Larionov
Registered User
Soooo, the East is really bad once again this year.
Hamilton has dominated their way through three games, outscoring their opponents by almost 100 points so far. Montreal and Toronto are each winless and have been blown out by the Ti Cats.
I'm hoping Ottawa can at least make the playoffs this season, which I think they should be. We lost a ton of talent in the offseason - not just Harris, Ellingson and Spencer, but also a late retiree and a late offensive coordinator departure. It's such a messy offseason, but so far so good.
Ti-Cts are feasting on a weak early schedule. Two of their wins are over the Als and Argos, who will be the two worst teams in the league by a mile. Ti-Cats also get Montreal again next week, so they'll be 4-0 but I would argue a pretty untested 4-0.
Meanwhile, our off-season may not have been nearly as bad as advertised. Yes, we lost guys in free agency, but every one of them was a) American, and b) over 30. Here's a good example - losing Sir Vincent Rogers at left tackle in free agency looked less than ideal to say the least, but dude went to Edmonton, tore his tricep in training camp, and has now been lost for the year to surgery. Injuries happen in this game to anyone, but they especially start to pile up in older players. Our GM would never say it publicly, but when Sir V went down he had to be thinking to himself, "THAT is why I didn't want to spend big money on an older import player."
The thinking in the CFL is that it is driven by quarterbacks and Canadian starters - everyone else is disposable to varying degrees. Yes, we lost Harris, which I still think feels a little odd, but so far he appears to have been adequately replaced by Davis and Jennings, and we didn't lose any starting Canadians. Our defence, in the meantime, looks really solid - everyone forgets that we returned all our starters on D, along with a great defensive coordinator in Thorpe. (We're going to lose him eventually to a head coaching gig elsewhere.)
I'm pretty confident that it will be yet another Ottawa - Hamilton East Final. From there, you're only one win away from the big game...