and girls what number comes after 12?
Student #1: uhhh is it 13?
Teacher: No. Maybe in some other parts of the country, but around here, in Saskatchewan, the correct answer is 12. There is no number higher then 12.
Student #2: But what is 12 + 1?
Teacher: Hmm a good question. In Montreal they may say the correct answer is 13. As in; if you have 12 men on the field and than for some bizarre, no way could this ever happen again reason you add one more man, well than now you have 13 men on the field. Just remember that sort of crazy math may work for the rest of Canada but as long as you’re wearing a watermelon on your head the answer is 12.
All right, all right I’ll leave all 13 men on the field jokes alone.
From here on in let’s just refer to it as “the incident”.
I promised Jaime Stein that I would keep this column to fewer than 1500 words but considering what we all witnessed last night, that may be difficult to do.
I have a feeling that all the American’s watching the game on NFL Network were left wondering “Wait a minute, you can do that!!??” I love the new OT rules, I loved how fast the refs were with instant replay and most importantly I love watching a much hyped rematch go well beyond whatever wild expectations we had going in. When was the last time you had so much fun watching a game?
I’ll try to do my best and collect my thoughts from last night epic 54-51 opus:
(1) I thought Chris Cuthbert and Glen Suitor were excellent last night. They knew when to talk, when to stay quiet and you could feel just how shocked they were during “the incident”. My only issue was with Cuthbert referring to the Roughrider fans as “The 13th Man”. Chris you may want to come up with a different term for them. They’re a little bit sensitive right now about basic arithmetic.
(2) This is an obvious point but needs to be said; no team suffered a bigger personnel loss than Saskatchewan with John Chick and Stevie Baggs. The front four of Saskatchewan rarely laid a hand on Anthony Calvillo. They overloaded three linemen right at the middle of the line to overwhelm Paul Lambert, they tried a variety of twists and stunts and nothing worked. (With the exception of a brilliant 1st quarter sack by Kitwana Jones. The guy is 227 pounds! How did he squeeze past the double team?) The only effective pass rush generated came late in the game when they started blitzing linebackers and defensive backs off the corner (Notably Lance Frazier’s perfectly timed blitz that forced a punt to start the 4th quarter).
(3) Now that said, a ton of credit has to go to the Alouettes offensive line. The first two long touchdown passes by Calvillo are a credit to Montreal’s line. The Kerry Watkins 39-yard score was the result of a post-corner-post move. You can’t execute that sort of route unless you have time. The next time the Alouettes had the ball Anthony Calvillo sucked the defence in with a perfect pump fake leading to S.J. Green’s 48-yard TD. Again, for most of the game, Calvillo had enough time to do his taxes and still find the open man.
(4) Speaking of Calvillo I think we can all agree he has hit that creepy Dick Clark stage of his life. Has the man aged in the past 10 years? Seriously, if you had told me I was watching 2002 Calvillo I would have believed you. When are we going to see a drop off in his game? He’s like Brett Favre without the melodrama or the obligatory shots of Kiln Mississippi.
(5) Watching Darian Durant slice up the Alouettes secondary in the second half it’s clear that Montreal misses Mark Estelle. The All-Star corner is one of the best defensive backs in the game.
(6) Two Roughriders I feel bad for: Prechae Rodriguez & Donovan Alexander, of course for completely different reasons. Let’s start with Alexander. Calvillo and the entire Montreal offence were picking on him all day. The guy is going to have more scrutiny on him than a BP executive. Watching him try to cover was like watching me as a chubby seven year old play little league baseball. Basically I would come to the plate and the opposing team would start bellowing “Easy Out”!
That’s basically what Alexander was, an easy first down conversion. I’m rooting for Alexander to bounce back. Remember last year’s horrible debut for Arkee Whitlock against Montreal? Whitlock went on to a brilliant rookie campaign. So there’s hope.
Moving on to Rodriguez. You have to feel bad for a guy who saw his first touchdown as a Roughrider get completely overshadowed by the appearance of the awesome force known as Ryan Getzlaf’s fiancée. Put it this way, next to “The Incident”, nothing brought as much Twitter chatter as her lovely appearance on the screen. I think it took me five minutes to realize he had even scored.
(7) Unsung player of the night: There were so many obvious choices, so I’m going with Alouettes DB Jerald Brown. Consistently tight coverage all night. There isn’t a stat for “forcing a quarterback to throw a bad pass because his intended target is so well covered”, but if there was, Brown would’ve been one of the leaders last night. I remember one play in particular where he had Weston Dressler blanketed, causing Durant to throw high. On the next play Chip Cox forced a Durant fumble that would lead to a field goal. Brown’s ability take out Dressler directly led to the subsequent turnover. Just thought that should be mentioned.
(8) Yes Chip Cox was a beast in both coverage and run support.
(9) Am I the only one that noticed that Anwar Stewart’s name wasn’t mentioned very much? Beyond one play where he almost picked off Durant I didn’t see anything from Stewart.
(10) Sticking with this run on defence, Omarr Morgan may be the most important defensive player on Saskatchewan’s roster.
(11) I want to thank TSN & Wendy’s for not inundating us with Wendy’s commercials. “When it’s real, you know when it’s real”. I rank that jingle right up there with “Everyone Loves Marineland” and my personal favourite “Fabricland, Fabricland!”
(12) I really wanted to give a special shout out to the Saskatchewan special teams for avoiding the dreaded too many men on the field penalty for Damon Duval’s kicks, but sadly I can’t. 11 men of the field! Really? Is that some kind of joke or does the entire team have a blood vendetta against basic mathematics?
(13) I felt bad for Duane Forde and Rod Black. They had to be watching that game thinking how come we got stuck with this punt fest known as Toronto versus Calgary.
(14) Yes I was the idiot that wrote on Twitter that the game was over after the Tim Maypray 125 yard missed field goal return. But can you really blame me? The score was 33-12, Durant hadn’t done much and Saskatchewan had gone nearly ten minutes into the third quarter with the wind at their back and had yet to produce any points beyond a conceded safety.
Total credit has to be given to Durant. Many young quarterbacks would have simply called it a night. Durant was lousy in the first half and missed a wide open Rob Bagg for a sure touchdown to start the third. Instead he just kept hammering at the Alouettes secondary and finished off with a staggering 478 yards and five touchdowns.
(15) Speaking of character, the entire Roughrider squad should be applauded for
fighting back. On the flip side you really can’t put much blame on Montreal. Having to start the season on the road in Saskatchewan is not an easy task. In the end this was a hard fought game by two very talented teams.
Oh by the way the rematch is in Montreal on Friday August 6th. I hope the NFL Network is picking up that game as well.
