How Many Wins Do We Finish With?

[Argo]

IF the injured return on the double THEN the there's no reason the Argos cannot resemble the team that started off the season, i.e., competitive, entertaining, and more than just a solid D.

(But, please Trestman, do try to find and fit in better players when and where you can. Ideally real soon now and in the O line.)

IMO, most likely is from one to three more wins. I will go with two and the team finishing with six wins.

Really hope to see the team exceed my expectations bigly. More expansively, though, with Popp and Co. in its first year and - to cut to the chase - with the large-scale, impossibly serious, conditions and problems threatening the world at large - I no longer get too worked up about things like football.

[Al&Kat]

When the entire CFL is so tilted to the West, like it has never been over the 40 years I've been watching,
it's very hard for any die-hard fan of any Eastern team, which includes
every poster on this site, to be truly serious about the outcome of the 2017 season.
Yes it's been "west-tilted" often, but never like this year. It's looking like the best place to finish
in the 2017 regular season is 4th place in the West!

As of today, for every CFL fan east of Manitoba, it's officially wait for 2019.
QUESTION IS, what will that mean in terms of crowd-size at BMO the rest of the way???

[paulwoods13]

2019? So the western dominance has no chance of ending next year?

[Ron]

As of today, for every CFL fan east of Manitoba, it's officially wait for 2019.

Why? Worked out pretty good for the East last year.

People put too much importance in the regular season. Doesn't matter how dominant you are if you don't win at least 2 games in late November. I don't care how many wins the Argos have as long as they finish in the top 2 in the East. After that it's all about the roll. (Like 2012 for us and Ottawa in 16)

[PullTogether73]

Why? Worked out pretty good for the East last year.

People put too much importance in the regular season. Doesn't matter how dominant you are if you don't win at least 2 games in late November. I don't care how many wins the Argos have as long as they finish in the top 2 in the East. After that it's all about the roll. (Like 2012 for us and Ottawa in 16)

Exactly.

And the primary reason that the current playoff structure should be scrapped imo.
Teams (usually western) work hard over 18 regular season games to achieve a winning record.
Some loser team in the east makes it into the playoffs due to the mandated east/west structure and manages to find religion for a couple of weeks and claim the eastern division title or the Grey Cup.
Pathetic.

But hey, the "tradition" of east/west must be maintained.
Oh, and nobody in the east would watch the playoffs if there was no eastern team in them.
Stupid crap.

Scrap the regular season then. It barely matters. Have a four/five week round robin tournament for each division and then the east winner plays the west winner in the GC.

[PullTogether73]

As for the poll, I go with 6 wins.

Any 2 of Montreal, Hamilton, and B.C., but probably not all three.
And with Derel Walker's return to the Eskimos, and likely injury returns, I think the Argos lose both Edmonton games.

[gilthethrill]

As for the poll, I go with 6 wins.

Any 2 of Montreal, Hamilton, and B.C., but probably not all three.
And with Derel Walker's return to the Eskimos, and likely injury returns, I think the Argos lose both Edmonton games.

Even with Walker returning, Edmonton is hurting. I think the Argos will have it figured out by the time they play the Lions, but I think Ottawa will finish first.

[Ron]

Scrap the regular season then. It barely matters. Have a four/five week round robin tournament for each division and then the east winner plays the west winner in the GC.

Without the regular season you have no CFL to watch. Teams gotta make $$. Same as in every sport.

I personally would keep the divisions as is for the regular season. The 1st place teams would get byes into the second round and be top seeds. After that ... division goes away and teams are ranked by record. The current setup as it stands makes the CFL the only professional league that rewards mediocrity based on geography.

[argolio]

2019? So the western dominance has no chance of ending next year?

Maybe, but they've been better head-to-head vs the East in the regular season most years since 1981. If anything, one division dominating the other should have become much harder after they put in a strict salary cap system, but for some reason it's now worse than ever.

If they want to keep two divisions, they need to find a way to get a fifth team in the East, with each division playing 10 games in your division and 8 against the other. That would make a crossover much less likely, and allow for better scheduling.

[Neely2005]

We already have the Crossover Rule, that's enough.

[ArgoRavi]

Without the regular season you have no CFL to watch. Teams gotta make $$. Same as in every sport.

I personally would keep the divisions as is for the regular season. The 1st place teams would get byes into the second round and be top seeds. After that ... division goes away and teams are ranked by record. The current setup as it stands makes the CFL the only professional league that rewards mediocrity based on geography.

Have you seen the NBA lately, Ron? The Western Conference has been much, much stronger than the Eastern Conference the past few years. The Raptors would be lucky to make the playoffs in the Western Conference but I don't hear many in Toronto complaining about that.

[Ron]

Have you seen the NBA lately, Ron? The Western Conference has been much, much stronger than the Eastern Conference the past few years. The Raptors would be lucky to make the playoffs in the Western Conference but I don't hear many in Toronto complaining about that.

Maybe true. But you don't see a set of standings in any other pro sport that has an entire division/conference ahead of the first place team in the other. All for an east/west discrimination (are Canadian truly still that petty?) that was proven false in 2007.

[paulwoods13]

Maybe, but they've been better head-to-head vs the East in the regular season most years since 1981. If anything, one division dominating the other should have become much harder after they put in a strict salary cap system, but for some reason it's now worse than ever.

If they want to keep two divisions, they need to find a way to get a fifth team in the East, with each division playing 10 games in your division and 8 against the other. That would make a crossover much less likely, and allow for better scheduling.

That schedule wouldn't happen. The five eastern teams would still play 10 games against the five western teams and only eight within their own division, just as they do now. The only difference would be that the intra-division games would be divided up among four teams instead of three. The only way we will ever play fewer than 10 games against the west is if they scrap the home-and-home format that has existed since 1981. And there's no way eastern teams would be willing to have the big-draw Roughriders come to town only every second year.

[AngeloV]

The only way we will ever play fewer than 10 games against the west is if they scrap the home-and-home format that has existed since 1981. And there's no way eastern teams would be willing to have the big-draw Roughriders come to town only every second year.

I'd like to test that theory. How much more does the attendance go up when the Riders come to town as opposed to how much does it go down when the Lions and Bombers come to town. I would be willing to bet that if they came to town every 2nd year, the spike for that game would be much higher.

[paulwoods13]

I'd like to test that theory. How much more does the attendance go up when the Riders come to town as opposed to how much does it go down when the Lions and Bombers come to town. I would be willing to bet that if they came to town every 2nd year, the spike for that game would be much higher.

Quite possible. But what would the alternative schedule be? One game against each western team and 13 against the other teams in the East? I'd get very sick of seeing the same opponents over and over. Or totally unbalanced, i.e. two against some western teams and one against others? Then we'd end up with strength-of-schedule issues, one area that the CFL is better than the NFL IMO. Everyone plays the same schedule as everyone else, more or less.

The old unbalanced schedule worked when the East played 14 games and the West played 16 -- each team played one game against teams outside the division and three games against teams inside the division. But the 18-game schedule in a nine-team league pretty well requires home-and-home, with two extra intradivision games thrown in. Even if the league had a 10th team in the East, going to 13+5 would mean playing one team four times a season. Too many IMO.

[AngeloV]

Quite possible. But what would the alternative schedule be? One game against each western team and 13 against the other teams in the East? I'd get very sick of seeing the same opponents over and over. Or totally unbalanced, i.e. two against some western teams and one against others? Then we'd end up with strength-of-schedule issues, one area that the CFL is better than the NFL IMO. Everyone plays the same schedule as everyone else, more or less.

The old unbalanced schedule worked when the East played 14 games and the West played 16 -- each team played one game against teams outside the division and three games against teams inside the division. But the 18-game schedule in a nine-team league pretty well requires home-and-home, with two extra intradivision games thrown in. Even if the league had a 10th team in the East, going to 13+5 would mean playing one team four times a season. Too many IMO.

You can do 12 and 6 with a a rotation of which western team you play twice in that year. I think building rivalries are more important than playing home and home with every team in the league.

[argolio]

That schedule wouldn't happen. The five eastern teams would still play 10 games against the five western teams and only eight within their own division, just as they do now. The only difference would be that the intra-division games would be divided up among four teams instead of three. The only way we will ever play fewer than 10 games against the west is if they scrap the home-and-home format that has existed since 1981. And there's no way eastern teams would be willing to have the big-draw Roughriders come to town only every second year.

Under my proposal with a 10th team, we'd play West teams home-and-home three years out of five, and then one home and one away the other two years. So the Riders would play here four years out of five. Not a major difference.

Have you seen the NBA lately, Ron? The Western Conference has been much, much stronger than the Eastern Conference the past few years. The Raptors would be lucky to make the playoffs in the Western Conference but I don't hear many in Toronto complaining about that.

The NBA's problem is that sometimes only two teams can legitimately win the championship. That makes their regular season largely meaningless.

[PullTogether73]

You can do 12 and 6 with a a rotation of which western team you play twice in that year. I think building rivalries are more important than playing home and home with every team in the league.

I think the complete opposite.
Balanced (or close to it, as is the current situation in the CFL) schedules are the fairest to every team.

Having to watch the incompetent east division teams play each other 4 times a year would kill any enthusiasm for the league in eastern Canada imo.
And the low level of competitiveness would make the league a laughing stock.

[ArgoZ]

Have you seen the NBA lately, Ron? The Western Conference has been much, much stronger than the Eastern Conference the past few years. The Raptors would be lucky to make the playoffs in the Western Conference but I don't hear many in Toronto complaining about that.

Not true, but I get the point your trying to make. The Raptors have finished near the top of their conference the last few years, but their problem is they can't compete with Cleveland in the playoffs and if they ever do, there is likely Golden State in the final. This makes the regular season a long, been there, done that grind until the playoffs, where everyone is expecting them to lose. Raptor hype has subsided lately directly because of this.

Maybe true. But you don't see a set of standings in any other pro sport that has an entire division/conference ahead of the first place team in the other. All for an east/west discrimination (are Canadian truly still that petty?) that was proven false in 2007.

9 franchises is the only reason. The probability is mathematically higher. I remember some years where one NFL division would all have better or similar records than another division, but it didn't matter much because usually only the division winner moved on, and there is 32 teams!

[doubleblue]

I haven't seen the official figures, but have noticed that the best draws in the West seem to be the western teams and the same in the East. Maybe it is because more fans travel to games in their own division. But it seems that a Toronto at Ottawa, Ottawa at Montreal, Toronto at Hamilton, Hamilton at Toronto etc. always draw better than a B.C. or Edmonton at one of the Eastern teams. The present schedule of home and home with everybody, plus two more against your own division seems to be the happy medium.