I just wanted to make an observation as to the vast improvement in entertainment these opening games provided over last year's football.
I know its only 2 games and there's alot left to be said about whether or not the rule changes really made a difference but a heck of a start. A couple points:
Special teams are once again special. I was happy to see nearly every missed FG brought out. It made for alot of excitement and even produced a record breaking 128 yard missed FG TD return by Levingston. There were many long and exiting returns and a handful that were a broken tackle or one more block away from scoring. This in contrast to the 3 kick return TDs we saw all of last year. Great on the CFL to bring back 4 sided players and force kicks in bounds.
The deep passing game seems to be back. I don't know how much this has to do with the painted striped balls but the QBs were trying deep whenever it was there and succeeding quite often. This was especially impressive considering offences usually lag behind defences in terms of 'gelling' and playing cohesively. I don't know if I''ve ever seen such offensive play in week 1 before.
Again this might be a little premature. The East and West semi-finals last year also produced consecutive, nail-biting contests that were classics in the midst of an otherwise boring season. Lets hope the whole season is as entertaining as opening night.
I also watched both games last night and found them to be very entertaining. The quarterbacks seemed to have more velocity and accuracy on their passes with the painted stripe football than they had with last year's stitched stripe football. And, with the reinstatement of the kick return blocking rules from 2005, the kick return game is back to "anything can happen" mode. The CFL games will be fun to watch in 2007.
The biggest thing that will help this league this year is Jaque Chapdalein going to Edmonton. Finally Ray is going to have a good offensive coordinator and should pick defenses apart. Machoochio was just so predictable and everyone knew what he was going to call in the redzone. And B.C is really going to miss him, and it showed last night. Also Dickenson seemed really frustrated with the calls that were coming in.
Yes, let’s hope for a win. We should remember what Taffe said previously: “ONLY he will call the plays”. So, whatever plays we see, you will know it came from the bench.
No more 2nd-guessing Jason, or his backups. Whatever failures on offence will be because of execution.
(unless the coach keeps calling ‘bone-head’ plays).
Those were some good observations there. What we are seeing so far could be a sign of what we may see this year in the CFL. During Friday’s broadcast on TSN, Matt Dunigan pointed out some blocks on special teams that would have been considered illegal last season. And with physics lesson in that other post, I’m sure we’ll see better performances from the quarterbacks. We did not see that in Montreal tonight with the rain. Interestingly, the ball that was used last year was supposed to be easier to grip when it was wet. But I consider the rule changes in the off-season steps in the right direction.
Last night's game was a real bummer after 2 great games on Thursday.
Now I know the weather was a factor but bothe offenses were absolutely horrible. Montreal legitimately put 1 point on the board and if it weren't for the turnovers, Saskatchewan wouldn't have done much better.
Usually you could attribute this to great defence but IMO, this was purely the product of completely ineffective offences. Understandable for week 1 but a letdown following those first two games.
You'd have to think if any of the 4 teams that played Thursday were matched against either of the 2 teams that played last night (Friday), it would have been a blowout.
Montreal and Saskatchewan have ALOT of work to do for next week.