Eskimos need to tighten up defence against Tiger-Cats

Hamilton Tiger-Cats
1
[url=http://www.edmontonjournal.com/sports/football/cfl/Eskimos+need+tighten+defence+against+Tiger+Cats/7226854/story.html]http://www.edmontonjournal.com/sports/f ... story.html[/url]
The defence's foundation has been a deep and talented defensive line. But a deep roster is only so deep. The defence managed without Etienne Legare for the first six weeks, who was diagnosed with mononucleosis just before training camp.

Marcus Howard, the club’s top rush end, has been out the last six games, and Ted Laurent, a force at defensive tackle, has missed the last four.

Legare suffered an ankle injury in the Calgary rematch on Friday and is back on the shelf for several weeks, while Howard, who suffered a setback last week, won’t play in Hamilton, either.

2

When I saw the title of this thread, I thought you had got it backwards. All I can say is we could be in for a record setting score in this one, assuming both offences show up.

3

I really don't know what to expect from this game.

Points for
Hamilton 290, 1st
Edmonton 239, 7th

Points against
Hamilton 339, 8th
Edmonton 205, 2nd

4

Not sure where our offence is ranked, given that 42 of those 290 points came from punt and FG returns. Granted, other teams also have points from their defence and return team, but not as many as we do, I suspect.

It would be interesting to see points for and against broken down by offence (incl. FGs and rouges for, and safeties and pick-sixes against), defence (same, but opposite), and kick returns. I suspect the Ticats would look something like this:

  • Offense points for - not first, not last?
  • Offence points against - near bottom
  • Defence points against - last
  • Defence points for - last (do we have any yet?)
  • Returns points for - 1st by a mile
  • Returns points against - near the top? I think Brown’s was the only one, but I’m not sure
5

At first it will start off as a really boring game with a lot of 2 and outs for both teams. Then eventually Edmonton will figure out that we can’t stop any of their 3 premier running backs and they will decimate us in the 2nd half.

Our only hope is that the two new D-lineman can have an immediate impact to stop the run and contain Joseph.