Tag Archives: Doug Berry

Bombers drilled by lousy Roughriders and Winnipeg is rewarded with its first sellout of the season.

Posted on August 31, 2008 by Scott Taylor| Comments Off

The Winnipeg Blue Bombers and Saskatchewan Roughriders proved beyond all doubt on Sunday afternoon that neither team has much of an offence. The Riders beat Winnipeg 19-6 in a dreadful football game at Mosaic Stadium, but give the Riders credit. At least all their receivers are on the DL. Winnipeg was just awful — and badly coached.

 

With the loss, the Bombers dropped to 2-7 on the season. Truly astounding when one considers that earlier in the afternoon, the Bombers announced they had sold out the Canwest Banjo Bowl this coming Sunday afternoon at Canad Inns Stadium.

 

Gotta give Winnipeggers credit, they certainly embrace second- or even third-best. 

 

In most cities, football fans would tell the operators of a lousy home team to shape up by refusing to buy tickets. When you’re 2-7 in most towns, you tell the team’s management you’ll come back when either they get their act together or they get themselves fired. Not in Winnipeg. Winnipeg fans are like Leafs fans. The more you disappoint us, the faster we buy tickets. In Winnipeg, drop to 2-7 and we’ll give you everything you want. If you’re the smiling proprietors, it’s sure a nice deal because it cuts down on any urgent need to fix the mess.

 

Sunday afternoon, the Bombers took everything they learned in last week’s 37-24 win over Hamilton and abandoned it. All of it. They stopped giving Charles Roberts the football and as a result, they had nothing else. The passing game was decent, not great, but decent, but without a running game, they couldn’t create a sustained offensive attack. Glenn went 28-for-42 for 269 yards, no touchdowns and two interceptions (the final one IN the end zone), but Roberts carried the ball only 13 times for 48 yards and if he doesn’t see the ball 20 times a game, the Bombers have no chance. No chance at all. That’s just stupid. 

 

When a team puts up only two field goals in the wide open CFL, that’s a bad team. When a team doesn’t use its most important weapon, the coach should get a pink slip. Even if you’ve decided to allow the quarterback to call his own plays, you could still remind him every now and again that No. 1 is in the lineup.

 

Meanwhile, Saskatchewan wasn’t very good on offence, either. Michael Bishop, in his first game with the Riders, was a downright rotten 10-for-24 for 107 yards, no touchdowns and one interception. That’s just horrid. Without the two Glenn interceptions along with fumbles by Charles Roberts and Kevin Glenn, Saskatchewan would have been lucky to score enough points to win. 

 

Winnipeg notched a field goal in the first quarter and another in the fourth quarter and that was it. In the world of real professional football, Roberts would have been given the ball on nearly every play. That’s because Roberts went into the game needing 61 yards to reach the 10,000-yard plateau. In Winnipeg, the coaches don’t care about such nonsense. In Winnipeg, losing big and losing ugly is more important than, well, giving the ball to the greatest runningback in franchise history and, ahh, winning.

 

OK, OK, I’m kidding. But this Winnipeg team couldn’t get Roberts enough touches to gain 61 yards. No wonder they’re looking at Timmy Chang, who failed miserably in Hamilton, as a fourth quarterback.

 

On the upside, with the CFL East as awful as it is, the 2-7 Bombers are still in the playoff hunt so no wonder they sold out the Banjo Bowl.

 

Or did they just sell 10,000 tickets in Regina?

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What we learned from Week 9: Nothing that we didn’t already know.

Posted on August 23, 2008 by Scott Taylor| Comments Off

I don’t boast when going 2-0. I have been at this gambling thing long enough to know that if you go 2-0 one week, it’s likely you’ll go 0-2 the next. So unlike those gambling tip sites out there, the ones that go through an NFL season at around .500 and scream about how brilliant they are, we won’t brag here just because we had a good week.

 

Besides, the two outcomes in the CFL West in Week 9 were semi-obvious.

 

Edmonton, a healthy club with a great quarterback and a decent defence, had an easy time with a Saskatchewan team that still had 16 starters on injured reserve. The Eskimos were at home, too, and in a game that had a chance to be close (even though, in the end, it wasn’t), homefield is still important.

 

Yeah, yeah, I know, I said throw out all the theories this week, but in games in which the teams (even with one badly injured team) are solidly matched, home cooking will have an affect on the outcome.

 

We picked Edmonton to win easily on Thursday and the Eskies won 27-10. No surprise. Nothing new.

 

Meanwhile, on Friday night, in a game in which we thought Calgary would win by two touchdowns, the Stamps won their second straight road game, this time 36-29 in B.C.

 

B.C. played better than I expected (especially the defence) while Calgary wasn’t as good as I thought. Still the Stamps won a road game by seven points and that’s significant.      

 

Granted, it was the first time the Stamps have won in Vancouver since Aug. 1, 2002 and they did have to put together their winning drive with just six minutes left, but all in all, Calgary has a team that will contend for the Grey Cup — and they won on Friday in front of 34,000 hostile fans.

 

Stamps quarterback Henry (Brain Fart) Burris hit Brett Ralph with a five-yard TD throw with less than three minutes in reg. and then, to their credit, the Stamps defence didn’t choke again — like they did in Winnipeg last month. In fact, former Bomber Wes Lysack picked off a Buck Pierce pass with less than a minute to play to save the game for Brain Fart and the rest of the Calgary cowboys.

 

The Stamps are now tied with Edmonton at 5-3 (just two points back of first place Saskatchewan) and the two teams will play back-to-back games starting on Labour Day at McMahon Stadium. 

 

I like the Stamps to win two straight and by the seventh of September they’ll be tied with the Roughriders, a team that will be lucky to split with Winnipeg. The Bombers have new life since Kevin Glenn was returned to the starting QB’s position and then allowed to call his own plays by his screaming, out-of-control, apoplectic coach. In fact, with Glenn running the offence, it gives Doug Berry more time to yell at his kicker.

 

Yeah, that should make the Bombers a threat in the East. Swear some more, Doug.

 

In the meantime, if Brain Fart Burris ever plays an entire 60 minutes up to his physical and mental capabilities, there is no telling how many points he’ll put up. Burris has the most talent among quarterbacks in the CFL. It’s just that he always does something stupid (or a series of stupid things) to keep opponents in games. 

 

One of these days, he’s going to be flawless — and that day will be scary.

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The CFL’s finished with the first eight weeks. So what do we know?

Posted on August 16, 2008 by Scott Taylor| 1 Comment

Here’s what we learned after Week 8 in the Canadian Football League:

 

1. The Winnipeg Blue Bombers should probably fire head coach Doug Berry right now (And yeah, despite Thursday night’s win).

 

2. The Hamilton Tiger-Cats are a sad football team.

 

3. The Toronto Argonauts are sadder and it’s probably time to replace Rich Stubler as head coach.

 

4. Barring injury, the Montreal Alouettes should cruise to the Grey Cup.

 

And… 

 

5. Could we change the rule and have three Eastern Conference teams eliminated from the post-season? You could always give the Vanier Cup champs the final spot. No?

 

Let’s take a deeper look at our five Eastern issues…

 

1. On Thursday night at Winnipeg’s Canad Inns Stadium, the Winnipeg Blue Bombers drilled the sad-sack Hamilton Tiger-Cats 37-24. Everything Doug Berry told Blue Bombers’ fans for the first seven weeks of the season was a lie and it’s time Berry was removed as head coach. Nothing he believes in works and the things he was being told by frustrated fans and bloggers for the first seven weeks of the season all turned out to be so obviously true that it’s impossible to imagine that this guy really has any idea what he’s doing. On Thursday night, with a 1-6 record going in, Berry threw out his entire philosophy, made Kevin Glenn his No. 1 quarterback again and told Glenn to call his own plays. Glenn immediately started giving the ball to runningback Charles Roberts — who had been ignored by Berry and offensive co-ordinator Kit Cartwright all year — and Roberts carried 23 times for 145 yards and two touchdowns and caught seven passes for 37 more yards. In the meantime, Berry continued to scream at, swear at and embarrass professional athletes on national TV. His dressing-down, in front of the cameras, of Jason Nugent after a marginal blocking-from-behind call on a punt return was an outrage. Meanwhile, the release of kicker/punter Troy Westwood is now, officially, the dumbest thing Berry has ever done. Berry’s replacement for Westwood, Alexis Serna, is now 16-for-26 in field goals (61 per cent) and is dead last in net punting yards with 33. The Bomber players proved on Thursday night that they can run this team without a coach. The Bombers have 17 days before they play again. A smart owner would have a new coach in 17 days. 

 

2.  Doug Berry’s destruction of the Winnipeg Blue Bombers is one thing. The incredible ineptness of the Hamilton Tiger-Cats is another thing altogether. Thursday night in Winnipeg, when the game was on the line, Hamilton pissed it away — a fumble, an interception return for a touchdown by Winnipeg’s Tom Canada, and a loss of ball on downs. The Tiger-Cats did a lot of good things for three quarters, but when it mattered, this team disappeared. Speaking of disappearing, whatever happened to that guy who doesn’t like to be called fragile? You know the guy. What’s his name? Lumsden, right? Great football player, never healthy enough to play.

 

3. So who to blame in Toronto? Is it head coach Rich Stubler for running a horrible offence and creating a quarterback controversy that nobody needs? Or is president Michael Clemons and his lieutenants for actually believing that acquiring Kerry Joseph was a smart thing to do? Joseph proved in last year’s Grey Cup win (an unimpressive 23-19 victory over a mediocre Winnipeg team that was very lucky to be there), that he was done. And still, the Argos made a deal to get him from Saskatchewan, pay him $450,000 a year and anoint him the starter. However, when you get blitzed 32-14 in your own building, fall to 3-5 on the season and have to relieve your $450,000 quarterback, you’re screwed up. Blame Clemons. And then make him coach the mess he’s created.

 

4. Calvillo! There is not much more you can say about this year’s first-half most outstanding player. On Friday night in Toronto, quarterback Anthony Calvillo of the Montreal Alouettes completed 27 of 41 passes for 379 yards, three touchdowns and no interceptions. Calvillo, who turns 36 next week, now has a 109.4 passer’s rating with 20 touchdown passes and only five interceptions. He’s completed 67.8 per cent of pass attempts. The Als are now 5-3 on the season and 5-0 within the conference. There’s your most outstanding player.

 

5. As they head into the bye week, the Eastern teams look like this: Montreal, 5-3, Toronto 3-5, Hamilton 2-6, Winnipeg 2-6. Only Montreal deserves to be in the playoffs. Toronto is simply dreadful, Hamilton makes too many mistakes and Winnipeg is badly coached. Oh yeah, and for those Bomber fans who think the team has turned the season around, consider this: With 10 games left, the Bombers, who are 0-3 on the road this season, play six of the final 10 in somebody else’s house. They have 6-1 Saskatchewan back-to-back, home-and-away, and have to go into Calgary and Edmonton. They also play a game each in Montreal, Toronto and Hamilton. They get Saskatchewan, Edmonton, Toronto and Hamilton at home. If they play well, it’s likely they go no better than 5-5 down the stretch and, yet, in the East, 7-11 might make the playoffs. Gawd, Montreal is the only Eastern team that should be allowed in the post-season.

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Time for a major overhaul for Winnipeg’s beloved CFL franchise.

Posted on August 11, 2008 by Scott Taylor| Comments Off

Even the most rabid Winnipeg Blue Bomber fans are starting to think there might be a problem with their beloved football team.

 

This past week, as the Bombers prepared for Friday night’s home game against the Montreal Alouettes, head coach Doug Berry talked about the fact that at 1-5, his team still had a chance in the Eastern Conference playoff hunt. 

 

The latest Bomber cheer from that randy Blue Lightning outfit was a hearty, “Still alive at 1-5!”

 

Little did Berry know at the time that the only thing that was still alive was The Curse of Troy Westwood.

 

Friday night, the Bombers were drilled 39-11 by the Als at Winnipeg’s 54-year-old Canad Inns Stadium and for Berry, the story was getting as old as the ball yard.

 

A team that went to the 2007 Grey Cup game was suddenly 1-6 and the head coach had pretty much run out of answers. In the post-game interview Berry was so flustered, he blamed his field goal kicker, Alexis Serna, for the loss. The coach had just watched his team lose by four touchdowns and when it was over, all he had in his quiver was an arrow for a kid who made a field goal from 27 yards and missed once from 40 and twice from 49.

 

But while Berry continues to blame everyone but himself, he’s now in a heap of trouble.

 

Refusing to use his all-Canadian runningback Charles Roberts to any great extent, the Bombers had virtually no ground game – again. Roberts carried a mere 11 times for 61 yards, but as Hamilton, Montreal, Calgary and Saskatchewan proved this week, if you run the football in the CFL, you’ll control the clock and you’ll have a chance to win games.

 

Meanwhile, by replacing quarterback Ryan Dinwiddie with original starter, Kevin Glenn, late in Friday’s game, Berry opened the door to a distracting quarterback controversy. Coming off the bench, Glenn put up Winnipeg’s only touchdown on Friday and until the Bombers win again, River City will talk about little else than who should play quarterback for the Bombers.

 

Then there is the shaky defensive secondary. Berry and his GM Brendan Taman, didn’t re-sign safety Kyries Hebert (he jumped to the NFL) and cornerback Juran Bolden (he was released) and they’ve paid dearly for the loss of their two biggest, fastest, hardest hitters.

 

And, just in case all that wasn’t enough, there is the bad karma that’s wafting through a stadium that just might be in the final months of its existence. From the day Berry publicly humiliated 17-year veteran Troy Westwood, the Bombers’ karma (chemistry, for those who believe in such things) has been lost. Worse yet, Berry has also lost his locker room — despite what the players like to say publicly.

 

Meanwhile, the coach’s hand-picked successor to Westwood, young Alexis Serna is a mess. But, then again, putting Serna in that situation wasn’t fair either. Serna should be the kicker, not the punter, but he’s now 14-for-22 (63 per cent) in field goals and is dead last in punting at 32 yards net. It’s apparent the kid has lost his confidence so, on Saturday, Berry added Warren Kean, an Edmonton Eskimos cut, to the practice roster. That should save the season.

 

Although Berry said on Saturday that he just might let his quarterback, Kevin Glenn — again! — call his own plays against Hamilton this Thursday night, here in 1-6 country, it might be time to make some changes that are substantive. And perhaps this time, CEO Lyle Bauer, might want to orchestrate those changes.

 

Because with the right moves and with way things are in the CFL East, even at 1-6, this team still has a chance.

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The end of Week 7 in the CFL: Changes must be made in Winnipeg, Saskatchewan no longer undefeated and a great running game means big wins.

Posted on August 9, 2008 by Scott Taylor| Comments Off

This week home teams split with visiting teams, the Saskatchewan Roughriders finally lost and the Winnipeg Blue Bombers are so bad, it’s now time for a complete overhaul — at the top, not the bottom.

 

Because there are no crossover games again until Labour Day Weekend, the West continues to dominate the East, 10-2. In terms of home teams, however, it was a split this week. Hamilton and B.C. won at home, Saskatchewan lost and Winnipeg got its collective butt handed to it. The season total is now 17-11 in favour of home teams (17-7 if you remove the West’s victories in Eastern buildings).

 

Now to the trends. Hamilton is not as bad as we think, but Toronto could be as bad as we thought. At 36, Anthony Calvillo is the best quarterback in the CFL. No team will go 18-0, but you have to give that banged-up Roughriders side some credit (Five starters have broken legs for gawd’s sake!). They don’t quit and they are very well coached. And finally, with all the injuries in Regina, it’s very likely the West will not be settled until the final week of the season. 

 

Let’s look a little more closely at what we saw in Week 7…

 

1. Call it the Curse of Troy Westwood. The bad karma in Winnipeg is wafting through a stadium that just might be in the final months of its existence. From the day Doug Berry humiliated Troy Westwood in public, the Bombers’ karma has been lost. So, too, has Barry’s locker room — despite what the players like to tell the local papers. When Berry went public in order to make Westwood look like a fool and cut him at 10 p.m. on a Saturday, the gods of football looked down on Berry and said, “Enough already!.” Berry’s hand-picked successor to Westwood, young Alexis Serna is not very good, but putting him in that situation wasn’t fair either (even Westwood conceded the kid was a good kicker, but Westwood should have been kept around to punt). Sadly, Berry’s constant berating (OK, swearing at on national TV) of the kid has made him worse. Serna is now 14-for-22 (63 per cent) in field goals and is dead last in punting at 32 yards net (the first Bomber in 35 years to be last in punting). It’s sad, but on Friday night, you could see the rest of the Bombers hang their heads every time he missed a  field goal. Meanwhile, it doesn’t help that the offence is a joke. If you don’t run the football in the CFL, you can’t win and the coach’s pal, Kit Cartwright, won’t run the football. In Winnipeg, it’s time to make substantive changes or this team has no chance. Amazingly, even at 1-6, this team still has a chance if those substantive changes are made now.

 

2. Not to belabour the Winnipeg issue, but It would also help if the Bombers hired Mike McCarthy (whom the National Post reports is selling cars in Hamilton) to assist GM Brendan Taman. His expertise is more important to the future of this team than an airlift of expensive NFL cuts. Mike McCarthy is the best unemployed CFL GM in the country. Since the Ticats gassed him, they’ve been pretty lousy. 

3. You have to love what Marc Trestman, with no CFL experience, has done with the Montreal Alouettes. The Als are 4-3 and in first place in the East. However, one thing is troubling. All four of their wins have come against Winnipeg and Hamilton. The Als have beaten 2-5 Hamilton 33-10 and 40-33 and have beaten 1-6 Winnipeg 38-24 and 39-11. The Als have lost 23-19 at home to Calgary, 41-33 in Saskatchewan and 36-34 in B.C. the first-place Als are the statistical reason why four teams from the West and only two teams from the East will make the playoffs.

4. Although Anthony Calvillo has been damn good, it’s pretty tough to think of anyone other than Saskatchewan’s Wes Cates as the CFL’s most outstanding player. In seven weeks — the seven weeks in which the Roughriders have gone 6-1 with three different starting quarterbacks — Cates has carried 110 times for 652 yards and seven touchdowns (tops in the CFL). He’s caught 24 passes for 274 yards and another touchdown. And he’s second in the league in total yards from scrimmage (behind Montreal’s Avon Cobourne) with 924. He — along with Cobourne, and Calgary’s Joffrey Reynolds — is proof that if you get the ball to your No. 1 runningback on a regular basis, you will win more often than you lose.

5. Need proof that the CFL’s offences woke up after a wonky Week 1? How ’bout this? Late Friday night, the 28-27 first-half Lions advantage over Edmonton was the highest halftime score in any Lions game since 1994. This week, the CFL office in Toronto proudly released the following numbers: Heading into Week 7, touchdowns were up 19.2 per cent from the end of Week 6 in 2007; overall scoring was up 9.8 per cent (Whatever that means?)  and total penalties are down from 542 last year to 425 this year. Now, if the league can just make challenges move faster and then find a way cut out all the four-minute commercial breaks on TSN, this game would be perfect.

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CFL Picks Week 7. Can the Green Riders repeat against Stamps at home?

Posted on August 7, 2008 by Scott Taylor| Comments Off

It’s Week 7 in the CFL and it could very well be another CFL “Homer Weekend.”

 

There are two things we know about the Canadian Football League: The West usually beats the East and home teams almost always win.

 

Granted, home teams have a record of 15-9 this season, but on four occasions Western teams beat Eastern teams in the Eastern team’s buildings. That means when you take the Western factor out of the equation, home teams have a 15-5 record. Now that’s significant.

 

This week there are no crossover games. The West does not have a holiday playing the East. That means, despite the records of the competing teams, the ones at home should have an advantage. 

 

In fact, something tells me that even though some visiting teams are prohibitive favourites, that might not matter this week.

 

Here’s a look at the games for Week 7… think home teams. 

 

Toronto Argonauts (3-3) at Hamilton Tiger-Cats (1-5)

 

Thursday, 6 p.m. CT, TSN

There is absolutely no reason to take the Hamilton Tiger-Cats this week. They are 1-5 (and lucky to be 1-5). They can’t figure out whether Richie Williams or Casey Printers should be the quarterback and their best player, Jesse Lumsden, is always hurt. And the smartest football man in Hamilton, Mike McCarthy, is in the Steel City, selling cars. How bad are the Ticats? How’s this? The top two tacklers in the CFL are Ticats. Trouble is they’re both defensive backs which means they can’t cover. Still, Hamilton is playing against Toronto, and as the Bombers proved in a 19-11 loss at Rogers Centre last week, Toronto isn’t that good — especially on offence. If the ‘Cats are going to win another game, this is it.

Pick: Hamilton

Calgary Stampeders (3-3) at Saskatchewan Roughriders (6-0)

Thursday, 9 p.m. CT, TSN

There is no sane reason to think the Saskatchewan Roughriders have a hope in this one. The Riders will likely go with Marcus Crandell at quarterback this week and despite a strong start, he wasn’t that good in Calgary last week. The Riders are also without receivers Matt Dominguez (who could be done) and Andy Fantuz (who won’t be back until October). This team is banged up and unbeaten and that means they’re ripe to take a beating. But then again, they’re playing at the friendly confines of Mosaic Stadium, they’re playing against a team with the worst defensive secondary in the CFL and they have the best defence in the CFL. Defence wins championships and until somebody can figure out a way to beat that defence, I’ll go with the home team.

Pick: Saskatchewan

Montreal Alouettes (3-3) at Winnipeg Blue Bombers (1-5)

Friday, 6:30 p.m. CT, TSN

This is a very interesting inter-conference game for those, like me, who bet home teams first. Montreal is 3-3 and their only three losses have come at the hands of Western Conference teams. The Als have already beaten Winnipeg once — 42-24 — and they have one of the two best quarterbacks in the league in Anthony Calvillo. The Alouettes are better in every sense of the word and Winnipeg is banged up. There is no possible way the Bombers can win this game. So I’m taking the home team. For no other reason than it’s the CFL East.

Pick: Winnipeg

Edmonton Eskimos (4-2) at B.C. Lions (3-3) 

Friday, 9:30 p.m. CT, TSN

The Eskimos have Ricky Ray while the B.C. Lions have Jarious Jackson and Buck Pierce. Ray is proving he can lead the Eskimos to victory without having to worry about Danny Maciocia. Jarious Jackson and Buck Pierce are having trouble winning without Dave Dickenson. Neither is a starter and neither one looks like a starter and that’s why Edmonton should win this game. But they won’t. The Eskimos are playing in a dome. B.C. is at home and in the CFL, home teams win.

Pick: B.C. Lions

Last Week: 4-0

Season: 13-3

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Week 6 in the CFL is over. Saskatchewan still unbeaten, Winnipeg and Hamilton still awful.

Posted on August 4, 2008 by Scott Taylor| Comments Off

Saskatchewan will find a way to win, Winnipeg and Hamilton will find a way to flush it down the toilet and home teams win a lot more than they lose.

 

On the one hand, through the first six weeks of the season, we’ve learned that the Western Conference is significantly better than the East. On the other, we’ve also learned that home teams will win most of the time. In fact, if you’ve done nothing but select home teams this season, you’re 15-9 through the first six weeks — 10-2 over the last three weeks.

 

So here’s the deal, when picking winners on your Pro Line tickets, take Western teams to beat Eastern teams first. However, if the teams are playing within their conferences, always take the home team. With the exception of Saskatchewan’s 22-21 squeaker in Calgary, it worked this week. (By the way, we went 4-0 this week, but we’ll brag about that on Thursday).

 

And that’s the good news for the 1-5 Blue Bombers. Their next two games are at home — against Montreal and Hamilton — and by the end of August, they could very well by 3-5 and back in the hunt. Montreal, however, plays two straight games on the road and just like Winnipeg, they could very easily be 3-5 by Labour Day.

 

While Winnipeg head coach Doug Berry whined about everybody else but himself, while the entire province of Saskatchewan praised the Riders defence for its 6-0 record and while the Edmonton Eskimos looked to injured Jason Tucker for the extra jump they needed to beat B.C., we learned a lot about the CFL through the first 1/3 of the season.

 

Let’s look closer…

 

1. An issue was made by Doug Berry this week that his running game hasn’t been very good. He made the point a day after his all-star runningback Charles Roberts had his best game of the season, carrying only 11 times for 66 yards. Berry even hinted that Fred Reid might start on Friday night against Montreal. What a maroon. This year, Roberts has carried 64 times for 263 yards. Last year, after six weeks, he had carried 81 times for 509 yards. Berry, who prides himself in the number of people he can throw under the bus, blamed Roberts — unbelievable — for the lack of production in the running game. Roberts carried the ball 262 times last year (in 2006, he carried it 303 times). He is currently on pace to carry it 192 times this year. Doug Berry has no clue.

 

2. So why is Saskatchewan 6-0 despite the fact that the team has had to use three different quarterbacks over six weeks? Defence. Sure it’s a cliche, but Saskatchewan has the best defence in the CFL and that’s why they’re unbeaten. The Riders are No. 1 in points allowed (131), fewest per game (21.6), total yards allowed (1,627), average yards allowed (325), average gain per pass allowed (7.0), lowest percentage of passes completed against (59 per cent). Winnipeg and Hamilton, by the way, battle for last place in most defensive categories. Anyone surprised?

 

3. Choosing the all-star quarterbacks this season shouldn’t be hard. Anthony Calvillo looks like a 27-year-old (he’s 36) while Ricky Ray might be putting together the best year of his career. The fact that Montreal (3-3 with three straight losses to Western teams) is first in the East and Edmonton (4-2) is second in the West, says a lot about the importance of the quarterback position to a team’s success. Not surprisingly, Hamilton and Winnipeg have struggled at QB all year, but that might be the fault of Doug Berry and Charlie Taafe, not the guys taking the snaps.  

 

4. Here is an interesting stat. The leading tackler in the CFL is Hamilton’s  Rontarius Robinson. Now, on the one hand, the leading tackler should be praised for his hard-hitting approach to the game. On the other hand, however, Robinson is a defensive back. At 5-foot-11, 185 pounds, he’s a tough guy, really hard-nosed. He also can’t cover. In six games, he’s made 66 tackles. Giving him credit for stopping the sweep on occasion, it still means that nearly 66 passes have been caught around him. No. 2 in tackles? Another Hamilton DB named Markeith Knowlton with 62. When two defensive backs combine for a league leading 128 tackles in six weeks, no wonder you’re 1-5.  

 

5. Here’s why the CFL is getting better as a league every year. It’s a news release from the league’s director of officiating, Tom Higgins, that was sent out on Sunday afternoon:

 

The Canadian Football League announced Sunday that it has conducted a supplementary review of a player ejection made during last night’s game between the Calgary Stampeders and the Saskatchewan Roughriders in Calgary. During the game, Calgary linebacker JoJuan Armour was ejected from the game for making contact with a CFL official during the course of play.  Upon review of video footage, it was determined that the contact between Mr. Armour and the official directly resulted from prior contact between Mr. Armour and a Saskatchewan Roughrider player.  The ejection of the player was unwarranted.  CFL Director of Officiating Tom Higgins stated, “We sincerely regret that this officiating error was made and cost Mr. Armour the opportunity to play during last night’s game. Our officials are professionals and do a tremendous job, but when a call is missed we take it very seriously and have an internal review system to deal with it appropriately”.Mr. Armour will be eligible to play in this week’s rematch between Calgary and Saskatchewan in Regina on Thursday.

Everyone knows that officials aren’t infallible. They makes mistakes just like players. Higgins reviewed the tape and instead of blindly supporting the officials, he made the correct decision. That’s s step in the right direction. 

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After the latest mess in Toronto, the Winnipeg Blue Bombers are getting closer to requiring a new head coach.

Posted on August 2, 2008 by Scott Taylor| Comments Off

After Friday night’s game at Rogers Centre in Toronto, Winnipeg Blue Bombers head coach Doug Berry told reporters: “If you’ve got any good ideas, I’ll listen to you.”

 

No he won’t.

 

People around town have been giving Doug Berry advice for weeks and while he seems to be listening to some of it, he isn’t listening to the good stuff. 

 

Oh, sure, he listened to people who have never played a down of football in their lives and yet were thrilled that Troy Westwood was publicly humiliated. And he listened to the whining masses who wanted Kevin Glenn removed and then chirped like The Joker when Ryan Dinwiddie’s lame ducks found their intended targets against Calgary’s rotten defensive secondary a week ago.

 

But on Friday, as he asked for advice following a 19-11 loss to an equally-as-inept Toronto Argos outfit (two teams needed a single on the final play of the game to put up a total of 30 points in a CFL game), he continued to forget the most important piece of advice of all: “Give Charles Roberts the damn football.”

 

There will be some who will suggest that Roberts had “another lousy game” against the Argos and will say “he is still struggling.” But let’s put our thinking caps on and look closely at what Roberts did on Friday. 

 

Charles Roberts carried the ball 11 times for 66 yards. The National Post reported that “the Argos shut down Roberts.” Held him, they did. In fact, the Post wrote: “From the opening whistle the Argos focused their attention on stopping Winnipeg’s all-star running back, Charles Roberts. Toronto’s defence — the worst against the run in the Canadian Football League coming into the game — loaded up on bodies on the line of scrimmage and gave Roberts little room to operate.”

 

Trouble is the Argos didn’t shut down Roberts at all. Doug Berry and offensive co-ordinator Kit Cartwright shut down Roberts.

 

Charlie Roberts gained 66 yards on 11 carries. That’s 6.0 yards per carry. Roberts was averaging 3.7 yards per carry heading into the game. It was his best game of the year. At 6.0 yards per carry, two carries per set of downs is 12 yards. That averages out to an unstoppable march down the field. Had the Bombers given the ball to Roberts 30 times, he’d have rushed for about 180 yards.

 

Of course, TSN’s on-line headline was “Argonauts Defence Steps Up To Stymie Blue Bombers.” The only people stymied were the head coach, the offensive co-ordinator and the quarterback.

 

Certainly Toronto’s front seven did a good job harassing Dinwiddie (much better than Calgary’s worthless three-man rush a week earlier) and the defensive secondary, as we suspected, was significantly better than that awful group the Stamps trot out every week. But to suggest the Argos shut down Roberts is to have missed the game entirely.

 

“If you know Charlie, you know he gets stronger as the game goes on,” said his former quarterback Khari Jones, as we did Mike Richards’ radio program on the FAN 960 in Calgary together the other day. “The more you give Charlie the ball, the better he gets.”

 

Giving Charlie the ball 11 times a game is NOT enough. In fact, Roberts also caught one pass for 14 yards, so in total, he picked up 80 yards on 12 touches. 12 lousy touches? No wonder the Bombers are 1-5. 

 

Dinwiddie, meanwhile, went 16-for-28 for 224 yards with one touchdown (and 85-yarder to Romby Bryant) and two interceptions. The Bombers had a grand total of just 13 first downs. On Friday night, Kevin Glenn’s replacement made last week’s win over Calgary look Troy Kopp-esque.

 

The Bombers problem is clearly coaching. The coach humiliated his veteran kicker publicly and half of his locker room lost faith. His new kicker is now 14-for-20 (70 per cent) in field goals and is the first Bomber punter in 35 years to be dead last in the league in punting average after the first six games of the season and now the rest of the room is starting to wonder about the decision to chase Westwood out of the game.

 

What could be worse, however, is that in a panic — or in an effort to find someone else to blame — the coach dumped his veteran starting quarterback and replaced him with a guy who admitted on Tom and Joe’s Show on 92-CITI-FM this week that he had trouble reading the extra man on defence in the Canadian game.

 

Oh, oh.

 

Doug Berry was a great assistant in Montreal. He could be a great assistant in Winnipeg. His 10-7-1 trip to last year’s Grey Cup notwithstanding, he has appeared to have lost his touch as a head coach. 

 

Working in Berry’s favour is the fact his Bombers now play two straight games at home against Montreal and Hamilton. If Winnipeg doesn’t win both, it will be the bye-week and it will be time to make a coaching change.    

 

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Week 5 is over and we learned a lot. Well, mostly that the West continues to dominate the East…

Posted on July 28, 2008 by Scott Taylor| Comments Off

Whew, it’s over. At least for the time being. The Western invasion of the Canadian Football League is now done until Labour Day. The East is rejoicing.

 

For the past three weeks, we’ve had crossover football and for the East, it has not been pretty. Only Toronto, with a last-minute drive and Winnipeg, with a last-few-seconds drive were able to beat their Western counterparts, once each, over the last three weeks. In total, the West beat the East in 10 out of 12 meetings – and blew out their Eastern opponents in eight of those 10 wins. 

 

Ultimately, it was a good thing for the Bombers. With last Thursday’s thrilling 32-28 win over Calgary, Winnipeg has a chance to move into a first-place tie with a win in Toronto this Friday. A 2-4 record may be weak, but who cares? This is the year that 8-10 or even 7-11 could easily win the east.

 

Meanwhile, Week 5 was sure fun. The West won another three of four to take the season record with their Eastern Conference rivals to 10-2 and that means that this Friday night, the 1-4 Winnipeg Blue Bombers will face the 2-3 Toronto Argonauts at Rogers Centre in Toronto and this one will say a lot about Eastern Conference football. If Winnipeg wins, they’ll be 2-4 and tied with the Argos and maybe even Hamilton and Montreal for first in the East. It’s true, if Hamilton beats Montreal on Thursday night and Winnipeg beats Toronto on Friday, all four Eastern teams will be a dreadful 2-4.  

 

Week 6 in the CFL opens on Thursday night with a pair of games, 1-4 Hamilton is at 2-3 Montreal in the other battle of bad Eastern teams at 6 while B.C. plays at Edmonton at 9. Both games are on TSN.

 

But first, let’s look back at Week 5 and see if we learned anything at all…

 

1. In the East, only the Montreal Alouettes, 36-34 losers in B.C. this past week, have scored more points than they’ve had scored against them. Montreal has 157 for to 134 against. Toronto is 121-154, Hamilton is 99-141 and Winnipeg, with the worst differential, is 114-158.

 

2. Ryan Dinwiddie did what he was asked on Thursday night — he won a game for the Winnipeg Blue Bombers. He completed 24 of 39 passes for 450 yards, one touchdown and no interceptions. His touchdown came with 12 seconds left when a defensive back named Brandon Browner fell asleep, forgot to look at the football and let rookie Romby Bryant catch a lame duck behind him. Well, not behind him actually. Sort of beside him. If Dinwiddie repeats his quacking (that’s quacking, not cracking) performance on Friday night in Toronto, you will start to think that Kevin Glenn has been placed in the witness protection program. In fact, Glenn could be the next Troy Westwood — another veteran humiliated and then dumped by the Bomber coaching staff.

 

3. So here’s the deal in Saskatchewan… Derian Durant gets hurt after going three-for-five for 29 yards and is repalced by Stephen Jyles. Jyles proceeds to play within himself, go 14-for-18 for 201 yards, one TD and one INT and the Riders win 28-22. Wes Cates carries 24 times (see that Doug Berry?) for 130 yards and two TDs and now the Roughriders are 5-0 and clearly the best team in the CFL. Who needs Kerry Joseph when you have the best GM in the CFL?

 

4. With Saskatchewan at 5-0, Edmonton, Calgary and B.C. are all tied for second at 3-2. Every team in the West has scored more points than they’ve had scored against them. Every team in the West has a winning record at home (unlike Hamilton’s 0-3 mark at Ivor Wynne). I will make my prediction now. Only two teams from the East will make the playoffs. There will be a crossover playoff game this year and all four teams from the West will be in the post-season.

 

5. If you’re a Winnipeg fan, remember the name Troy Kopp. 

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Outdoorsman Canada needs to be at his best this Thursday.

Posted on July 23, 2008 by Scott Taylor| Comments Off

Without any hesitation, Tom Canada will call himself an outdoorsman.

 

The Winnipeg Blue Bombers’ defensive end is a surfer, whitewater rafter and committed hiker. In fact, when Bombers general manager, Brendan Taman, went looking for Canada, trying to offer him a new contract this past February, his best pass rusher was in Honduras working as a guide and rafting instructor for an American company called Omega Tours.

 

And while Canada loved his job, Honduras itself was a bit of an eye-opener.

 

“It was the guns,” said the 28-year-old Cal-Berkeley grad. “It was just a little too wild west for me. Everybody in Honduras carried a concealed weapon. I know, I’m an American and there lots of guns in the United States, but this, well, this was just out there.”

 

Canada is about as tough as they come. At 6-foot-2, 260 pounds, he’s not only quick and athletic, but he’s also mean. He loves the chase, as in chasing down quarterbacks, and making them pay for taking too long to release the football. With 12 sacks in 2007, he was No. 1 in Winnipeg and No. 3 in the CFL. He’s now third all-time on the Bombers sack list behind only Tyrone Jones (98) and Tony Norman (69). 

 

And Thursday night, when 0-4 Winnipeg meets 3-1 Calgary at Canad Inns Stadium, the Bombers will need Canada more than they ever have before. With Barrin Simpson out of the lineup, possibly for the rest of the season, due to a painful pectoral muscle tear and with Kelly Malveaux, a defensive back, taking over for the banged-up Ike Charlton at outside linebacker, Canada’s ability to rush the quarterback will be acutely required as the Bombers front seven tries to overcome two devastating injuries. 

 

If anyone, it’s Canada, with its get-to-the-quarterback-at-all-costs approach, who will be called upon to help his team turn around the prospect of falling to 0-5.

 

And, of course, it’s this never-stop-chasing-the-quarterback attitude that Taman and head coach Doug Berry love. That’s why, even though Montreal offered the free-agent lineman more money to head east this season, Canada signed in Winnipeg because, “I love the fans and I think we can win a Cup or two with this team.”

 

Still, as tough as he is, he also understands the concept of the great equalizer. He found out this winter that while offensive linemen are big and scary, they’re no match for a 45-calibre pistol.

 

“It all kind of crystallized for me when we went to the airport to get on a flight to go to these outlying islands,” Canada said. “I’m kind of sitting there, waiting to board the plane and all around me there are these well-dressed Honduran guys, just normal, business-type guys – I didn’t see any law-enforcement badges or anything like that — and they were all in a line in front of a table with a couple of security guys at it.

 

“Every one of them reached behind his back and pulled a .45 out of his belt. The security guy would remove the clip, put it in a plastic bag and then put a name-tag on it. Then, the security guys would take the gun and put it into a paper bag and staple all around the gun and hand the paper bag back to its owner and he’d walk on the plane. I’d never seen anything like it.

 

“Then, when we reached the little airport at this island, the guys would all line up and get their clips back. The security guys would take their paper bags, open them, put the clips in and hand them back their guns. Man, it was the wildest thing I ever saw.”

 

Guns aside, he enjoyed Honduras, but he always kept an eye out for the guy who just might pull a piece.

 

“This one night, we went into the town near us, Lacieba, to go to a bar,” Canada said. “There was a nice little bed and breakfast beside our tour operation that was run by a lady from Saskatchewan. She was married to a Honduran and this night, he drove us into Lacieba. 

 

“Well, we got talking about all the guns in Honduras and he reached down and pulled a Glock out from under his seat and just fired it into the jungle. Could have hit anybody or anything. He didn’t care. He was just laughin’ and firing his weapon. 

 

“All that night I kept looking over my shoulder to see if someone had pulled a gun, but everybody in Honduras has one so there was no problem. Still, playing professional football is a lot less scary than going to a bar in Honduras.” 

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