The Canadian Press
I’m having a serious case of deja vu.
Where have we seen the heavily favoured Calgary Stampeders heading into the Grey Cup before? Oh, yes. Last year’s Grey Cup.
The odds makers for this game are a little more kind to the Toronto Argonauts than they were to the Ottawa REDBLACKS.
Heck, I bought into the Stamps hype as well. I didn’t really think the REDBLACKS had a chance.
I learned my lesson but in this year’s game, I’m much more confused on the Stamps being favoured.
I’ve heard things this week already along the lines of ‘this isn’t going to be close.’
I don’t see it.
The parity in the CFL in the back half of the season is going to carry over into the Grey Cup. There was no West is best down the stretch. Toronto is 6-2 in their last eight games, including the win in the Eastern Final.
They’ve won with great defence, strong run game and a highly efficient quarterback. All the ingredients he Ottawa REDBLACKS were showing last year.
Calgary shouldn’t take this as any disrespect, as you know when they turn on the film, they don’t see a team far inferior to them. The positional breakdown is nearly even with strengths and weaknesses on both sides.
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Are you ever going to count out a team being led by Marc Trestman and quarterbacked by Ricky Ray?
If so, the joke’s on you.
The Toronto Argonauts season started to turn around after Labour Day. Their two losses has been by a field goal so you can throw out the fact the Stampeders beat the Argonauts by 17 and 16 points in their respective games.
That was the old Argonauts.
“We finally flipped a switch and started executing and being more disciplined for the entire game and it caught on for us in the second half,” says receiver Armanti Edwards.
Edwards says the team has that believe that if they’re in the game with three minutes left, anything can happen in this league.
“Coach Trestman preaches every week it’s 57 minutes plus three. In the CFL in the fourth quarter those last three minutes is very long.”
There is no doubt that one of the major differences on offence for the Argonauts is James Wilder Jr. In the two losses to the Stamps they had no balance to the offence with Brandon Whitaker still in the mix.
Wilder was just starting to find his groove, carrying the ball just five times in those games combined.
Defensive coordinator Corey Chamblin confirms the team took a while to figure out which players were the best to lead them forward.
“We’ve changed some personnel on many sides of the ball that kind of made us a stronger team. I think the coaches were learning the players and the players were learning the coaches and once we got that figured out we got a little bit stronger.”
As for his defence?
Health was a big factor.
They missed players like Victor Butler, Marcus Ball, Bear Woods, Cleyon Laing, Shawn Lemon, Jermaine Gabriel at points in the middle of the season. Now that they’re all back, it’s the defence Chamblin envisioned from the beginning.
It’s that defence that will need to come out big on Sunday. They can’t stop the Calgary machine but they need to do enough to be in it for the final three.
Who gets the ball last, could be the difference and if the ball is in Ricky Ray’s hand, we found out last week that will mean it’s going to be fun parade and celebration in Toronto next week.
The CFL simulator is going the other way with a seven point favourite for the Toronto Argonauts, so if all things are taken into account, we got a pick ’em, which is much closer to how I see this play out.
