Walter Tychnowicz/CFL.ca
Hello, Live Mic quarterbacks. I enjoyed that quite a bit. Here are some of the words I heard (or thought I did) during Friday night’s game between Hamilton and Winnipeg: Hurricane, limo, jerk, hockey, beta (or was it bagel?), Oregon, vampire, Childish Gambino (!), goalie, Ebay, Augusta. At one point I could have sworn I heard “Kenny Rogers,” but that can’t be right can it? Going forward, I have a few requests for words or phrases I’d like to hear:
Hog line, mukluk, squat cobbler, chimichanga, flux capacitor, Chibougamau, Flashdance, slobberknocker, bunnyhug, O’Billovich, Vandelay, nozzle, moose tracks, humbug, space force, pool noodle and yoga pants.
Here are this week’s takeaways.
1. NOTHING COMES WITHOUT A STRUGGLE FOR THE MONTREAL ALOUETTES
Thank you, Mike Sherman, for giving us the perfect image to cap the game as the Alouettes ended their 13-game losing streak on Saturday night, in Saskatchewan. The sight of you struggling gamely, patiently and ultimately successfully in trying to remove your headset pack and the wiring that made it such an adventure, summed up Montreal’s own epic struggle to get into the win column for nearly eleven months.
Your determination in that amazing segment of time can be a lesson for all going forward. Keep at ‘er. It’s gonna happen.
Not to mention that the video will be a gift that keeps on giving for your players, who no doubt will be letting you hear about when you get back to work for Week 4. Hot damn, I’d love to be in the film room when that thing gets presented for the first time. Doubt they’ll play it over and over and over, though. Or backwards. Or in slo-mo. Or freeze-frame it again and again. Or get a screen cap of it for t-shirts.
Whenever I am feeling unproductive, unsuccessful or like a flat out failure, and I feel like giving up, I am going to remember these words:
Mike Sherman versus the headset.
BONUS TAKEAWAY: We should ask the Reklaws to re-work the words to their Thursday Night Football theme so we can lay it over the video of the epic man vs headset battle. Long Live The Fight.
2. CORNERS CAN BE MORE THAN THOROUGHBREDS
They can be plow horses, too. Usually they get attention only when they pluck a beauty interception from the air or are seen with their hands outstretched as if to say “where was my help?” after being beaten on a long gainer. Calgary’s Ciante Evans showed that these delicate artistes can also blow you up real good if given the chance.
At five-foot-11, and 195 lbs, Evans isn’t built like a bulldozer. But, during Thursday night’s win over the visiting Ottawa REDBLACKS, he looked the part at a critical moment in the game. With Ottawa down by three in the fourth and scrimmaging from the Calgary four-yard line, REDBLACKS’
Diontae Spencer caught a little flare pass and looked good to go to the end zone until Evans made a terrific goal line tackle, wrapping the receiver up and driving him back before he could reach out and get the ball to break the plane. Yup, it probably helped that Spencer is not exactly a giant himself, but Evans made a play that his Calgary teammates agreed was a crucial one, firing them up and paving the road to victory.
BONUS TAKEAWAY: Sync up Mike Sherman’s battle with his headset to Pink Floyd’s “Dark Side of the Moon.” Amazing.
3. TICATS RUNNING BACK DEPTH: IT’S MORE THAN TIMMIS
Last week I got to sing the praises of Hamilton’s young Canadian running back, Mercer Timmis, who had a tremendous night in a big win over the Edmonton Eskimos. This week, I get to pretty well write the same stuff about another young, Canadian running back, Sean Thomas Erlington, who rushed eleven times for 92 yards, and whose night included an eye-popping hurdle move over one of the CFL’s most feared tacklers, Blue Bomber safety Taylor Loffler.
I kinda thought the ‘Cats would feature Timmis again after his Week 2 showing. Instead, they used him as a battering ram in special situations (two red zone TD’s) and put the rest of the league on notice with Thomas Erlington; The Ticats don’t have a Canadian running back with immense promise on their roster. They have two.
BONUS TAKEAWAY: Mike Sherman is the guy in the theatre who spends two full minutes trying to open his package of Twizzlers during the quietest, most emotional moment of the movie.
4. SOMETIMES YOUR HIGHLIGHT TAPE IS EASY TO EDIT
Sometimes you don’t have to edit it at all, actually.
Take the case of Edmonton receiver Natey Adjei, who made a thrilling, toe drag touchdown reception in the Eskimos’ victory over the BC Lions on Friday night. If that wasn’t quite enough, Adjei went right back out on the field to take up his place on the kick cover team and made another highlight play, upending Lions’ return man Chris Rainey with a crowd-pleasing tackle. All Adjei’s gotta do is take out the conversion in between and voila! Highlight tape!
Adjei is just one of the many special teams players in the CFL who can do other things too if given the chance, grinding it out kick after kick after kick, hoping for offensive or defensive reps so that they can remind everybody why they were drafted in the first place.
BONUS TAKEAWAY: One man, one headset, nothing else. Steven Spielberg presents. Tom Hanks as Mike Sherman. Wilson the volleyball, in the typecast-shattering performance of a lifetime, as the headset.
5. CHRIS WILLIAMS IS STILL KINDA FAST
Last year’s washout of a season in BC is being left behind like a badly beaten DB, if Saturday night’s game is any indication.
After a mostly wonderful two years in Ottawa, Chris Williams hit the trail for free agent goodies in 2017, winding up in Vancouver, but missing half of the season with knee troubles that continued to plague him, after he suffered an injury late in the REDBLACKS’ 2016 season.
Not much came of that half season with the Lions, and Williams was dealt to Montreal last December. What only a short time before that would have been considered a big move, seemed more of a shoulder-shrugger, met with kind of a “meh” feeling across the CFL.
Saturday night, Williams displayed that he is far from done, consistently blazing past Duron Carter when he was given a clear path, and showing that when it comes to beating physical play at the line, he remains one of the league’s premier press coverage escape artists.
Don’t sleep on Chris Williams, y’all. Now, if the Als can consistently get the ball to him….
BONUS TAKEAWAY: There may be just one thing on earth more impressive for its sheer, unbending will than Mike Sherman’s determination to remove his headset and that is Chris Jones’ continued insistence that Duron Carter remain on defence.
AND FINALLY…
John Bowman might play ’til he’s 50. Or 60. Do I hear 70?
