Labour Day is fast approaching (Is it really Labour Day if Hamilton and Toronto aren’t playing? I’ve checked my calendar and it still seems to be marked there, so we’ll assume so.). The CFL’s Eastern Division is far from clear, with almost everyone (sorry, Winnipeg) having a shot at the top of the standings.
Toronto is on top, and with good reason: consistency. They’ve had better games and worse games, and twice nearly surrendered close games to inferior teams, Hamilton in week 1 and Edmonton in week 8. But good teams find a way to win, and the Argos have done so.
Ricky Ray and Chad Owens have all been solid this season, putting up good numbers, if not having great games every week. Chad Kackert has been less electric this year, although that was true last year, too–he had only one monster game in the 2012 season, but was Toronto’s secret weapon in the playoffs. The only problem Toronto has is depth; Andre Durie is getting some good yardage as a receiver, but there aren’t any other exceptional players in the backfield or in the air. One injury could quickly sink the Argos’ boat.
Montreal, meanwhile, has all of Toronto’s problems without any of the upside. Anthony Calvillo will probably still be a great passer in his 60s, if he’s still playing (and who knows?), but he has neither the support nor the presence he had only a couple of years ago. S.J. Green is a great receiver, but he’ll be a stronger and stronger magnet for coverage as the season goes on. Arland Bruce is the only other excellent receiver on the team, and he’s getting long in the tooth as well. If no one else steps up soon, they will be quickly neutralized by any team with a decent secondary.
Brandon Whitaker and Jerome Messam combine for a decent running game, but the Als haven’t pushed the ground attack in recent years, depending more on Calvillo’s aging arm. Shedding a head coach this early in the season is never a good thing for a team, even if Jim Popp is credible as an interim option. The upcoming home-and-away series with Toronto in early September could be the death knell for the Als’ chances for a home playoff game if the breaks don’t start to go their way.
Hamilton is the dark horse in the eastern picture. They’ve played poorly in some games, first giving up 16 points in the midst of a biblical deluge that saw a loss to the sad sack Eskimos, and then bearing a horrendous shutout in Saskatchewan. Like last year, Henry Burris is on top of the QB stats pile league-wide, but the rest of the team has been spotty at best, a calamity at worst. Meanwhile, up to 20 players have been clogging up the injury lists for the Ticats.
But the team is starting to shape up. They were without most of their receiving corps for the first few weeks of the season, but the return of Bakari Grant, Dave Stala, and Andy Fantuz have improved their offence measurably. The defence, held together for weeks with string and chewing gum, seemed unable to stop a reasonably motivated beagle pup from getting past them; now they have a solid run defence. (They might want to look to the 1986 Tiger-Cats, whose many mid-season injury recoveries led to a fresh, strong, and eventually Cup-winning team by November.)
Will Hamilton recover its mojo in time to contend for a spot in the east? Will Toronto continue to make good on its limited resources and put together wins? Can Montreal do anything about it with a quarterback who seems to age before our very eyes?
It’s not possible to predict the east this year, at least not yet. Winnipeg looks like a lock for the bottom spot, but above that it’s still anybody’s game.
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