YOUR MORTGAGE NOW: ETCH’S & O’S

BY: GARY ETCHEVERRY
For www.yourmortgagenow.ca

“They are who we thought they were!”

Regardless of who thought what, with two games remaining for all eight CFL teams, anyone would be hard-pressed to make a case for the B.C. Lions or the Edmonton Eskimos having improved over last season’s efforts.

The Lions at 13-5 had the league’s best record in 2012.  For its part, Edmonton finished just one game behind the Riders, for fourth spot in the four team West Division at 7-11.  The Eskimos did, however, qualify for a playoff spot, crossing over and competing in the East Semifinals in Toronto.

B.C. earned a first-round bye last year, but was defeated by Calgary in the West Final.  But now with a 9-7 record, freshly having been sat on the back of their lap by the Riders last Saturday night, and a three-game losing streak, the Lions look to possibly be the league’s weakest playoff entrant.

Edmonton is now 3-13, has a longer losing streak than B.C. at four, and only seems to be winning press conferences these days.  Changes are more than likely on the horizon.

And what about the East?  Worse!

Right there with the Eskimos at 3-13, the Winnipeg Blue Bombers were at least trending upward at the end of 2012, and finished last season at 6-12 (same record as Hamilton last year; both teams watched the playoffs from home).

But there was some light at the end of the pipe for the Bombers last season.  They were trending upward offensively with Gary Crowton’s “U.S.-style” offense, as interim head coach Tim Burke confidently pranced the Winnipeg sidelines having the interim title dropped before the new year.

Now it’s a tire fire at the junk yard at midnight in the summer.

Since Crowton was fired, the Bomber offence continues to regress, scoring fewer touchdowns.  And as recently as this week’s pregame radio show, offensive coordinator Marcell Bellefeuille continues to talk about implementation of “CFL-offensive concepts.”  Are you kidding me?

(Hate to break it to you here AGAIN folks, but two things:  First of all, “CFL-style offenses” are inconsistent at best with regard to scoring touchdowns.  Not to mention QB’s are commonly knocked out of games, if not seasons, because pivot protection is NOT a priority and turnovers are viewed as a cost-of-doing-business;  Secondly, former Montreal, now Chicago Bears head coach Marc Trestman has been quoted — on the record — that there was NO integration of the CFL game when he arrived in 2008, and he has taken NOTHING schematically with him back to the NFL.  He has said he simply brought his offence to Canada and added a 12th man)

That being said, he — more than any other system immediately before or since — prioritized the -protection of the QB position, produced by far FEWER interceptions than the other seven CFL teams, and threw mostly short, high-percentage, low risk passes.  His philosophy is SOMEWHAT followed by both the philosophies of John Hufnagel, in Calgary, and George Cortez, in Regina.

And then there are Toronto head coach Scott Milanovich, who spent four seasons with Trestman in Montreal, and Marcus Brady, rookie offensive coordinator with the Argos this year, who replaced Milanovich for the Alouettes in Trestman’s final 2012 season.  Therefore Toronto, offensively, is most Trestman-like.  BUT, to be sure, NOT Trestman!)

Whew!  Let me take a sip of a cool beverage…

Okay, where were we?  Oh, that’s right, continuing with the East Division.  Well, Toronto was 9-9 in the regular season last year — no great shakes.  The Argos point to a 31-26 game 17 defeat of Saskatchewan on Taylor Field as their spark.  (By the way, the week before Toronto was defeated at home 44-32 by those improving Blue Bombers!)

After that the Argos went 4-0 (5-0 when counting the Rider win), including a 35-22 defeat of the Calgary Stampeders in the Rogers Centre in T.O., in the 100th Grey Cup Championship.  A story-book ending.

Toronto, yes, is currently 10-6, but precariously atop the unbelievably weak East.  Maybe it would require a high dollar attorney (we don’t think so), but a case can be made that this team is now slightly better than competitive due to the lack of sound competition, not because of any kind of magical chemistry the likes of what they discovered late last year.

That brings us to POSSIBLY the last of the oil spills.  Is there any argument that the Alouettes in Montreal are weaker than they were last season?  Although the Argos prevailed, the Als finished the regular season two games better, with an 11-7 record.  They are now 7-9, and can do no better than finishing .500 this year.

Want a case-closer?  They are without QB Anthony Calvillo and head coach Marc Trestman.  Along with division-mate Winnipeg, Montreal is either 6th, 7th, or 8th — at or near the bottom — of most every meaningful offensive statistical category.  It leads the league at 25 in interceptions, when under Trestman, Calvillo was routinely at-or-below 10!

The only saving grace for the Alouettes is their defence.  As stated here before, it is by far the most dominant unit (offence, defence, OR special teams) of any in the CFL this year, and they have played so throughout the chaos that has characterized this tumultuous, in many ways, non-sensical Montreal season.  The Als defence can make the difference in any game.

So that leaves us with the Stamps, the Riders, and the Tiger-Cats…

“They were (ARE) who we thought they were???”

CALGARY 27  AT  EDMONTON 13

Let’s start this off correctly and give Stamps QB Kevin Glenn his due:  He moved into 10th place on the CFL’s all-time passing list, skipping over Tom Clements.  More importantly, Glenn is a class act, and has competed for at least half of the CFL’s eight teams (Saskatchewan, Winnipeg, Hamilton, and now Calgary), and has done it as obscurely as a quarterback can.

He has the respect of virtually everyone that has competed against him, coached him, and played with him.

And we realize this is supposed to be a recap of last week’s opponent, the Edmonton Eskimos, but a much more interesting consideration is next Saturday night’s tilt when Glenn’s Stamps host the Riders for all the marbles leading into the playoffs.

He has emerged as his team’s clear-cut starter, and he has everything his team needs from him.  In many ways, this Calgary team is like Kevin Glenn.  It has just the right amount of that “it” stuff.

Just enough toughness.  Just enough skill.  Just enough arrogance.  Just enough perseverance.  And just enough talent.  Just enough of that “it-factor.”

Both the Riders and Kevin Glenn and his Calgary club have earned this faceoff.  It’s gonna take place at McMahon Stadium, where for Saskatchewan it will be like a home game.  And that too is the way it’s supposed to be.

CAN’T WAIT!!!…

Oh, ya, Edmonton hosted the Stamps in the third of three “Battle of Alberta” games on Friday night, kicking off this past weekend’s games.

No surprise, when factoring in the plight of these two clubs, that Calgary swept the Esks 3-0 taking the season series.  It was not a dominant performance by the Stampeders.  It was not a terrible, ugly performance by Edmonton, either.

It just ended up the way it was supposed to.  The better team before and after won, and the team that played best on this day won.  The Stampeders, currently the best team in the CFL.

Glenn was 16 of 26 passing for 237-yards and a TD.  Calgary receiver Marquay McDaniel, who like Glenn is a below the radar star, was Kevin’s favourite target catching four passes for 77-yards and the major.

Stamps RB Jon Cornish had 19-carries for 145-yards.

Rising Eskimo star, QB Mike Reilly was 18 of 34 for 247-yards, 1 TD and 1 INT.  Reilly added 43-yards on 7 carries/scrambles.

Edmonton is marking time.  There will be change in Eskimo-land.  Not many people, if anyone, know how pervasive the change will be, but there most definitely needs to be change.  Not much of anything is working over a sustained period of time.

This game actually turned on a botched “rugby” punt that looked like a typical coaching error.  Something that had probably never been attempted by the particulars in a game recently, and not rehearsed enough, but at some point in time it seemed like a good idea

And Calgary is gearing up.  Gearing up for its game this weekend against Saskatchewan.  Gearing up for the season finale in Vancouver, the second part of an East-West Friday night clash against the hobbled Lions.  Gearing up for a Stamps playoff run.

…And Kevin Glenn is a significant part of what the CFL should be all about.  I’d bet he’s a super teammate.

TORONTO 26  AT  WINNIPEG 20

We figure by the time you read these musings, you’ve already seen and/or heard umpteen game stories.  Hell, the game was played 48 to 72 hours ago!  The attempt here is to give you something you’re not gonna get anywhere else.  A coach’s view.  But not just any coach’s view, these are ETCH’s & O’s!  As Ken Miller said, “no one else looks at the game the way you do.”

The real trick is getting all this crazy stuff onto paper…  Wait, it’s not paper anymore.  Pixel’s?  Out onto the old ww-email…

This was the least interesting game of the weekend, with a notable aspect as an exception.  We’ll get to that in a bit.

Even though the score was close, with the lowest number of points by the winning side this weekend, and the most points by the losing team, who doesn’t believe this Blue Bomber team, the organization, is a lost cause?

The CEO, known for rolling-up his sleeves,  the acting-GM who sounds like he wants to distance himself from the results on the field, the most unproductive offense in the midst of an eight team league dominated by unproductive offenses,  a defence too that has regressed, maybe because the head coach, who had consistently experienced solid results as a defensive coordinator has now chewed less than he has bitten off, or doesn’t have the right support???

Who knows?  But how this club will do anything less than put a pair of cement shoes on this whole thing and start over beats me.  When acting-CEO Wade Miller said something like he relished the opportunity to be evaluated by the results, did he mean this year?

As we head into the playoffs, these 10-6, East Division-leading Argos are much more interesting.

Normally when you say “slyly,” it’s a complement.

Here’s what we see from this corner:  the Argos are slyly running the ball less than any other team in the league.  They have almost totally, and slyly, abandoned key aspects of their defence that were largely credited for last season’s Grey Cup win, and important victories leading up to it.

And — not counting when he was at-best an apprentice with the TITLE of offensive coordinator under Marc Trestman — rookie offensive coordinator Marcus Brady for Toronto has slyly taken more control of the Argo offence.  Also, prior to barely hanging on to defeat the Bombers, Toronto had slyly lost its previous two.

In all these observations, “slyly” is not being used as a complement.  It’s being used as sarcasm — what some call the lowest form of humour.  These are all being viewed as significant mistakes.

Now, to be sure, anything’s possible in this especially weak, or average 2013 season.  But positive results will more than likely be in spite of the “plan(s),” not because of it, if our read is correct.

Toronto’s biggest advantage is that QB Ricky Ray is back.  Although he has thrown an INT in each of his two games upon his return, overall this Brady/head coach Scott Milanovich offensive machination seems to agree with Ray.

His completion percentage has been remarkably above 70% virtually every game he has played.  And as mentioned before, he rarely has thrown…  no wait …  he has only thrown two interceptions.  (Before his injury he had thrown none this season.)

Toronto is on schedule to remain atop the East into the playoffs.  And this victory marked the team’s seventh (7-2) road win, impressive in any league.  But they also know they are nowhere near that magic they had at this time last year.

At home against these same Bombers in two days, and then Toronto hosts the Als in the first of the season’s final Friday night doubleheader.  Remember, we think that within the context of any season, the next game’s slightly more important than the last.

HAMILTON 5  at  MONTREAL 36

This was a beatdown of the magnitude that this score indicates, maybe worse.

“They are who we thought they were!”

This was also a coming out party for Montreal QB Troy Smith.  It might have been middle school the last time he will have played before the size of crowd he will see at Guelph this next Saturday.  But Hamilton might just have let “Jack out of the Box” with their failed game-plan defensively against Smith.

Offensively the Tiger-Cats gave the ball to RB C.J. Gable in the running game three times for zero yards in the first half, with a “long” of two.  Therefore, going into the second half trailing 31-3, he got exactly zero touches in the running game after the intermission, where Hamilton “earned” two points in half two by virtue of a conceded safety by Montreal.

Quarterbacks Henry Burris (11 of 23, 105-yards, 1 INT) and Dan Lefevour (10 of 16, 98-yards, and 5 rushes for 50-yards) combined for not much.

Here’s the really bad news for Tiger-Cat backers:  Your offence really doesn’t have an answer for Montreal’s attack, no matter where the game will be played.  Hamilton’s only hope is that the Alouette defence simply doesn’t deploy as much pressure this coming weekend as they did on Sunday.  Stranger things in this crazy CFL have happened before, but it’s not much of a “plan” from the Ti-Cat perspective.

On a halftime interview segment, Hamilton owner Bob Young said “I know we have the best coaching staff in the CFL.”  He may get some disagreement on that observation.

Head coach Kent Austin’s luck just may have run out.  (Trestman’s departure from Montreal; the ensuing demise there;  Winnipeg’s downward spiral;  the fortune of playing the Bombers four times this season; inheriting the sturdy, ageless Burris, to name a few)

This was about Montreal’s Troy Smith, and especially his defence.

Smith was a below-50% albeit efficient, 17 of 35 for 247-yards passing, but connected on three majors to an always talented Als receiving crew.  Montreal RB Tyrell Sutton had 13 carries for 84 yards and a TD.  He also caught four passes from Smith for 37-yards.

But the swarming, attack-style defence by the Alouettes was way too much for Hamilton to deal with.  The “margin-for-error” for the Ti-Cat offence was almost non-existent.   And much of it was an illusion.

Only Montreal QB Anthony Calvillo, who will not play the rest of the season, and who has not played since about week six, has more experience versus this type of defence than Burris.  So with the plan that Austin has put together for his pivot thus far, why are we to believe the result will be precipitously different?

In part of his pre-game dialogue, as televised by TSN, Austin said to his team, “…take the game to them, let them match our intensity, let them match our preparation, let them match our aggressiveness, …”  It appeared that Montreal far outmatched Hamilton’s preparation.  It looks like “HOPE Investments” from this angle.

Maybe Troy Smith will bone up on “CFL-style” concepts this week, and throw a bunch of picks to the Ti-Cats in Guelph on Saturday afternoon?  Ya, that’s the ticket!

There could be a return to Montreal on Sunday, November 10, for the East Division Semi-Finals, as the Argos observe.

B.C. 14  AT  SASKATCHEWAN 35

If there was a pre-playoff game this late 2013 season, this was it.  One problem: only the Riders played like it.

The only real disconcerting part was the early-game, late-season sloppiness.

But aside from that, with the benefit of hindsight, which is usually pretty accurate, this one played out the way most would guess.  Certainly the way most wanted.

B.C.’s offence is preoccupied with style and panache.  On this night it had none of either.

Although they reportedly spend considerable time rehearsing the running game, the Lions deploy it only when it gets big returns, early in games, and sometimes not even then.

On the flipside, their defensive system thinks all that is needed to negate an opponent rushing attack is four large, accomplished defensive linemen.  All of the “genius” is left to address the opponent passing game with a fundamentally umbrella system, outnumbering receivers with cover-defenders, and hoping the rush-component puts enough pressure on the QB.

Sometimes it works.  Not usually, however, when paired with its anchor of an offensive system that commonly under-performs, and when facing a committed running game.

That’s what happened on a damp Taylor Field Saturday night.

All the Rider offence needed to do was get out of its own way — which was a challenge early on — and get on with the task of allowing for a workman-like effort.

We won’t let you forget here that BOTH offenses produced only a pair of majors apiece.  Ignore that fact at your own peril.  Or, otherwise stated:  “just sayin’.”

Not a concern at all for Saskatchewan if it can bank on a performance from its defence like it received.

Before this game, and before Sunday’s Ti-Cat at Montreal contest (not really a contest), we here felt that the Riders and Hamilton were almost mirror images of one another.  Advantage Tiger-Cats, because of the much weaker East Division.

Both teams had the pivots that had endured for most of the season, while “all about them were losing theirs.”  Both teams benefited from the luck of the draw, playing the weakest team in the division four times.  (Both lead the series 3-0, and are scheduled to play that team in game 18, the regular season finale.)

But on this night for Saskatchewan it might have all changed.  The Rider defence was more dominant than it had been all year, and versus a quality opponent.  (There are no quality opponents in the East Division.)  And the Sask running-attack is leaps-and-bounds better than anything the Ti-Cats can muster.

Hamilton has a real talent in first year star RB C.J. Gable, but that’s where it begins and ends for comparisons.

The Riders have arguably the most-talented Korey Sheets, commitment, and the scheme.  As a result, Sheets carried 25 times for 148-yards, and a TD.  By comparison, the Lions RBs, newly imported Stevan Logan and Andrew Harris, combined for 15 carries and just 80 yards.

No, this evening was about the Rider defence.  They picked off B.C. QB Thomas DeMarco four times.  In concert with the 34,000-plus fans, that sounded like three-times that size, the Riders absolutely suffocated the Lion offence.

Saskatchewan’s defence registered eight turnovers, and a touchdown of its own.  That’s right, EIGHT turnovers!

Momentum is HUGE at anytime.  Especially at the end of the season.

Only the players in the locker room know about the chemistry they are creating.  If that is where it needs to be.  If the offence can regain its early-season productive ways.  And if the defence can continue on its present path…