Bad offense or good defense?

The statistics of the Mtl-Edm and the Ott-BC games are very surprising (stats taken from this website, i hope they are accurate).

Look at the passing yards:
Calvillo: 232
R. Ray: 263
Dickenson: 237
Joseph: 227

We usually expect Calvillo, Ray and Dickenson to at least get 300 yards and most often 350 yards passing per game. Not even close.

Worse, look at the total offense yards:
Montreal: 280
Edmonton: 251
BC: 292**
Ottawa: 295**

Nobody above 300 yards??
**5 sacks on each side

To explain the score for the Edm-Mtl game, there are the return yards, which are actually higher than each team's total offense yards!!!
Montreal: 342
Edmonton: 266

As for the BC-Ottawa game, the score appears to have been helped by the number of turnovers: 4 by each team.

But what happened to those offenses?
Has the NFL/NHL/Pistons-Spurs basketball's defense first mentality reached the CFL?
Maybe these teams just took note of the Argonauts' exploits of last year: winning with pass defense, special teams and opportunistic offensive plays.

Well in the case of the BC game it was a combination of both. lower then avg. offence and a little above avg. defence. Both offences were quite sloppy in that game.

Ottawa's defence played pretty good in the first half, constantly getting pressure on Dickenson.

Agreed. I think the high number of sacks contribute to the low numbers. Anytime a team takes a sack, they get a long yardage situation and have to go to lower percentage plays.

BC’s O-line has not been very good against the sack, giving up 6 to Toronto and 7 (?) last night to Ottawa

if Watkins could catch a ball Montreal would have at least 100 more passing yards, can't wait for Calvillo to ignore this hot-dog player.

Ya watkinsis verry inconsistant. Made some nice catches and blew a few easy ones :?

I think after the first quarter where Edmonton were driving at will, Montreal adjusted and did an outstanding job defensively, Rick Ray was hurried, hit, and sacked, Edmonton played well defensively too.

Well in general if a QB is throwing for more than 300 in a game it usually means that his team is dominating the game. The Montreal Edmonton game was won on a last second field goal so it is a safe assumption that both teams were evenly matched on offense and defence.

except neither topped the 300 yrd mark.
the games was tied till 59:59:80
You cant get much more evenly matched than that

Both teams (Edm, Mtl) had dropped balls all night. I figure the yards would have been a lot higher if those passes were caught.

And there we go again.

In my first post of this topic i wrote :
"Maybe these teams just took note of the Argonauts' exploits of last year: winning with pass defense, special teams and opportunistic offensive plays."

And that's exactly what TO just did. Another team below 300 yards of total offense and they managed to win against a very non-opportunistic Riders team. It is true, however, that the Riders did get a lot of yardage, unlike the Edm-Mtl and the Ott-BC games. Anyway, another very exciting game.

I was pleased overall with the Esks game against the Als. It's always nicer to come away with the win, but with the parody in this league it's unrealistic to think that a team will go undefeated and dominate everyone in the league anymore.

I have to keep reminding myself that the Esks have 13 new faces this year and many of them starters. Add to that a rookie head coach. The low offensive numbers don't bother me so much because they were right in the game with the chance to win against a team that consistently has a strong defense.

I would think Als fans are pretty happy about Friday's game as well. They earned the win, but more importantly were able to move the ball when they needed to and didn't just have to rely on the special teams. Their secondary was able to get the job done helped out by a few dropped passes.

Both teams should get stonger as the year goes on and they start to make fewer mistakes. The west is going to be a dogfight I think right down to the end of the year and the Esks will have the Stamps, Riders and Lions twice for their last 4 games.

Next up is Winnepeg again. They are going to have to adjust some things on both sides of the ball or they could be in for another long night at Commonwealth.

Cheers

Just out of curiosity… Do you expect the East to be a pic-nic? I think there will be playoffs spots earned in both divisions during that 20th regular season week.

This year could show the thighest rankings ever… Could be something like eight teams with a 10-8 record, and the Blue Bombers with the balance… :smiley:

Not at all. Just was thinking out loud about the west cause I was kinda more focused on the Esks in that post. I agree that the East will be tight as well and that this year has the potential to be a great showing for the CFL.

Toronto vs. Ottawa will be interesting to watch. Maybe the Gades can stun the Nauts.