Monday Morning Sentimonies: Damn You Calvillo

*I sincerely hope all of you read my warning prior to following my “Bet the house on Montreal” advice. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

Well for the second week in a row a correctly called a QB choke but once again I pegged the wrong QB. Turns out that while John Hufnagel seems to have found a way to prevent Burris’ patented playoff choke, Marc Trestman (who looks like a freakin’ alien) did not find a way to prevent Calvillo’s patented Grey Cup choke. Honestly, 2002 must have been a fluke because Calvillo is more prone to choking in the big game than the Buffalo Bills of the early 90s. He’s now 1-5 in the Cup having lost in ’00, ’03, ’05 and ’06 as well.

This is an old joke but a gooder nonetheless…
Why does Anthony Calvillo drink from a bowl?
Because he lost his last 4 cups.

His problem was his decision making. In the first half, he relied on Jamel Richardson and Ben Cahoon as his go-to guys and this led to some decent success. In the second half he chose to mix things up by replacing the reliable Cahoon with the unreliable Brian Bratton and the ever-dangerous Richardson with the Calgary secondary as his go-to guys… resulting in the Als potent offense coming to a grinding halt.

Coming into the game the focus was on Brandon Browner's lack of mobility… which was a change from the focus usually being on his lack of skill. Unfortunately the Als were unable to exploit Browner or any part of the Stamp defense for that matter. Full credit to the Calgary defense, particularly Mike Labinjo who clearly should have been named Outstanding Canadian in the game. Personally I think 3 pass knockdowns, 1 tackle for a loss and a sack are far more outstanding than kicking a few field goals (only 2 of which were over 30 yds) followed by sprinting down the field in delirious excitement… but what do I know? Maybe all those phantom records DeAngelis broke this year swayed the voting.

On the flip side, Montreal had no answer for the powerful Stampeder offense. Obviously Trestman thought along the same lines as me and was banking on a Burris choke because it certainly didn’t look like he game planned for a good performance by Burris. The lone bright spot for the Als D was when Reggie “Le Reaper” Hunt intercepted a pass on a terrible read by Burris. I thought that was the beginning of the end for Calgary, turned out to be the beginning of the end for the Als.

I will give credit to Burris, he played a good game and was unfortunately deserving of the game MVP. While he amazingly did not choke in the game, he certainly did when it came time for the post-game interview…

''There was so many times I used to hear that song 'We are the Champions,' I never could listen to the whole song because I always wanted to be a champion”

… that’s it? The defining moment of your career and all you can talk about is a song by Queen? Come on Henry you had 5 years to work on this and that’s the best you can come up with? Why not just liken the win to “Celebration” by Kool and the Gang or the “Locomotion”? What’s worse is he gave the exact same speech in 2 consecutive interviews. It’s really hard to take someone seriously when they are openly weeping while trying to explain the deep significance of “We Are The Champions”.

So the Stamps win the Grey Cup… and there was relatively little rejoicing.

And thus ends the 2008 CFL Season and begins that unfortunate time of the year… the offseason. But fear not, for the Rider Prophet is here to help guide through this dark time.