Matt Smith/CFL.ca
Hello, Calgary Stampeders. I like your defensive play-calling flash cards. C.J. from Baywatch. Sloth from Goonies. If I send you a high resolution photo of me standing under a hanging fern, imitating Sideshow Bob, would you use that in a game please? If not, I’d settle for Inigo Montoya. Or The Dude. Or Joan Cusack with her big hair from Working Girl.
Here are this week’s takeaways.
1. YOU CAN’T ALWAYS GET WHAT YOU WANT
Despite the crowd chanting his name, Johnny Manziel stayed on the sidelines last week against Edmonton (Peter McCabe/CFL.ca)
They were calling for Johnny Manziel to be put in on Friday night. The home crowd, not so much disappointed with a decent enough effort by starting quarterback Vernon Adams, but more with the big deficit faced by the Alouettes, and fuelled by a deep desire to see the fallen king of all college quarterbacks in action, wanted Manziel out there, and they made it perfectly clear, too.
Montreal Head Coach Mike Sherman was not having it, though, not with his Alouettes suffering from protective scheme breakdowns and with Manziel having arrived just a few days prior.
Football fans were all “c’mon, put up the trampoline, dad,” and Sherman was all “not ’til we’ve read through the entirety of the owner’s manual, kids.”
Pity that. But you can’t really be too bent out of shape with Sherman’s decision.
Some believe Manziel shouldn’t start even this week, needing still more time to digest the Alouettes’ way of doing things. I’m not one of them.
I want my trampoline.
It’d be a bit of a shock to me if Manziel doesn’t start – at home – on Friday against his former mates, the Hamilton Ticats.
He’ll be ready enough, I’d have to think. Enough of the Montreal playbook to jump in and execute decently well.
If he falters? That’s fine too, as it’ll give him opportunities to do what everyone wants to see him do anyway; break contain, scramble around and have us occasionally saying ‘hey, that’s a little Flutie-like, right there.’ Sandlot football, all filled with spins and dekes, shovel passes, throwing on the run, and ankle-breaking scampers.
You know, Johnny Football stuff. It’s time. Let’s go.
2. LEWIS WARD IS A REAL LIFE SUPER TOE
He’s five-foot-seven and weighs 175 pounds, though I wonder if that’s with all his pockets stuffed with quarters.
Lewis Ward is wee, yes, but he’s got a powerful leg. Ottawa’s mighty mite rookie kicker reminds me of Super Toe, one of my favourite sports toys from the 70’s. Look it up, youngsters, and marvel at the fact that children of the 1970’s could amuse themselves with such distractions for hours on end. Super Toe was money, always.
Lewis Ward is better than Super Toe, though, because you don’t have to line him up. He does that himself. And you don’t make your hand sore by bonking him on the head to make him kick, though I’d like to see that actually happen in a game just once.
Seven for seven against the Hamilton Ticats in a 21-15 victory, bringing Super Toe’s season stats to 20 field goals made in 21 attempts.
Seventeen made in a row, now. He missed once from 48 yards, back in Week 2, Ottawa’s first game of the season.
Ward is at 95.2 per cent in field goaling, but gets boosted to 96.2 if you feel like putting his four successful converts in there as well.
All hail Super Toe. Although he be li’l, he be fierce.
3. DARVIN ADAMS: MORE THAN JUST A PRETTY PAIR OF HANDS
I saw that, Darvin. Don’t think no one saw that because I did.
You get accolades galore for your silky stride, for your magnetized hands, for your incisive routes, for your ability to elevate. But no one ever sees the sandpaper, right? The tough guy inside.
Well, I did.
I saw you cruise along the line of scrimmage towards tackle Jermarcus Hardrick as quarterback Matt Nichols was calling out signals. Then, wham! Ball snapped, you turn and take on Toronto defensive end Troy Davis, knocking him back a stride just as he was exploding towards Nic Demski, who was taking a hand-off on a jet sweep. Davis was probably gonna blow that play up real good because Hardrick had released so that he could rumble downfield, eventually blocking out the sun on defensive back Alden Darby.
Demski then did his flying Wallenda thing along the sideline, finding the end zone on a 28-yard run.
Does it happen if you don’t seal the corner? Probably not, because Davis has got closing speed and he’d have been right at the intersection of Demski and Backfield if you hadn’t stood him up.
Darvin Adams. He may be a gazelle, running free. But even a Gazelle wants to use those horns once in a while.
4. TOBI ANTIGHA IS A FREAK
Check that. He’s a super-freak. Super-freak. He’s super-freaky. Yow.
He’s a defensive lineman. He’s a linebacker. No, he’s a free safety who can read and rotate over in time to make an interception and hit the burners on a 52-yard pick-six return.
The guy’s six-foot-two, 223-pounds, and can rush the quarterback, stuff the run or get back and cover like few – if any – others can.
And did you know he was a receiver in college? (Looking at you, Chris Jones)
Super-freak.
Or, he’s a cyborg, sent from the future to kill us all or save us all, I dunno. Depends on whether we’re in the original Tobi Antigha film or the
sequel. What I’m saying, people, is that Tobi Antigha might just be using his ridiculously versatile football skills as a cover for something else.
Which is it, Tobi? Good Arnie or bad Arnie?
Whatever, really. I don’t care. Do what you gotta do. Save the humans or destroy them, as long as you keep playing football like that.
5. THE ARGOS HAVE COME TO A PIVOTAL POINT
During the late stages of Friday night’s lopsided loss in Winnipeg, Toronto Argonauts’ Head Coach Marc Trestman was heard to say something to the effect of “we sure we have the right personnel out there?”
Trestman was talking about a specific complement of players for a specific situation, but it seems he continued the theme over the weekend, running it through his mind and coming up with the answer that, no, he was not sure, more generally speaking.
So on Sunday, Trestman announced that he would be starting quarterback McLeod Bethel-Thompson against the Ottawa REDBLACKS over James Franklin, the Argos’ heir apparent to Ricky Ray since being acquired in a deal with Edmonton last December.
You cannot lay all of the Argos’ disappointment (1 and 5, languishing in a tie for last in the East when they were expected to contend for first) at the feet of Franklin, even with his lacklustre numbers, troughing with three interceptions against the Blue Bombers on Friday. There’ve been abundant problems in abundant places on both sides of the ball and on special teams too. But this is where a coach starts when they’re looking for a spark in this sport, and it is time to see what Bethel-Thompson can do.
You’d have to think that if the Argonauts come up way light against Ottawa, this quarterback switch (and the subsequent trading of defensive back T.J. Heath to Montreal) will have been a harbinger for even more change.
AND FINALLY…
I want a camera on my hat too.
