Seems AC was snubbed four years ago when TSN made its top 50 players of all-time. Should he be on the list?
http://www.tsn.ca/cfl/story/?id=342930Reading some of the comments at the end is pretty interesting…
I do not agree with putting all positional players in the same category
As an all time QB, AC ranks in the top ten for sure possibly in the top 5.
As an all time O B in the top 15.
IMO the prerequisite is the players ability to turn a bad team into a winning team.
Of course he should be on the list and high up on it. If it's a voted on list by the public then it's at the mercy of whomever happened to hear about the vote. If it is voted on by sports writers then I think it's crazy he didn't make the top 50.
Absolutely, by the time he's done he will be top 5. He should definitely have been top 50 in 2006.
One guy can’t do that in football. It’s very much a team game. Look at the great teams in either the CFL or NFL over the years. Up and down the roster, the best teams are strong. It’s not one guy. It’s a lot of guys.
AC certainly belongs on the list given what he’s accomplished, but you could never put him on a bad team and suddenly turn it into a champion. Part of why he’s been so good is that Montreal has consistently had the best receivers in the East, almost always had a top quality O-Line, and typically has a quality RB.
OTOH, look at Ricky Ray this year. He looked terrible in the first half of the season, but was that because he forgot how to play QB? Or was it because he wasn’t getting help? Once the receivers started making plays and the protection tightened up halfway through the year, he sure did play better.
people say his record in the grey cup shouldnt make an impact on this decision... but with the lack of competition in the east over the years i think this shows that montreal and AC would not have 8 appearances if the east was more comparable top the west as a conference. his record in the grey cup shows that montreal as a team or calvillo himself has issues beating the top team in the west year in and year out.
The article mentions the list was compiled by a panel of 60 players, coaches, and media personalities.
blame it on MRX
I hate to say it…but you’re right.
Not that I’m a Calvillo fan…by any stretch
But I have been an Alouettes fan since my Dad took me to the AutoStade
Jim Popp has surrounded Calvillo with arguably the best talent pool in a very long time, and for over a decade.
And while the Alouettes have beaten up on Eastern teams (and slightly better than horrible) Western crossovers…the true gauge of the team’s post-season prowess would have to be the Grey Cup game itself.
Sure…the nature of the competition makes it hard to get an accurate readout on where a team is at: one game, winner takes all and God only knows what the weather will be. But after 7 tries…the Alouettes have to seriously be asking themselves…why only 2 wins?
Like so many have pointed out: Popp has brought some GREAT talent to Montreal…on both sides of the ball. Great coaches (with one notable exception)
So is the one determining factor in all those Grey Cup losses Anthony Calvillo himself?
Sunday will go a long way to answering that question.
We are 5-3 against the west this season and we end up over 500 against the west most of the time so I don’t see your point. The GC is only 1 game , it’s not only the qb that wins it or looses it but a team. I for one am a big fan of AC, he is a true professional. Senior, some day AC will retire, there is a chance we won’t find a good replacement right away and we could be the new Tiger Cats (No offense intended) for a while, That day you will miss AC.
yes it is a team game. but your best player should make an impact on the outcome of the game, let alone the best qb in the league according to many. he has not made enough of an impact in these big games. call it a team game, they have some of the best all around talent in all facets of the game, the best coaching in the league some say, so where is the issue? qb may be only one position but it is the most important position. AC needs to make the plays that affect the outcome for his team. he has not, IMO, even in the win last year he was good... but not great. ill admit that he played as good as most of the qb's would, but when your believed to be the best qb in the league, when you get there as often as you do you have to make the plays that will win the game for your team. he has not done that. which is why his conference and his grey cup record should have an impact on how we percieve him. im not trying to offend you or any als fans, if i have im sorry this is only my opinion
his Grey Cup record is 2-5, which means he's managed to get his team there a heck of a lot more than most other guys have.
take playoff record into account and maybe it actually means something.
like seriously, you're gonna hold his Grey Cup record against him because it's 2-5? If it were 2-0 or 3-0, we'd probably be talking about how great he is in the big game.. but you have to get there.. hypothetically, who's the better big-game QB? the guy who, in seven playoff appearances for his team, is 2-5 in the Grey Cup (thus, made it there all seven times) or the guy who, in seven playoff appearances for his team, is 3-0 in the Grey Cup (thus, didn't even get there four out of seven times)?
if you're not a big game player, you are never going to make it to seven Grey Cup games. whether they've been playing weaker opponents or not, you aren't going to get seven tries if you can't play in big games. that's just the way it is.
Obviously he belongs in the top 50 now, probably in the top 10, arguably in the top 5; but I don't think it was that much of a snub in 2006. It's hard to do, but you have to consider what he had accomplished prior to '06, forgetting all he has done since.
Prior to '06, he had been in four Grey Cup games, losing 3. We look at his numbers, being on the verge of breaking the all-time passing records, but consider that 23,433 yards and 138 touchdowns have been amassed since 2006. He was a LOT lower on the all-time list four years ago. And in the last four years, his WORST completion percentage was better than his BEST prior to 2006.
So while we think of him as the guy that goes to the Grey Cup every year, completes nearly every pass, and has gawdy stats, a lot of that is based on what we've seen him do since the poll was taken. At that time, he hadn't achieved enough to be in the top 50.
Have you see the East over the last decade? 
of course I have. did you know the West sent an under-.500 team to the GC in 2001? probably, but point is, it’s one game, anything can happen. if Calvillo was such a big-game choker, he’d have found a way to lose a few East semis too. it doesn’t matter who you’re playing in the semis, if you can’t play in big games, you aren’t going to win seven of them.
do you listen to yourself? There was nearly no competition in the east for montreal, and his GC record proves that. in the west any team can win the west division and any team can make it to the grey cup, at the beginning of the year, montreal is for the most part assumed that they will host the east finals. his big games? against the worst team in the west last year? or toronto this year? you cannot argue that it takes big game players to win the east. quinton porter could have been the qb of the als and they would still be favorites, and most likely make it. his grey cup record is very indicitive of his actual success. he is great, again im not arguing that, but his stats are padded cause of the weak eastern team over the years.
…so, in other words, when the dust settles the top fifty would all wear green helmets?
…seriously though, AC makes the top fifty in his sleep…
once again… if he’s such a choker, he’d have found a way to lose a few more times. there have been relatively poor teams in the Grey Cup before. and it’s interesting how AC’s team is allowed to be considered the reason he got to the Grey Cups, but not at all the reason he lost any of them, don’t you think?