The Canadian Press
Hello, Juron Criner. Yes, you may have a spot in the 2017 edition of the CFL’s collection of incredible touchdown catches. Magnifique. Bryan Burnham will show you the secret handshake. DeVier Posey has info on club jackets. Duron Carter knows where all the parties are. Well, he doesn’t know where they are so much as they just happen wherever he goes.
Here are this week’s takeaways.
1. TURNOVERS WILL KILL YOU. UNLESS YOU CAN’T BE KILLED
It is probably the most widely accepted old adage in the sport. You can’t win football games if you turn the ball over. Can’t. Cannot. It’s worse than a penalty parade, although that’s a close second in the category of conventional football wisdom.
The Ottawa REDBLACKS completed a comeback win over the Hamilton Ticats on Friday night despite handing the ball to the Tabbies five times, on offence, while taking the ball away a grand total of zero. Minus-five in the department, with two of those turnovers coming deep in Ticats’ territory, another where the REDBLACKS were in range for at least a long field goal attempt. As well, Ottawa quarterback Trevor Harris was picked off in the end zone on a two-point convert attempt.
I’m going to have to re-think my views on notion that you should not run with scissors.
2. THE WINNIPEG BLUE BOMBERS KNOW HOW CHARLIE BROWN FEELS
Matt Nichols is just one of many injuries that have hit the Bombers roster over the last few weeks (Johany Jutras/CFL.ca)
In “It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown,” all the kids got trick or treating, except for Linus who is, of course, waiting in the most sincere pumpkin patch he can find, certain that the Great Pumpkin will appear.
Charlie Brown, our hard luck hero, hits house after house with his chums and each time they leave a doorstep, they look in their bags and then shout with glee as they tell each other what they got. “I got a popcorn ball!” I got a chocolate bar!” And so on. Each time he looks in his bag, Charlie Brown forlornly declares: “I got a rock.”
The Winnipeg Blue Bombers, unfortunately, are Charlie Brown in this scenario. Darvin Adams injury? Rock. Maurice Leggett injury? Rock. Matt Nichols, Andrew Harris? Rock, rock.
A season of such promise now teeters on the brink due to the extreme misfortune of injuries to key players. If there really is a Great Pumpkin, it will make sure the Bombers have Nichols and Harris in the line-up for the playoffs and Adams would be a nice bonus too.
3. DIONTAE SPENCER STARS AS FORREST GUMP
Diontae Spencer broke the record for most all-purpose yards in a game last week (Patrick Doyle/CFL.ca)
He just got up and decided to run on Friday night. And run. And run and run and run. No reason other than ‘there’s the football, think I’ll lug it.’ Spencer’s incredible all-purpose performance against Hamilton (496 yards) included spectacular gallops on offence, punt and kick returns.
In order to pay that effort proper respect, I need to salute it with the grandest run-on sentence I’ve ever written:
Spencer’s game, on a glorious autumn night on the edge of the Rideau Canal, which snakes its way like one of his punt returns past the very stadium in which he was performing, a stadium that has enjoyed newly found vitality after a multi-million dollar renovation project breathed life into it the way a Diontae Spencer return can breathe new life into the Ottawa REDBLACKS’ fortunes, a stadium that will be the focal point of all the nation’s football electricity on Grey Cup Sunday on November 26th, capping a week of festivities the way Diontae Spencer caps a touchdown run with an emphatic spike of the football, which is to say with great flair and emotion, reminiscent of a typical performance by beloved Hollywood actor Tom Hanks, who has received a large amount of seasonal publicity because of his oddball portrayal of strange Hallowe’en character David S. Pumpkins (side note: If I can find a suit and pants all covered in footballs, I’m spending Hallowe’en as David S. Punt-kins), but who is best known for his Oscar-winning performances in “Philadelphia” and, coincidentally, “Forrest Gump,” and who once famously attended a Grey Cup Game, presented by Shaw, in Regina in 2013, in the company of his good friend and Hamilton Ticats fan Martin Short, at a stadium whose west grandstand was, in another coincidence, although not connected in a way other than that, on the same day as Spencer’s dominating performance, collapsed in a demolition exercise that had the gathered crowd “oohing” and “ahhing” the way one might when witnessing a Diontae Spencer open field run at TD Place which, once, seemed slated for demolition itself, ironically (I believe it’s ironic but have to admit that the 1995 Alanis Morissette song still has me kind of screwed up on that), but which now serves as the lifeblood of a rejuvenated neighbourhood as well as the focal point of Eastern Ontario football passions and where awe-inspired spectators come to watch people like Diontae Spencer play was – to put it succinctly – really great.
I understand that after Spencer showered – which is something I feel like doing after that last sentence – he ran to his car, dug out the key and then paused just as he was about to pop the lock. He then pocketed that key as he gazed out into the Ottawa night. Then, he started running again. Running, running, running. Good thing the REDBLACKS have a bye because it is going to take him a while to get back from the Santa Monica Pier.
4. THIS THING’S UP FOR GRABS
Each of the six teams remaining in the hunt for the Grey Cup have an upside and the capabilities to beat anyone else on any given day.
As importantly, each has shown its weaknesses and that includes the Calgary Stampeders, who were thought of as fairly certain slam dunks just a few weeks ago.
Of course, that was when they still looked like a computer program of a football team, and the Edmonton Eskimos looked lost. Saturday, the Eskies reminded us all that a middle season swoon doesn’t necessarily mean anything as they are firmly back on track, trending upwards at the right time. The Stamps, meantime, look good but hardly unbeatable.
Saskatchewan, Toronto and Ottawa all have the ammo to take it the distance. The Riders might be given the nod over the other two, based on record but the REDBLACKS beat them just a couple of weeks ago and the Argos took them to the last seconds of the game before succumbing by a field goal. I suppose we’ll find out a lot about the Argos this Saturday in a big game for them in Vancouver, against a team that suddenly found its lost ferocity this past weekend.
We’ve already seen what Ottawa’s made of, with three come from behind victories in a row.
And then there’s Winnipeg. So explosive on offence and specials, a lot will be determined on the health of their quarterback and running back.
If Matt Nichols and Andrew Harris are good to go, we know that their offence can make up for the reams of yards that the defence gives up on a regular basis.
5. IT’S 110 YARDS AND, YES, WE USE ALL OF IT
Just ask Saskatchewan’s Bakari Grant, who got a refresher course on Friday, after he relaxed almost completely at about the three-yard line and had the ball stripped from his grasp by Montreal’s Tevaughn Campbell. Campbell knows it’s 110 yards and that you get to use all of it. Grant gets a concrete lesson that the term “walk in for the touchdown” isn’t to be taken literally.
To his credit, he took the embarrassment in stride, owning up and offering a mea culpa on his Twitter account later in the evening. Good news for Grant is that he gets to be humbled in what was a blowout victory for the Riders. Bad news for Grant is that this moment will undoubtedly be featured prominently during the debriefing film session, with howling teammates demanding to see it again and again and again. I’d also be wary of my buddies sneaking up from behind to knock the tray out of my hands at team lunches this week.
AND FINALLY…
Just another reminder that Luke Tasker is always open. Even when he’s not.
