Tag Archives: Regina

Roberts traded for a guy who doesn’t like football. 2-7 remains everybody’s fault but the coach’s.

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

One of the greatest players in the history of the Winnipeg Blue Bombers, a guy who was only 13 yards shy of becoming just the fifth player in CFL history to rush for 10,000 yards in a career, has been traded to B.C. for a guy who missed a practice this season because he was gardening.

 

Well, he sure won’t like the gardening weather in September in the ‘Peg.

 

The Winnipeg Blue Bombers have traded runningback Charles Roberts to the B.C. Lions in exchange for occasional runningback Joe Smith. Smith was the 2007 CFL rushing champion, but he’s had a horrible 2008 campaign. H’s been slowed by a rotator cuff injury and has told the media in Vancouver that he really doesn’t like football all that much. It’s sort of, something he does.

 

Smith lost favour with Wally Buono this season when he missed a practice and told reporters — and his coach — he was working in his garden. Guess he lost all track of time. 

 

The Lions have been trying to move Smith for weeks and on Monday they found the sucker born every minute.

 

In the meantime, Roberts leads Smith in every rushing category except fumbles.

 

Of course, in fairness, Smith won’t get the ball much in Winnipeg anyway. On a team that doesn’t run-block very well, Smith won’t have to carry the load. Last week, Roberts got the ball only 13 times against the best defence in the CFL. There were no holes, so the run was once again abandoned. Charlie finished with 48 yards as Saskatchewan beat Winnipeg 19-6 in one of the worst CFL games ever played. When a team doesn’t bother with a running game, the defence knows it’s going to pass. The Riders knew exactly what Kevin Glenn was going to do last Sunday and it certainly showed.

 

So in order to make a change, head coach Doug Berry and GM Brendan Taman dealt away the Bombers’ history and tradition. It happens in sport, but Charles Roberts should have retired a Blue Bomber. He should have at least reached 10,000 yards as a Blue Bomber. This is a team that has lost all sense of its own history.

 

At 2-7 Winnipeg still has a shot at the playoffs. That’s a sad commentary on the CFL, not the Bombers.

 

So what the heck. Maybe, by bringing in Joe Smith, it might force Berry and his genius coaching staff to run the football. Couldn’t hurt.   

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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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It’s Week 10 in the CFL and it doesn’t get a whole lot more fun that the Labour Day Classics.

Posted on August 29, 2008 by Scott Taylor| Comments Off

It’s Week 10 and it’s Labour Day Classic Weekend and that in itself is more fun than a human being should be allowed to have.

 

However, it’s also a very big week for two veteran members of the Winnipeg Blue Bombers.

 

First, Milt Stegall, a 14-year Bomber star, is just 112 yards shy of the all-time receiving yardage record currently held by Allen Pitts (14,892). Pitts set the mark in 176 career games. Stegall, meanwhile, has played only 172 games in his brilliant career.

 

Then there is the great Charles Roberts. He is currently only 63 yards short of a place in the exclusive 10,000-yard rushing club. Only four players – Mike Pringle, George Reed, Damon Allen, and Johnny Bright – have gained more yards on the ground than the Bombers’ outstanding tailback.

 

Individually, Roberts and Stegall might be looking at milestones and records this week, but to be fair, it’s Anthony Calvillo and Henry Burris who are more likely to put up some gaudy numbers. 

 

Here’s a look at the games coming up in Week 10…

 

B.C. Lions (4-4) at Montreal Alouettes (5-3)

 

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

 

Back in Week 6, Montreal was 2-3 and looking shaky. Here we are, after a bye week and the Als are coming off three straight wins. This is a team that will probably win the East and this week, they’ll very likely improve to 6-3. The Lions have already lost four times this year, after losing only three times last year, but if you go back to the 2007 playoffs, you’ll see that the Lions are a mediocre 4-5 in their last nine and neither Buck Pierce nor Jarious Jackson has shown he can lead a football team for an entire game, let alone an entire season. Back on July 25, B.C. beat Montreal 36-34 in Vancouver, but B.C. is only 1-2 on the road this season. Anthony Calvillo will have a field day.

Pick: Montreal

Winnipeg Blue Bombers (2-6) at Saskatchewan Roughriders (6-2)

Sunday, 2 p.m. CT, TSN

It’s been a strange week on the prairies. In Winnipeg, life has been serene. The team is a last-place 2-6, but it’s coming off a big 37-24 win over Hamilton, a win in which quarterback Kevin Glenn called his own plays, got Charles Roberts the football and clearly was the best player on the field. Roberts was pretty good, too, so the Bombers have been strutting around like a 6-2 team. Saskatchewan, on the other hand, has acted like a 2-6 team in the midst of a crisis. Granted, the Riders have 14 players on the DL, have lost two in a row and just traded for a new quarterback (Michael Bishop) and released their old quarterback (Marcus Crandell), but they have no reason to panic. It’s just that you just get the sense that even though Saskatchewan has played better football for most of the season, the Bombers are better prepared for this weekend. 

Pick: Winnipeg

Edmonton Eskimos (5-3) at Calgary Stampeders (5-3)

Monday, 3 p.m. CT, TSN

If ol’ Brain Fart Burris plays a perfect game — something he does seldomly — the Stampeders will put up 60. A couple of interceptions and some bad play calling shouldn’t hurt him, however. He’s the best quarterback in the West and he has so many weapons, it’s almost impossible to beat him. The Stamps can go to 6-3 with a home win this week and they just might find themselves in a tie for first the West. That’s where they should be. The Stamps are coming off a big win IN Vancouver and despite what happened in Edmonton in Week 2 (the Eskimos won 34-31), Calgary is the better football team.

Pick: Calgary

Toronto Argonauts (3-5) at Hamilton Tiger-Cats (2-6)

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

Toronto is a mess and this could be the end of Rich Stubler. When  these two teams played in Toronto in Week 2, the Tiger-Cats eviscerated the Argos 32-13. When they played in Hamilton in Week 7, the Ticats won 45-21. This week, it’s going to be more of the same. Hamilton looked dreadful in Winnipeg two weeks ago, but Toronto has looked worse. The Argos have lost three-of-four and we found out this week that Kerry Joseph is uncomfortable calling his own plays, so that job has been handed to Steve Buratto who has already proven he’s not very good at it. The Tiger-Cats aren’t very good, either, but they’ve sure been good against the Argo-nots. Especially at Ivor Wynne. Stubler will be gone before the re-match, if he doesn’t win this week. 

Pick: Hamilton

Last Week: 2-0

Season: 18-6

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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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Canadian Football League Picks for Week 9: All theories out the window.

Posted on August 21, 2008 by Scott Taylor| 1 Comment

It’s Week 9 in the CFL and, this week, it’s all about the Western Conference. And this week, we don’t have to worry about West vs. East or home team advantage. 

 

The East has the bye this week so there are only two games on the CFL schedule, both Western Conference matchups. On Thursday night, Saskatchewan, coming off that tough home loss to Calgary, will travel to Edmonton to meet an Eskimos team that just might be better than everyone thought while on Friday night, the Calgary Stampeders with its league-leading offence heads into B.C. Place Stadium where it has lost seven consecutive games to the B.C. Lions.

 

As we head into this week’s two-game Western affair, Saskatchewan leads the way at 6-1 while the remaining three teams are deadlocked at 4-3. It would be a surprise if one of the four Western teams missed the playoffs. This is shaping up to be a crossover year.

 

This week, two teams will close the gap and a fourth-place team will actually become a legitimate fourth-place team. Although it will be a legitimate third-place team in the East.

 

Here’s a look at the games for Week 9… think close, high-scoring games. 

 

Saskatchewan Roughriders (6-1) at Edmonton Eskimos (4-3) 

 

Thursday, 8 p.m. CT, TSN

 

Saskatchewan will have a couple of its seriously injured players back, but there has to be one  question asked: How long will the Riders last with so many injuries to so many skilled players? This team went 6-0, even without some of its top performers in the lineup, but even with a week off, Rider fans are not going to see the likes of Andy Fantuz, D.J. Flick, Matt Dominguez or defensive end John Chick. When they lost to Calgary last week, the Riders had 18 players on the injured list. This week, 16 players are still on the list despite the two-week break. Interestingly, earlier in the season with all their skilled players in the lineup, in a game at Mosaic Stadium in Regina, the Riders whipped Edmonton 34-14. With all the injuries, it won’t happen twice.

 

Pick: Edmonton

 

Calgary Stampeders (4-3) at B.C. Lions (4-3)

  

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

 

Sport Select’s Point Spread game has made the B.C. Lions 4 1/2-point favourites this week and one supposes that’s probably fair. After all, the Lions have won seven straight games against the Stamps at B.C. Place Stadium. There is no reason why Calgary should be considered a favourite. But I just can’t help myself. The Stamps won last week in Regina and the Roughriders — with 18 players on the injured list — is still a better football team than the Jarious Jackson-led Lions. In most offensive categories, B.C. is in the bottom half of the league while Calgary is in the top half. On defence, Calgary dominates. The real question here is: How did Calgary and B.C. both get to 4-3? Calgary is a 6-1 or 5-2 team that blew late leads (to Edmonton and Winnipeg, for instance). B.C. is a 2-5 team that won some games it should not have won (against Montreal and Edmonton). In Week 1, Calgary beat B.C. by 10 (28-18). It’s hard not like the Stamps. 

 

Pick: Calgary

 

Last Week: 1-1

 

Season: 16-6

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Take cover. We are surrounded by idiots. Senator’s Bill would jail or fine people for playing American football in Canada.

Posted on June 13, 2008 by Scott Taylor| 1 Comment

Here is the quality of representation with which the Liberals stocked the Senate…

 

A former Mayor of Vancouver who now gets a free lunch on the backs of Canadian taxpayers wants any Canadian who plays a game of American football on his private property to go to jail for up to two years.

 

Larry Campbell should be jailed for being an idiot.

 

According to Bill S-238, a bill that received its first reading on Tuesday, NFL teams would be barred from playing regular season games in Canada. If found guilty of this egregious offence, perps could be jailed for up to two years and fined.

 

Our country is going to hell in a handcart driven by people we pay to be leaders. We’re screwed.

 

The bill, first exposed in Friday’s National Post by Sean FitzGerald, was introduced to “prevent the expansion of the Canadian Football League outside of Canada.”

 

According to the Post, Senator Larry Campbell spent weeks drafting the bill, amid speculation the NFL might be (and it’s a gigantic MIGHT be) moving closer to making Toronto the home of the Buffalo Bills. The Bills have agreed to play eight games at Rogers Centre over the next five years. That’s all. Five regular season games. The Bills are NOT moving to Canada, but like the Dave Matthews Band, Mariah Carey or Disney on Ice, the NFL is showing off its product in a country that watches and wagers on the game with gusto.

 

Campbell’s bill demands that “no person owning or operating a football team within a foreign league shall require or permit that team to play football in Canada.” It goes on to declare “no person shall play football within Canada as a player on a football team within a foreign league.” That also includes the Arena Football League which would be a great addition to our minor pro sports milieu in Winnipeg, but ol’ Larry obviously doesn’t give a rat’s ass about cities like Winnipeg. 

 

“The CFL is a Canadian institution,” Mr. Campbell said in a recent interview with the Post. “We like to protect all of our other cultural icons, but there doesn’t seem to be the same vigour with the CFL. I don’t think that’s true, and I’m going to prove that.

 

“There’s always this idea that, if it’s your own money you’re spending, you can do whatever you want. Sorry. That doesn’t happen in my world. You should be looking out for the good of the country and the good of your community.”

 

I guess I’m not a very good Canadian, Larry, because, like the vast majority of my friends and colleagues, I’d love to see the NFL come to Canada. As well as the Arena League, for that matter. NFL football is the most interesting game in the most brilliantly operated sports league in North America and Canada should be proud that the NFL would even consider someday placing a franchise here (even if that franchise is located in Toronto which, in professional sports terms, REALLY isn’t a Canadian city anyway). 

 

If placing an NFL franchise in Toronto, does indeed kill the Canadian Football League, then it never should have existed in the first place. If the league is that weak, it deserves to die. If having competition in Toronto kills the rest of the CFL, then it really wasn’t very strong in the first place, was it?

 

Frankly, it would be a much better idea if Campbell sponsored a bill that would pay for new CFL stadiums in Ottawa, Halifax, Quebec City, Winnipeg, Regina, Hamilton, Toronto and Montreal. Banning the NFL would only create resentment. On the other hand, improving the lot of the CFL, would create excitement.

 

But Larry, like almost all politicians, is too fundamentally stupid to understand that.

 

This bill requires approval from both the Senate and the House of Commons. Hopefully, someone with an actual brain will stop this insanity before it becomes law.

 

Jail terms for playing football? Throw this in with those kangaroo courts known as Human Rights Tribunals and it becomes painfully obvious that the people who run our nation are sick. 

 

 

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