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Official 2013 CFL Thread

Games this year in Canada will be on TSN & TSN 2 again. Hopefully, there will be full replays on their website again for those who cannot see games live or those who do not get TSN.

In the U.S., not all games will be on ESPN3 like in the past. Cable channel NBC Sports Network has 14 regular season games, the West & East Finals, and the Grey Cup. When games are on NBC Sports Network, they do not appear on ESPN3's schedule. In addition, there will be 5 games on ESPN2 in the U.S. Those are also blacked-out live but might be available on-demand afterwards.

To get you in the mood, here is TSN's Top 50 Players in the CFL.
»www.tsn.ca/cfl/story/?id=426038#
»video.tsn.ca/?dl=cfl-latest/late···clip/503

A quick look at the teams:

BC - Geroy Simon has gone to Rider Nation. Buono was strictly business in the off-season clearing out the old in favor of the new. Pretty amazing that Solomon Elimimian might primarily be a special teams player.

Edmonton - For all the criticizing of the former leadership, this group does not look much better as of now. Matt Nichols who was coming off a dislocated ankle last year already tore his ACL and gone for the year. Luckily they traded for former Lion Mike Reilly.

Calgary - Everybody thought that by now, this would be Drew Tate's team this year without question. Maybe even Kevin Glenn would be gone. However, people are now wondering if Tate is durable enough or even if he good enough to be a solid #1 CFL quarterback. Stamp's did not make many big-name changes. The only notable is the addition of Jonathan Hefney when the Bombers released him after it became known that he was being charged with marijuana in the U.S..

Saskatchewan - Can they be the 3rd host team in a row to win the Grey Cup? Big acquisition this year was George Cortez as the new offensive coordinator.

Winnipeg - I think the new stadium will calm the natives at the start of the season. Preseason means nothing, but they look bad. Pierce is still there, and he had better stay healthy if they want to prevent riots over there.

Toronto - Most of their changes came on the defense with guys like Huntley, Armstead, and Kuale gone. They did bring in Khalif Mitchell who at first was going to retire rather than report. Chad Owens was the MOP last year but also had a number of turnovers. People also forgot that Ricky Ray was nothing special for most of last year.

Hamilton - Cortez was let go because the Ti-Cats hired Kent Austin who is now in charge of everything. Offense still looks good, but Chris Williams refused to report as he wants to go to the NFL.

Montreal - Als are taking a gamble going with a rookie head coach with no professional experience at any level. Wonder how much longer Calvillo will last? Al's approach was just the opposite of the Lions. That is they signed a number of veterans including a couple (Parker and Bruce) from the Lions.

First game of the season is on Thursday. Montreal v Winnipeg at the new Investors Group Field.

Als put up 2 quick scores in the 1st half. Bombers put up 2 quick scores in the 2nd half and took the lead after being down at halftime. Game turned around when Burke decided to punt out of his own endzone after taking a time-count violation. Als were then able to score on the short field, and momentum had switched sites.

You would have thought rookie coach Hawkins would have made that mistake. Hawkins lesser error was to call a timeout when the Als were trying to run down the clock before punting. They don't waste their only timeout like that in the CFL. Besides if you do not call timeout, the clocks keeps running which is what you want.

A more serious issue for Hawkins is how he is going to protect Calvillo. Trestman and Milanovich stressed protection over everything else. During this game, there was nobody extra in the blocking scheme. Hell, the Bombers were getting to Calvillo without even blitzing.

Seeing as how I live (quite literally) between the two Southern Ontario teams, I'm really curious to see how the Argos do this year.

I think a Grey Cup hangover is quite possible simply because of the way things quite literally "fell into place" during the latter half of the season for them.

As to the Homeless Hamilton Ti-Cats (I'll leave the usual derogatory term to your imagination ) there were some sings of life last year that are encouraging, but I hope the Argos point out to them tonight (with authority) that there really is "no place like home"

NefCanuck

As usual the refs decided the game again...........missing a blatant interference call on the Alouettes late.
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Sarcasm is the body’s natural defense against stupidity.

Ti-Cats' defense last year under Casey Creehan was ridiculous. It seemed like almost every offensive player of the week came from the team that had just played against Hamilton. They were among the worst defenses in the history of the CFL for a single season. So, I am thinking the Ti-Cats on defense cannot possibly be worse than last year.

Chris Williams is a big loss though. Samuel Giguere will need to step-it-up to fill the void. Last year for the most part, you pretty much did not realize that Giguere was even there.

Crazy one in game 1. The already weak looking Ti-Cat defense had to make an adjustment after Dee Webb gets injured. On the other side, Swayze Waters gets hurt in the 2nd half so the Argos have to use backup kickers. Spencer Watt had to kick the extra point after he caught a touchdown pass from Ricky Ray. Ti-Cats at one point had the Argos forced to go for it on 3rd and 5 because of Waters' injury. You would think the Ti-Cats could have stopped the Argos. Nope. Argos scored a touchdown on that play.

Game came down to the last play when Fantuz could not pull in a throw by Burris in the endzone. On the previous play, C.J. Gable dropped a screen pass in which the blocking scheme was set to give him an open lane to the endzone.

Game 2 was nowhere near as exciting. A couple bad snaps and botched point after touchdown field goal attempt allowed the Stamps to get a big lead early. Stamps prety much coasted from there. Lions didn't seem to wake up until the 2nd half. That is why the final score made it appear that the game was better than it actually was.

I have a hell of a time every year transitioning from hockey to football.

Start....stop....wait....start....stop....wait and the last 5 minutes of
every game takes 20+ minutes to play.

October can't come fast enough.

FaxCap

Lions get clobbered 44-32 by the Stamps...........although the Stamps definitely had more motivation.
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Sarcasm is the body’s natural defense against stupidity.

CFL Football is actually pretty good. Watched bits and pieces of the Argos/TiCats -- I thought it was good quality.

So when does Ottawa gets its team, is that 2014?

Nice to see Calgary get their game done.
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If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it well enough. - Albert Einstein

When teams wanted to kill time years ago, they would just take the penalty and go back 5 yards. Nowadays they call timeout with 1 second on the play clock. Even if you snap the ball with a second or two left, the clock runs. The time the ball is snapped, the time it takes to punt, and the time until the receiver touches the ball are seconds that you are giving away for free when you call a timeout.

As far as Calvillo goes, he is the best the Als have. They will have zero chance if he is not the primary quarterback. If they had somebody better than Calvillo, then I would agree that a change is needed. I just do not think they have that. Some people thought Adrian McPherson would be next in line, but he just was not a CFL starting quarterback. He is now in the Arena League.

That Ti-Cat v Argo game was by far the most entertaining of the contest all weekend. If you had watched the Riders v Eskimos game, you might have had a different opinion of the league.

The Ottawa REDBLACKS start next year. Notice the all capitals in the name REDBLACKS? For reasons unknown, that is how the team wants the public to write their name.

Stinkeraroo today if you wanted to see a competitive game. Eskimo's offense is still a work in progress. Rey Williams' pick on Reilly for a touchdown on the last play of the 1st half decided the outcome. Only things notable in the game was when Dwight Anderson had 2 consecutive misconduct penalites within seconds and when Diamond Ferri after an interception ran into the brickwall named Matthew O'Donnell.

Watched the Argos - TiCats game and it looked like both defenses didn't get the memo that the season had started

Losing their kicker should have been the Argos death knell but as usual the TiCats couldn't take advantage of an opportunity handed them on a silver platter.

Hope the ragos can find a new kicker fast, Waters is probably out at least a month, if not more... that looked so painful

NefCanuck

Argos signed Pre right before the start of the season. That means he will take Waters' place for the next couple of weeks.

Anybody here feel offended because there were no CFL games on Canada Day? Sometimes things happen, and there are scheduling issues that make it not possible. However, this Thursday is Independence Day/July 4th which is a national holiday in the United States. On that day, there will be 2 CFL games played that day including one televised on ESPN2.

So Canada Day = 0 CFL games. 4th of July = 2 CFL games. I am guessing that something happened where the league could not work it out so there would be doubleheaders on both days. Either that or the league selected one date for a doubleheader over the other.

In game 1, the Bombers' defense just kicked the Als' offense asses. Bombers could have turned the ball over a gazillion times, and the Als still would not have been able to win the game. For most of the game, the most interesting proposition was which number would end up being higher: the number of Bomber turnovers or the number of Als points.

Game 2 was a little better in that the Argo's offense was not completely ineffective. Big difference from last week is that the Lions on offense moved the ball relatively easily. Could be a costly win if Shawn Gore and/or Adam Bighill are unable to play again soon.

Hmmm. My post about the 2 games yesterday never appeared. No big deal as they were both one-sided anyway.

Tonight's game was a great one for exactly one half. Then the Riders outscored the Stamps 22-0. Durant did almost everything right. Tate barely put up any numbers at all in the 2nd half and left the game late with ice wrapped around his forearm. Maybe that is part of the reason why the Stamps did not score in the 2nd half. I expect questions about Tate's durability to be a topic of discussion once again.

After being booed by their own home crowd last week, the Eskimos surprising gets a road victory against Hamilton. Okay, maybe the Ti-Cats were their own worse enemy in the 1st quarter where everything they tried went wrong. Maybe where they were playing cannot be considered as giving the Ti-Cats a home-field advantage. And maybe injuries and poor weather conditions hampered the Hamilton offense. Still, it was good to Eskimos bounce back from that poor showing last week.

Wonder if Hugh Charles will be Offense Player of the Week? Ricky Ray won it last week playing against the Ti-Cats.

Rider Nation domination tonight. Offensive line create running lanes all night & gave Durant plenty of time to throw the ball. Even though Rick Ray had good numbers early, the Rider defensive line began frustrating Ray as the game progressed. Argos likewise could not not get their running game going at all.

It is still early, but we know who top-dog right now. Only potential negative tonight was that Durant left the game with an ankle injury.

Yeah Argos looked disorganized and flat especially on defense.

Grey Cup hangover anyone?

NefCanuck

Argos were 7-9 last year and then won their last 5 to win the Grey Cup. Meaning until the very end, they were nothing out of the ordinary.

After watching last night's game, I realized who is the best right now in the CFL. After watching tonight's game, I realized the Als are the worst team in the league. Seven points on offense in a CFL game? At home, no less. That means they were not even good enough to get into field goal range and get 3 points or even a single. It also looks like the Offensive Coordinator still has not figured out how to protect Calvillo. If the Stamps had Tate and Price in the lineup, the Als might not have been able to keep the game within reach.

Battle of sacking the quarterback in game 1. Bombers had 7 sacks. Ti-Cats had 6. Even though Burris was sacked so many times, he is still versatile enough at his age. That is, he can still still scramble, run or do whatever needed to keep the chains moving. His play was even more impressive considering the Ti-Cats were missing a couple receivers including Fantuz.

Same thing can be said about Lulay in game 2. First half for both teams was just trying not to mess up in the rain. In the 2nd half, Lulay took control with his running & scrambling. Of course all the Lions needed was anything more than 3 points as the Eskimos could not move the ball at all in the wet weather and playing without Fred Stamps.

That's ugly football in that weather..........makes for weird games.
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Sarcasm is the body's natural defense against stupidity.

Heavy rain just followed the Eskimos the last 2 weeks. It cannot happen for a 3rd week in a row, right?

Here is the Kavis Reed video where everybody either says he goes off on a rant or is having a meltdown. I actually do not think it is that bad. Guy actually is speaking relatively calmly in my opinion.

Ricky Ray and the Toronto offensive coaching staff schooled the Bomber defense tonight. Ray was almost perfect while in there. Then Ray hurts his knee. Pierce also gets knocked out. Even Kackert is injured. That means the game was decided midway through the 3rd quarter.

Als had a 24-0 lead............now 35-27 for the Stamps.