Tag Archives: Steve Buratto

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

Comments Off

Posted in Blog, CFL

Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Back by (un?)popular demand. Here are our weekly CFL picks.

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

Week 3

 

OK, so nobody really demanded this, but since Joe and I don’t have as much time on 92-CITI-FM as we’d like in order to explain ourselves, I’ll explain myself here…

 

And then I’ll probably do some more “‘splainin” on Sunday.

 

Week 3 starts Thursday night with Calgary at Montreal and Toronto at Edmonton.

 

Calgary Stampeders (1-1) at Montreal Alouettes (2-0)

Thursday, 6 p.m. CDT, TSN

The Alouettes proved quite clearly that scoring isn’t a problem when they put up 33 in Hamilton in their opener and 38 at home against Winnipeg in Week 2. Quarterback Anthony Calvillo has tossed six TD passes in two weeks and get this: Calvillo has only seven fewer rushing yards than Winnipeg’s Charles Roberts (Roberts has 87, Calvillo has 80). Calgary has a nice team, but they proved last week, they don’t play very well — at least not defensively — on the road.

Pick: Montreal

Toronto Argonauts (1-1) at Edmonton Eskimos (1-1)

Thursday, 9 p.m. CDT, TSN

Argos head coach Rich Stubler did what Winnipeg head coach Doug Berry won’t do. He told offensive co-ordinator Steve Buratto to allow quarterback Kerry Joseph to call his own plays. Of course, in his zeal to make Michael Bishop happy, Stubler also told the Toronto media that Bishop would play in Edmonton (Note: 24 hours later, Toronto put Bishop on waivers, suggesting the Argos were going to trade him). The Eskimos meanwhile, got an absolutely brilliant performance from offensive player of the week, Ricky Ray, in last week’s 34-31 win over Calgary and looked like a team that feels comfortable in its own backyard.

Pick: Edmonton

B.C. Lions (0-2) at Winnipeg Blue Bombers (0-2)

Friday, 7 p.m. CDT, TSN

Obviously, Canadian football writers aren’t that bright because almost all of them picked B.C. and Winnipeg to challenge for the title in their respective conferences. Now, two weeks in, and they’re both 0-2 and are barely challenging themselves in practice. Winnipeg will be without Milt Stegall, Dominic Picard and Matt Sheridan. B.C. will be with both Buck Pierce and Jarious Jackson. Not sure which team is worse off. 

Pick: Winnipeg

Saskatchewan Roughriders (2-0) at Hamilton Tiger-Cats (1-1)

Saturday, 3 p.m. CDT, TSN

My goodness the Green Riders look good, especially on defence. So many people — inlcuding me — believed that the Bombers had the best front-seven in the league, but it just might be the Riders. Offensively, Saskatchewan has some serious injury problems, but this defence might just be good enough to carry the defending Grey Cup champs. However, this week, they have to stop runningback Jesse Lumsden, the top Canadian last week after blistering the Argos for 189 yards and two TDs. Still, the Ti-Cats have not beaten the Riders in regulation since Aug. 1, 2002.

Pick: Saskatchewan

Comments Off

Posted in Blog, CFL

Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Week 2 in the CFL: Now that the old four-game pre-season is over, do the offences start to pick it up?

Posted on July 5, 2008 by Scott Taylor| 1 Comment

Back in the day, long before TSN saved the Canadian Football League with its slick, entertaining Friday Night Football package, a package that made the league young and hip (like that word, kids?) again, each CFL team played four pre-season games. Just like the NFL.

 

By the end of this four-week stretch, teams were pretty good. Especially the offences. Granted, it didn’t do the clubs much good at the gate and ultimately, that’s why the final two exhibition games were eliminated and the schedule went from four pre-season and 16 regular season games to two pre-season and 18 regular season games. Teams still lost money. Just not as much.

 

So Week 2 in the 2008 CFL schedule ended Friday night and what we got for the first two weeks of the schedule was, pretty much, two extra pre-season games.

 

So if you were coaching, what did you learn?

 

1. Toronto is still trying to figure out who its No. 1 quarterback is. After losing 32-13 at home to Hamilton, a team that lost 33-10 to Montreal at  Ivor Wynne Stadium a week earlier, one wonders if Kerry Joseph is the answer. Interestingly, a day after the loss, the National Post reported that head coach Rich Stubler kind of laid the blame at the feet of offensive co-ordinator Steve Buratto. The Argos have scored 36 points in their first two games and that’s not much considering all the offensive weapons they possess. Maybe Joseph is done and its time to get serious about Michael Bishop again.

 

2. The Hamilton Tiger-Cats are probably better than anyone — including themselves — thought. If Jesse Lumsden stays healthy and the offensive line continues to run-block the way it did in that 32-13 win over Toronto on Thursday, the Ti-Cats should be a threat in the East. 

 

3.  Montreal is clearly the best team in the East, Anthony Calvillo is obviously healthy again and head coach Marc Trestman is not having any problem with the Canadian game. The Alouettes two-touchdown blistering of Winnipeg on Friday night was testimony to a great offence, a pretty fair defence and sharp special teams.

 

4. The Blue Bomber offence isn’t very good. Although the scoreboard will tell the Bombers they lost 38-24 in Montreal, Winnipeg did get an outstanding 80-yard interception return for a touchdown by Javon Johnson. That means the Bombers put up only 17 points on offence. That’s six consecutive games (including two pre-season and two regular season games this year) in which the Bomber offence has not scored 20 points. Of course, this little nugget might have something to do with Winnipeg’s woes: Charles Roberts, six carries, 11 yards, one touchdown. Six carries? No wonder they can’t score. So do you blame Kevin Glenn or Kit Cartwright? We know who Rich Stubler would blame. With back-to-back games against B.C., then Calgary, Toronto and Montreal on the schedule, the Bombers had better pick it up on offence. Of course, in the CFL of 2008, allowing 38 points in a single game is pretty worrisome, too.

 

5. Despite all the gnashing of teeth, despite all the people who worried about the things GM Eric Tillman was doing in the off-season, the Saskatchewan Roughriders have now started with a 34-14 home win over Edmonton and a 26-16 road win in B.C. The Riders lost Kerry Joseph and Kent Austin and they still have a legitimate Grey Cup contender. It’s called defence. No team has yet to score 20 points against them.

 

6. The combination of Buck Pierce and Jarious Jackson in B.C. is not as good as the mainstream media might have you believe. The Lions have yet to score 20 points in a game this season.

 

7. The best game of the week was that 34-31 seesaw battle in Edmonton between the Eskimos and Calgary Stampeders. One senses it won’t be that close when the two teams return to Calgary, but nonethless, Thursday night’s matchup was a dandy. 

 

8. There are still too many teams in the CFL that can’t put up 20 points in a game. There are too many weak, unimaginative offences. Of course, the final “pre-season” game was this past weak. The 16-game schedule starts this coming Thursday night. One would expect the offences are now ready to go

→ 1 Comment

Posted in Blog, CFL

Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

What we learned in two days: Hamilton, B.C. and Winnipeg aren’t as good as we thought and the CFL is dull.

Posted on June 28, 2008 by Scott Taylor| 2 Comments

I had one day of TV-watching and one day at Canada Inns Stadium, and now I’m lost.

 

First of all, I have to admit, I really believed the pre-season hype.

 

I thought, with a healthy Casey Printers around for the full six months and a healthy Jesse Lumsden just, well, kind of around, the Hamilton Tiger-Cats would be a pretty good football team. Boy was I delusional. The Tiger-Cat outfit that was drilled 33-10 in their home opener Thursday night against Montreal, was as dismal a football team as I’ve seen since the Jeff Reinebold-era Winnipeg Blue Bombers.

 

I believed, after the Tiger-Cats beat Toronto in the final pre-season game of 2008 that maybe, just maybe, Charlie Taafe had this thing figured out. Man, was I wrong. Poor ol’ Charlie couldn’t coach a dog in from a snowstorm with a pork chop. 

 

I watched Montreal in the pre-season and they were wonky at best. How Hamilton could lose at home to a much-too-old Anthony Calvillo and a head coach with no experience in 12-man football says a lot of bad things about the Tiger-Cats.

 

Later on Thursday night, I suspected the B.C. Lions would be better, but I wasn’t surprised when Calgary beat them 28-18. On Thursday morning on the Mike Richards Show on Calgary’s The FAN 960, I picked the Stamps to win simply because the combination of Henry Burris and Dave Dickenson at quarterback just seemed so much more skilled and experienced than the combination of Buck Pierce and Jarious Jackson. I was right. 

 

We were told B.C. was the best team in the West. Sorry, but I’m not convinced they’re even a playoff-worthy team.

 

(OK, yeah, yeah, so Danny Maciocia’s coaching in Edmonton so the Lions will make the playoffs.) 

 

Meanwhile, on Friday night in the press box at Canad Inns Stadium, Harvey Rosen of Broadcast News and I, sensed something ugly was about to take place by about the third minute of the fourth quarter of the Winnipeg-Toronto snooze-fest.

 

Two teams with spectacular offensive weapons put up a grand total of 39 points. Zzzzzzzzz! 23-16 is an ugly score in a Canadian Football League game between two teams with players such as Charles Roberts, Kerry Joseph, David Boston, Bethel Johnson, Derrick Armstrong, Jamal Robertson, Mike Vanderjagt, Kevin Glenn, Michael Bishop, Dominique Dorsey and Terrence Edwards.  

 

I don’t get it. Either Steve Buratto and Kit Cartwright, the two offensive co-ordinators, are really lousy at their jobs, or the CFL has become an offensive wasteland where great players go to whither and die.

 

How these two teams, with all that talent, play a 23-16 game on a very nice night for football, is a mystery. I hate pulling out this old chestnut, but 15-to-20 years ago, when the likes of Dunigan, Ham, Hufnagel, Burgess, Clements, Brock, Allen, Flutie, and on and on, played quarterback in this league, the game was thrilling from start to finish. If you didn’t score 30 points, you didn’t have a chance. And often, if you didn’t get to 40, you’d get drilled.

 

Now, if a team can scuffle around and score 20, it can win enough games to reach the Grey Cup.

 

The CFL used to be the most spectacular game in the football world. Now, it pales in comparison to the four-down game where Peyton Manning and Tom Brady play 37-35 extravaganzas. It’s kind of sad. 

 

Winnipeg is not very good offensively. Toronto is only slightly better. And clearly, those are the two best teams in the East. 

 

It’s time for a federal government study on why the CFL has become so boring. Maybe that idiot Senator Larry Campbell could conduct it. 

→ 2 Comments

Posted in Blog, CFL

Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,