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CFL POWER RANKINGS: Week 3

Posted by gruesomegreg on

If you had told me a month ago that the Saskatchewan Roughriders would be the best team in the CFL by mid-July, Ida toldja to run on back to Saskatoon.  But sure enough, the Roughies are 3-0, with a big win over B.C. adding some legitimacy to their record.  Meanwhile, the Stamps are last in the West, but they’re clearly the best 1-2 team in the league, after two tough late losses in the Eastern Timezone.  And it seems the Eskies aren’t the worst team in the league–though it’s starting to look like Winnipeg might hold that title this season.  Here’s how I see things after Week 3.

Preseason Predictions

Week 2 Rankings

Week 3 Power Rankings

1. Saskatchewan Roughriders (3-0) Last Week: 2.  After pasting a pair of patsies in their first two outings, the Riders proved they could play with the best by beating B.C. 23-20 yesterday.  It was hardly a perfect performance–they gave up a ton of yardage on defence, for one thing–but they held the defending Grey Cup champs to less than three TDs, and that has to be recognized.  Will be interesting to see how they fare against the Stamps at McMahon on Thursday.  A big win on the road, and I might hafta stop making Saskatchewan jokes (for a couple weeks, anyways).

2. B.C. Lions (2-1) Last Week: 1.  While the Lions had trouble finding the end zone yesterday, they were still just a couple uncharacteristic Paul McCallum missed kicks away from winning in Regina, a tough place to play.  Thus, the loss doesn’t hurt ‘em too much in my books; they’re still the team to beat as far as I’m concerned.

3. Montreal Alouettes (2-1) Last Week: 3.  Though they wouldn’t have won were it not for a late-game gift from Kevin Glenn, the Als nevertheless fought back from a big deficit to beat the Stamps in style Thursday night.  Their high-scoring performances of the past two weeks show that the Calvillo machine still has some gas in the tank, and Montreal is once again the team to beat out East.

4. Calgary Stampeders (1-2) Last Week: 4.  Though he threw the game away in the fourth quarter, Kevin Glenn had been having a pretty solid second half up to that point.  Drew Tate is out for at least a month, but the Stamps offence has hardly missed a beat, putting up their third-straight 30-point performance.  The downside is that they lost their second straight game by a field goal or less, but had a couple bounces gone their way, this team could easily be 3-0 right now.

5. Edmonton Eskimos (2-1) Last Week: 7.  Coming off a pathetic one-point outing, the Esks certainly had something to prove when they faced off against Winnipeg on Friday night.  While I had expected a low-scoring, hard-fought slobber-knocker, it turns out that the Bombers simply got the slobber knocked out of them, as the tandem of Jyles and Joseph combined for 374 yards and 3 TDs, building up a 35-to-zip halftime lead.  That said, I can’t advance Edmonton more than a couple spots in the standings cuz Winnipeg’s clearly the worst team in the league right now.  Beating them, even by a wide margin, don’t impress-ah me much.

6. Hamilton Tiger-Cats (1-2) Last Week: 6.  A team that many expected to contend in the East this year now finds itself in second place by virtue of its win over Toronto.  The Ti-Cats have bounced back from that embarrassing opening loss with improved results the past two weeks, which culminated in their first win of the season last night.  But let’s not kid ourselves here.  Two of the Tabbies five TDs came on kick returns–take those off the board and they lose the game.  Henry Burris completed less than half of his passes for just 181 yards, while their offence managed just seven points in the second half, allowing the Argos back into the game after building up a 21-0 lead.  This team is far from perfect, but should still be strong enough to secure a playoff spot in the East Division.

7. Toronto Argonauts (1-2) Last Week: 5.  Three weeks into the season, it’s clear that Ricky Ray still has to work out some kinks in this new offence with its inexperienced receiving corps.  After a great home opener, he threw for just 232 yards and no scores last night, tossing a late-game pick to seal his team’s fate.  And while this team has always lived and died on the defensive side of the ball, they’ve given up 91 points through three games, just over 30 per content–which, incredibly, is the fewest in the East, although all four Western teams have much lower totals.  Guess that just goes to show the West is the best…

8. Winnipeg Blue Bombers (0-3) Last Week: 8.  Friday was supposed to be a winnable game for Winnipeg, but instead they gave up 42 points to an Edmonton team that didn’t score more than a rouge the week before.  Clearly suffering from the off-season losses of Odell Willis and Doug Brown, the once-vaunted Bomber D has given up the most points in the league this year–while their offence has scored by far the fewest (only Edmonton even comes close), with just 56.  You’d think they might have a chance to pick up their first win on Wednesday against my seventh-ranked team in Toronto, but then again, I also thought they’d win last week, and we all know how that turned out.  Are they any hot prospects with the University of Manitoba Bison they can take first overall to sell tickets in their new stadium next season?

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CFL POWER RANKINGS: Week 2

Posted by gruesomegreg on

(Once upon a time, I was the CFL Editor for a sports website that no longer exists.  I watch pretty much all the games when I don’t have other plans, so I figure I know about as much as the other Canadian Football prognosticators out there–y’know, both of them.  Thus, I’ve decided to start doing my own power rankings; we’ll see how long this lasts.)

Preseason Predictions

Week 2 Power Rankings

1. B.C. Lions (2-0) Last Week: 3.  Despite a late-game meltdown that let Hamilton back in it on Friday night, the defending Grey Cup champs are 2-0.  With 72 points on the board through two weeks of play, they’re also the second-highest-scoring team in the league.  But they’ve yet to play a game outside of their home turf, so it remains to be seen how they’ll fare on the road.

2. Saskatchewan Roughriders (2-0) Last Week: 2.  It wasn’t pretty, but they got the job done.  After an impressive 43-point performance last week in Hamilton, the Riders didn’t find the end zone until the two-minute mark of the fourth quarter in their home opener today.  On the other hand, they almost kept the Edmonton Eskimos off the scoreboard, holding their opponents to just a single point.  The Green-and-White are off to a good start against two of the bottom three teams in the league, but will face a much tougher test when they host the Lions next weekend.

3. Montreal Alouettes (1-1) Last Week: 7.  No team looked worse in Week 1 than the Als, who got steamrollered by the Stampeders on Canada Day.  But they bounced back on Friday, putting up 5 TDs on a supposedly-tough Winnipeg defence to even their record at 1s.  They get another shot at the Stamps this week as they host Calgary on Thursday–and if Calgary QB Drew Tate doesn’t play, they might even flip the tables on ‘em.

4. Calgary Stampeders (1-1) Last Week: 1.  The Stamps did well to erase a 15-point deficit on the road in the second half, only to lose to the Argos on a last-second field goal.  But the biggest loss for the Stamps came early in the first quarter, when Tate left the game with a shoulder injury.  The team looked shaky with Kevin Glenn at the helm, but got a big boost from the superb special-teams play of Larry Taylor, who had 292 return yards on punts and kickoffs–not to mention the missed field-goal he ran back 125 yards for a touchdown in the fourth.  Here’s hoping that Tate’s injury wasn’t as bad as it looked, otherwise it’ll be a tough month ahead for Calgary.

5. Toronto Argonauts (1-1) Last Week: 6.  Turns out it only took Ricky Ray one game to get over his new-team jitters.  The all-time great QB had an impressive home debut despite the sparse crowd in The Big Smoke, completing 30-of-40 passes for 407 yards and two TDs–though he was also picked off twice.  Most importantly, he connected on some key throws down the stretch, allowing his team to respond whenever Calgary came up with a big play.  Cleo Lemon couldn’t have completed most of those passes.  Looks like Toronto’s finally got an offence that’s worth watching.  Wonder how many weeks/wins it will take for this city to actually give a damn…

6. Hamilton Tiger-Cats (0-2) Last Week: 8.  After getting embarrassed at Ivor Wynne Stadium last week, the Tabbies put together a more-respectable showing at BC Place, dropping a tight decision to the Lions.  I am a little worried about the age and inconsistency of Henry Burris at quarterback, though.  After disappearing in the second half of last week’s game, he didn’t really wake up until the fourth quarter against the Lions, though his final numbers (359 yards, 4 TDs) sure look impressive.  He’ll need more than some flashy Chevron Walker-aided stats to stay ahead of Quinton Porter on the depth chart, however, as he faces a familiar foe in Ricky Ray next weekend.

7. Edmonton Eskimos (1-1) Last Week: 4.  Perhaps no team is worse off in the QB department than Edmonton, who rotated Stephen Jyles and Kerry Joseph tonight like they were running backs–not the leaders of the team’s offence.  The two pivots combined to go 13-of-25 with a mere 116 yards passing as the team only put up a rouge off a missed field goal on the scoreboard.  See, this is what happens when you trade your franchise QB for a career backup and a Canadian kicker…

8. Winnipeg Blue Bombers (0-2) Last Week: 5.  In Week One, the Bombers played a pretty solid defensive game in hostile territory before things came unraveled in the 4th quarter. But they didn’t have much going offensively after Buck Pierce went down late in the first half.  And though Buck bounced back with a respectable 255-yard effort in Montreal (with Alex Brink going 3-for-4 and adding 57 yards to their passing totals), it was their defence’s turn to let the team down.  The Bombers are off to a tough start to this season, which opens with four consecutive road games.  And when they finally come home, it won’t be to a brand-new stadium–the opening of which has been pushed back to next season.  On the plus side, they do have a winnable game in Edmonton staring them in the face on Friday.  I’d put the over-under for total points in that one at 25–and no, I won’t be watching.