CFL Week 9 - East Showdown

Rider Prophet here gearing up for week 9 of CFL action.

Although I love watching CFL football, I'm finding it a little hard to get excited about this week’s action. This week's games boast about as much hype as the Olivia Newton-John concert in October (Didn't know she was coming to Regina? My point exactly). Neither of this week's games has any bearing on the Riders or the West in general but watching a CFL game still beats all that other garbage that currently pollutes the airwaves.

The week kicks off Friday in Winnipeg as the slumping Argos face the Bombers. All signs point to a Bomber win: they're at home, their offense features the #3 QB, the #2 RB and 2 of the top 5 receivers in the CFL, and they finally have a healthy secondary. By contrast, the Argos are like the patchwork quilt of the CFL. Their offense features a number of cast-offs including Mitchell (Edmonton), Edwards (Montreal), Dorsey (Saskatchewan, Winnipeg) and Butler (Saskatchewan, Hamilton). I can summarize the reasons I think the Bombers will win with one stat. Michael Bishop still leads the Argos in passing yards despite having played 1 complete game this season and appearing in only 3.

We then move on to Montreal where the Ti-cats will square off with the Alouettes. Although the Ti-cats are showing signs of improvement, I don't think they are quite there yet. It's kinda like Canada's soccer team moving up from 80th to 56th in the world rankings, sure it's a big improvement for Canada but it doesn't mean we're going to be beating the Italians anytime soon. Montreal always does well at home and after watching their last game it's obvious that Cavillo has started ignoring Bellefeuille's play calling, which means that the Als offense is once again dangerous. How is it obvious that Cavillo is now calling the plays you ask? Cahoon had 9 catches and 2 TDs where as Thurmon only had 2 catches. When asked to comment Marcel said that although he was happy that the Als won their last game, he was planning on sitting down and having a serious talk with Cavillo. The conversation probably went something like this:

"Listen Anthony, I know it worked last week, but I'd be lying if I said that we didn't get really lucky. Teams are going with small defensive backs, so we need to throw to a big receiver like Thurmon - it's called playing the odds! And besides that, you've been throwing to Cahoon for years; teams are starting to expect it! You have to keep them guessing. It's like when I was in Saskatchewan in 2004. We won the semi-final because of Kenton Keith. The next week, BC expected us to give Kenton the ball. But did we? No way! And look how well that turned out!"

Here's an interesting fact, assuming he stays healthy, Hamilton's newest receiver Jason Armstead will lead the league in 1 category... Regular season games played. He should finish with 19 which is quite impressive in a league with an 18 game schedule. Fortunately the lack of anything resembling a playoff game will give Armstead plenty of time to rest up once it's all said and done.

Well that's the way I saw the CFL this week. If you're interested in new forms of advertising, have I got a deal for you. For $5, the Rider Prophet will mention your business or event in this blog. For $10 I'll say something positive about it!

This is the Rider Prophet signing off....