Adam Gagnon/CFL.ca
Monday night’s weather delay and awesome looking sky brought out my inner football poet. Please enjoy:
Skies grey and flinty, like steel from the belching mills.
Lightning flashes as though a thousand industrial blow torches.
“I am thunder,” a stadium crowd bellows.
Rain falls like the bucket scene from Flashdance.
Wow. That’s terrible. Better remember to take that out before this is published.
Now, the takeaways:
1) The Hamilton Ticats’ defence is a Jackson Pollock painting. All anger and chaos and “what the hell am I looking at?” I get the feeling that if you showed Stephen Hawking all of defensive coordinator Orlondo Steinauer’s schemes, he’d study them for a weekend, admit defeat and rename his “theory of everything” the “theory of ALMOST everything.” The good news for opponents? If you can deflect the pressure a little bit and give your quarterback just enough time, you can still rack up the passing yards (the Argos had almost 400). Bad news for opponents? Well, I haven’t even mentioned Hamilton’s run defence. Or its offence.
2) Matt Nichols heard you. He may have signed out of Twitter for the week, he may have turned off his radio. He may have even spent every non-practice moment in monastic silence at the nearest abbey. But, he knew full well about the questioning and criticism being levelled at him after being pulled in the Eskimos’ win over Winnipeg last week. That’s probably why, after tossing a touchdown pass to give Edmonton a 29-5 lead over Saskatchewan, he went all Russell Crowe in Gladiator, urging the crowd to rise up, as he left the field. Had someone handed him a mic, he might well have bellowed “are you not entertained?” or free-styled a football version of Drake’s “Charged Up.” 27 of 39 for 300 yards, two touchdowns, no interceptions. The lesson he taught? Yes, he’s better when not actually playing in the pouring rain. Like most quarterbacks.
3) The Winnipeg Blue Bombers can win even if Clarence Denmark is invisible. Who’d have thunk it? But, there it is. A 23-13 win over the BC Lions on Thursday night, with Denmark being held to two catches for eight yards. Two catches for eight yards! He probably had higher totals on the sidelines when being tossed a towel or a water bottle. Last week, Denmark told me “If we play as a team, I think we can win.” He was right. Receivers Darvin Adams (four catches for 127 yards and a TD, including this 56-yard catch and run) and Justin Veltung (five for 58 and a TD) stepped up. With Nick Moore out of the Winnipeg line-up, I guess the Lions figured if they clamped down on Denmark, they could stop the Winnipeg passing game. That was a reasonable assumption. It isn’t now.
4) Some football players really like contact. They really, really like it. I was struck by a moment in the Calgary/Montreal game, when Als running back Brandon Rutley took a hand off and swept around the right hand side getting up a full head of steam just as he reached a couple of red jerseys, including one with the number 11 on it. That was the jersey of defensive back Josh Bell. The sound of that collision must’ve echoed off rock faces in the foothills for hours. I mean, my television wobbled. Afterward, the two of them stood, looking at each other for a second or two – presumably to ensure they both came out of it alive – and then gave each other a congratulatory hand slap. Must be members of Fight Club. But I’ve said too much already….
5) Yes, it is still a bad idea to throw in Pat Watkins’ direction. Heading into Saturday night’s game against the Roughriders, the Eskimos’ all-star corner had 18 tackles. That had him on pace for 81, by far a career high and entirely too many tackles for a corner. You know what they say about good corners: They have low tackle totals because quarterbacks like to avoid them whenever possible. That Watkins had that many tackles was a sign that pivots felt it wasn’t so dangerous to go at him. I’d expect that after a two interception performance they’ll go back to making him feel as lonely as a kale salad on a table full of steak sandwiches.
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