First and Goal: Crossover through East possible for Esks, Lions
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Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 06/10/2010 (5820 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.
Five storylines that jumped out while observing the past week of Canadian Football League action:
1 SMALL confession to make here today, folks…
A funny thing happened while totally fixated on the Winnipeg Blue Bombers’ pursuit of a crossover playoff spot — we lost sight of the fact both the B.C. Lions and Edmonton Eskimos have come to life and, because of the recent skids of the Toronto Argonauts and Hamilton Tiger-Cats, a possible crossover through the East has now materialized.
And who would have imagined that after the Bombers’ Banjo Bowl victory a few weeks back?
Think about it for a moment: The Esks have won two straight to get to 4-9, the Lions four of their last five to improve to 5-8. Meanwhile, both the Argos and Ticats are 6-7 but freefalling.
Toronto is 1-5 in its last six; the Ticats 1-3.
Don’t rule it out just yet.
2 A question, speaking of the Eskimos — where are all the folks who were banging pots and pans together clamouring for Jared Zabransky to start over Ricky Ray earlier this season now? All Ray did on the weekend was throw for 384 yards and two TDs while running for another in Edmonton’s 37-35 victory over Hamilton on Sunday.
“I think it’s a big confidence boost because we need Ricky, we need him to feel confident and we need our football team to feel confident as we make a push for this last playoff spot,” Eskimos head coach Richie Hall told Edmonton reporters afterward.
No kidding. Ray is going to the Canadian Football Hall of Fame. We can tell you that’s a given. Zabransky?
Not quite.
3 Not quite sure what to make of the Alouettes’ recent defensive woes — they’ve given up 86 points in their last two games and were scorched for long scores in a loss to Calgary — but you can bet head coach Marc Trestman will make changes.
The Als like to bring a lot of heat from their front seven and play a ton of man coverage in the secondary. Expect that to be tinkered with going forward.
Montreal is still third best in points allowed (25.9 per game) but its pass defence is sixth (295.5) and those numbers don’t add up to a Grey Cup repeat.
4 Time to dust off an old argument yours truly has been up on a soap box proclaiming for 20 years and which was reignited this week by Toronto Argonaut boss Jim Barker.
In case you missed it, Cleo Lemon’s concussion led to the Argos dressing Burlington, Ont., native and former Queen’s star Danny Brannagan as their third-string pivot.
Barker’s push — and we’re behind it 100 per cent — is to help the CFL develop homegrown QBs by allowing a team to count a Canadian pivot as one of the 20 it must dress for each game. His idea is to have the position reserved for the third quarterback be then declared as a fourth designated import if a team is dressing a Canadian quarterback. Clearly, not every team would take advantage of this, but it would at least give Canadian QBs an option to play in their own league.
Barker, for example, told a story of his days running a football school in Calgary when a teenage QB approached him and asked to switch positions because he didn’t think he could make it in the CFL lining up behind centre.
“To have a high-school kid who has some ability come up and say, ‘Coach, I want to play pro football so maybe I need to change positions,’ is wrong,” Barker told The National Post. “It makes my skin crawl.
“The issue is one of those things that seems to always get swept under the carpet. I have brought it up, but I don’t get answers.”
That’s something that must change.
5 AND, finally, for those readers who have been asking we pass along this bit of info: CFL headquarters informs us the Bombers have their first-, third- and fourth-round draft picks in 2011 (second, fifth and sixth were traded). And, yes, if the season ended today that first-rounder would be first overall.
ed.tait@freepress.mb.ca
