Another Week in the Trenches. Als to Win 97th Grey Cup.

This was going to be a simple little post.

We were going to talk about how the Montreal Alouettes' offensive line would protect Anthony Calvillo long enough for the CFL's most outstanding player to throw five or six touchdown passes and lead the Als to a 45-10 victory over the Saskatchewan Roughriders in tomorrow's Grey Cup.

We were going to talk about the healthy Montreal defence, their almost perfect special teams, the well-designed offence of Marc Trestman and how all of that would work together to give Montreal a third straight impressive, lopsided win (48-13 over Winnipeg on Nov. 1 and 56-18 over B.C. on Nov. 22).

But then the CFL's tall foreheads and the mainstream got all stupid on us and football now takes a back seat to silliness.

1) The Canadian Football League’s 2009 mantra is this: "The Canadian Football League is our league. It's built on a tradition as proud, staged on a field as broad, and played at a pace as exciting as the country we are proud to call home."

Which is fine, except for one thing: The CFL is starting to talk once again about adding more Americans to the starting lineups and reducing the number of Canadians in the starting ratio from seven to four.

The CFL already killed its offence when it lowered the starting ratio from 11 to seven (notice how every change to make the CFL more American has destroyed scoring). Now, about 70 per cent of CFL games are duller than dishwater, over in the third quarter. Slowly but surely, all these American coaches and penny-pinching GMs who know that dime-a-dozen U.S. players are cheaper on the market than rare, super-talented Canadians, are going to run the "Canadian" out of the CFL.

In fact, if the league lowers the starting ratio again, you can take the "proud" out of the CFL's mantra. Or not. After all, you could to call it "Just another proud American minor pro football league."

Hey UFL, here we come!

2) Here’s a stat that you didn’t read in the local newspapers this year. Not surprising, of course because it's a stat that makes the hated coach of the Winnipeg Blue Bombers look good. It also tells you something about how good the Bombers offensive line turned out to be.

The Hamilton Tiger-Cats were sacked once every 15.6 passing plays in 2009. The Montreal Alouettes were sacked once every 18.3 passing plays and the Winnipeg Blue Bombers were sacked once every 22.5 passing plays. With an improved defensive secondary and a collection of great young players under contract, clearly, this Bomber team is just one quarterback away from playing in next year’s Grey Cup game in Edmonton.

3) "Tiger Woods seriously injured in auto accident."

That headline reverberated around the world yesterday as the mainstream media fell all over its collective hyperbolic ass trying to dig up dirt on a golfer.

By the end of the day, Woods had hit a fire hydrant backing out of his driveway, cut his lip (it's still unknown whether the blood was a result of the accident or a spat with the wife), went to hospital for a stitch and was home resting, while the mainstream media blamed the absurd headlines on the Florida Highway Patrol.

I sometimes get the sense that the sooner all these money-losing newspapers fold, the smarter we'll all be. People, you're reporters, not gossip-mongers. Write the truth or don't write anything at all. Get it first but get it right.

Guess all these old rules don't cut it anymore. The new rule appears to be: Make it up, some idiot will believe it.