Adam Gagnon
CFL.ca Staff
TORONTO — I can’t believe I already feel the need to write this. Every year at some point I crank out an annual column about the East Division lackluster start to the season. Usually it seems to come out around Labour Day, but not this year. Not after what we’ve seen so far.
A quick recap:
The Argonauts looked awfully impressive on offence with Ricky Ray treating the Blue Bombers defence like it was a friendly beer league scrimmage. But the win came at a price with a hobbled Ricky Ray and a definitely out for an extended period of time Chad Kackert.
Buck Pierce suffers an abdominal injury in that game and now we are left to wonder just how much can Justin Goltz and his career total of 29 pass attempts can give the Blue Bombers.
The Alouettes carved up the Stampeders defence to the tune of 185 yards and 24 points. They would not score again.
The last game of the weekend saw the Ticats lose 37-0 to the Roughriders, sabotaging any chances of me winning Week Four of our “Cauz vs. Canada” CFL Fantasy Showdown in the process.
As someone who is staring at Lake Ontario as I write this piece I gotta tell you, life is once again rough for the East. Toronto is the only team outscoring their opponents, by a whopping two points mind you, and if not for the Eskimos I would say we were heading towards a double Playoff Crossover from the West.
Beyond the usual Pierce injury there are so many unusual things going on out here. Start with the eroding swagger of the Alouettes. Would the 2010 Alouettes have taken any sort of solace of looking offensively competent for one quarter as the current version did after that 38-27 loss to the Stampeders? No!
They’d be angry they didn’t score 50 and you just know they would have wreaked havoc on their next opponent.
This season? I have no idea what to expect. The fact that I would not be shocked to see Antony Calvillo & co. continue to have trouble is in many ways shocking. Oh and can someone tell me who has kidnapped Jamel Richardson? Considering he has just 196 yards on 18 receptions I’m guessing his has a torn ACL, MCL and a litany of other torn parts to the body.
As for Winnipeg, it is getting harder and harder to come up with an original way to talk about Pierce. The best I can come up with is I am proposing to launch a Kickstarter account to raise however much money it will take for Pierce to be able to comfortably retire and never have to take any more physical punishment. If Zack Braff can raise over $3 million in a month I think all you good people reading this can kick in a couple bucks. Who is with me?
Now for the Argos. I like most of you am in the dark about the whole release of Brandon Issac. Considering how well he played last season, considering the incredible turnover on the defensive side of the ball, the idea that Toronto would cut one of their captains is to say the least shocking.
I’m not watching the game film nor am I able to do some sort of Vulcan mind meld with Chris Jones so I won’t speculate the reasons behind this move. This coaching staff did everything right last season so I have to give them the benefit of the doubt but I feel there is a lot more to this story than Scott Milanovich is letting on.
But back to the topic at hand. How can we not focus on the injury to the East Division’s best quarterback? As this story is being written every Argonaut fan is holding their collective breath about the status of Ricky Ray’s knee. Everyone who reads this column knows that as someone who grew up in Toronto I am an Argonauts fan.
And as one let me tell you that Toronto’s 35-19 win over Winnipeg was about as unsatisfactory a win as you could experience as a result of Ray’s injury. Yes the offensive line neutralized the best pass rush in the league, but how could you take any sort of joy out of that as the camera showed pictures of Ray limping around.
The good news is that compared to Kackert, Ray is currently listed as “only” day-to-day. By all accounts Ray will be under centre sooner rather than later, but on a big picture his injury illustrates just how precarious the state of quarterbacks are in the East. Henry Burris and Calvillo are a combined 78 and are starting to show their age, Pierce is unreliable and b
Beyond Milanovich I don’t think anyone can name one of Toronto’s backups.
If you’re a fan of a team east of Alberta you can at least take solace in the basic truth that the good thing about football is that redemption and a positive turnaround is never more than two games away and that four weeks does not make a season. But considering what we have seen so far this year that ideal is getting harder and harder to believe in.
