I thought it would be useful to start a new thread for the EF. Here is my opening thesis: No sane person would pick Montreal to beat this Toronto powerhouse, perhaps the best all-around team ever fielded in the league.
So if you should opine that Toronto is going to win, I would like you to also provide your level of confidence. For example are you 60% sure Argos are going to win, or 95% sure. That way we can get a real sense of how people feel, rather than just the binary W/L.
87.6% confident that Toronto will win … unless they spend the week reading/listening-to TO media … OR … Maas manages to hypnotize Fajardo and convince him he is Doug Flutie.
Ha. Great idea. He ran and wriggled pretty well Saturday.
Just has to stop staring down primary receiver. When you watch BC, you never fail to hear the announcers say VA is going through his reads. I’ve never heard that for CF.
95% sure Toronto will win.
The 5% is on the wild chance that this offence somehow clicks and turns in the kind of performance they haven’t shown all year long … AND the defence stands on its collective head and holds TOR to fewer than 20 points WHILE forcing multiple turnovers which we can turn into points … AND we protect the ball … AND Coté doesn’t mess the bed. 
It’s not technically impossible. We played the Argos close in the last two losses.
Sur le site Odds Shark CFL, les Argonauts sont favoris par 10,5 points. Si la prédiction avait été sur la différence de points, j’aurais pris pour les Alouettes, l’écart des points sera inférieur à 10.5.
Deux (2) défensives similaires, Toronto 396 points contre et Montréal 392 points contre.
Mais à l’attaque, aucune comparaison, Toronto 591 points pour et Montréal 442 points pour.
Je prévois une victoire serrée de Toronto 51% contre Montréal, mais comme notre collègue GHT120, si J. Maas hypnotise C.Farjardo qu’il est le 11/11, D. Flutie, les Alouettes gagnent…par 3 points. Dans une partie, tout peut arriver même sans hypnose, surtout avec la défensive des Alouettes.
100% certain que Toronto va gagner.
Ils sont la meilleure défensive contre le jeu au sol et celui des Alouettes est, au mieux, ordinaire. À ce moment-ci de la saison, on peut dire que le problème n’est pas tant les joueurs que les concepts de jeu au sol qui sont généralement inefficaces. Or, pour que l’attaque puisse fonctionner, il va falloir un certain succès par la course.
D’autre part, leur tertiaire est bien meilleure que celle des Timinous. Le défi pour Fajardo sera de ne pas concéder des sacs à répétition parce qu’il n’arrive pas à lire le jeu passé sa première lecture, quitte à lancer le ballon dans les gradins pour ne pas perdre du terrain. Je soupçonne que Mace va préparer son équipe pour ne pas concéder le long jeu, dont Fajardo a absolument besoin pour avoir du succès. Le défi à ce niveau sera donc d’être capable de se contenter de gains plus courts tout en protégeant le ballon. Ceci veut dire plus de jeux pour soutenir les séquences, et c’est justement dans cette situation que Fajardo devient confus. J’aimerais voir une bonne utilisation des passes-pièges, du décrochage de Stanback en protection pour devenir le dépanneur et des jeux à deux tracés sur le même demi défensif (un en zone courte ou intermédiaire et un en zone intermédiaire ou profonde) pour forcer les couvreurs à se commettre et exploiter le tracé demeuré libre.
Je pense que David Côté a retrouvé ses repères et si sa performance est comme celle de la dernière partie, il ne devrait pas constituer un enjeu.
Sur les unités spéciales, les unités de couverture des bottés devront donner une performance impeccable car c’est Leakes qui est à l’autre bout. Les largesses comme celles accordées à McCallister il y a 2 semaines n’auront pas leur place dans cette partie.
On voit donc qu’encore une fois, tout va reposer sur une très solide performance de la défensive. Il va falloir sortir Kelly de sa zone de confort avec beaucoup de pression et une couverture solide. Il va falloir que le front défensif soit dans sa bulle constamment et faire venir la pression de différents endroits, mais pas de formation 3-4 parce que si Kelly a du temps, il va mettre la tertiaire dans sa petite poche. La défensive des Alouettes n’est plus celle qu’ils ont affrontée, mais les Argonauts sont amplement équipés pour lui faire face. J’estime qu’il va falloir une performance hors-pair de la part de Sankey parce que c’est lui qui a le meilleur gabarit chez les secondeurs pour arrêter Ouellette au premier niveau.
Si Dinwiddie roule Thorpe dans la farine comme l’an dernier, on saura que finalement, cette équipe des Alouettes était artificiellement surévaluée à cause de la grande faiblesse généralisée des équipes de bas de classement. Si la partie est chaudement disputée du début à la fin, on pourra dire que cette équipe des Alouettes est devenue compétitive. Si les Alouettes gagnent contre Toronto, on pourra dire qu’elle s’est finalement hissée parmi les meilleures. La suite montrera si elle y demeurera. On peut toujours rêver…
100% the Als will win. I am concerned though if they can handle the Bombers in the Grey Cup.
One thing the Als will have to do though is move the pocket or have Fajardo roll out. He can’t be a sitting duck for a strong Argos d-line and a blitzing Pickett.
If we’re to have any chance, Maas has to call the game of his life on offence. None of this predictable run on first down up the gut. He has to mix up the perimeter runs with deep shots. Get Cody throwing on the half roll and call some designed runs for him early to get Toronto to back off coverage. Emphasize the short passing game on first down to put Fajardo in manageable second-down situations. And for heaven’s sake stop robotically calling those out and curl patterns and attack the middle of the field sometimes.
I expect Thorpe to pull out the whole bag of tricks for this game, because he has shown the capacity to call plays based on the offence his unit is facing. I am much less certain about Maas. He talks a lot about doing what we do and not paying attention to the opponent and that is IMO a mistake, especially in a win-or-go-home playoff game against a superior foe. You HAVE to pay attention to what Toronto does and take it away. Attack their weakness with our strength.
Bottom line: We are not the better team here, as we were against Hamilton. Trying to “impose our will” by just doing what we do isn’t going to work. We have to out-scheme Toronto in addition to playing mistake-free football.
There is no way the 2023 Argos are the best ever team. The 2009 Alouettes had at least 5 future hall of famers and numerous all stars.
The 2009 Als would easily defeat the 2023 Argos 8 times out of 10.
Even when he got creative last game with the overloaded OL, they took too long to snap the ball and Hamilton adjusted … an offence with an average-at-best QB and mediocre play-calling is operating with one arm tied behind its back.
I say Toronto has an 85% chance if winning.
For the Alouettes to win, Fajardo will have to play his best game of 2023, nothing less.
The defence will need to keep the Argos to under 25 points (ideally 20) for us to have any chance.
The complete absence of tempo on offence has been a big disappointment to me. Throughout training camp Maas talked about pushing the pace on offence. But we have spent the year taking forever to get plays off.
If we had a Trevor Harris type of qb, then i would say 50/50 chance. With Cody…20%.
Again, we have to rely on the D and special teams to keep us in the game and hope that Cody has limited brain freezes.
Yup…under 20pts…which will be a tall task.
or Warran Moon’s Esquimos…
Totally different era. Today’s players are faster and much more athletic than in the 70s and 80s. Not taking anything away from the teams of those years.
Era has nothing to do with it. The Eskimos of 81-82 were just as dominant in their era as Toronto was this year. The Eskimos in 82 put up 100 more points than the next best team. In 81 went 14-1-1 and put up 576 points in 16 games 36 points a game!
Warren Moon would still today dominate the 2023 class of CFL QB. Dan Kepley and James Parker would still terrorize opposing quarterbacks.
In a literal “time travel “teleportation”” of the players and coaches likely not … but conceptually I agree as such comparisons have to assume the players/coaches of yore have “evolved” to the same degree as did current players/coaches over the years (e.g., strength, speed, conditioning).
Bang on. You never hear it because Cody is a one-read QB. If his primary read is open, great. If the secondary receiver is open, 50/50 chance he’ll notice and get the football where it needs to be. Beyond that, forget it. Lost track of the number of times he has thrown an incomplete/pick or gotten sacked because he had a receiver wide open but just didn’t see that part of the field. The seven-step drops don’t help either; they take away his sight lines to different parts of the field. Everyone talks about climbing the pocket. Cody tends to do the opposite most of the time.
And Cody staring down his receiver has been an issue since day one this season. He just doesn’t look the safety off.
I’d say about a 70% chance of an Argos victory. A definite advantage but not impossible.