June 30th 2012: Toronto Argonauts vs. Edmonton

[ArgoRavi]

Good to hear he'll be okay. He's one of the best refs in the league.

I agree, Argolio. Best wishes for a speedy recovery to Mr. Proulx.

[Rich]

One positive: I thought Keeping did a good job at center. There were no problems with the snap at all, and I didn't notice him getting beaten by Edmonton's pass rush.

I thought I saw Keeping get beat badly a couple of times. The O-line definitely needs quick improvement, but I also think Coach M's new system hasn't quite sunk in yet and needs more time. It sure looked like there was some confusion with assignments on those pathetic running attempts.

[Rich]

The D, though it had a few breakdowns, looked fast, aggressive, and turned what looked like might have been some longer Eskimo gains into shorter ones. That didn't happen much last year.

I'm excited about this defence. There's definitely more closing speed than there was last year. Our CBs and OLBs were right on top of those receivers in the flat as soon as they got the ball. Ball took some bad penalties but was all over the field, closing in on the ball carriers a lot faster than Kevin Eiben can. He and Kuale are gonna cause a lot of offences some grief this year. Did Pottinger play at all?

[Rich]

Once again the Argos did not use Durie enough (0 rushes) when the Eskimos were obviously keying on Boyd, although he caught 4 passes. They need to force other teams to think abut Durie as a rb to take the pressure off Boyd.

Surely they could have used Durie as the check down guy, why not mix it up a bit? Some of those unsuccessful dumps to Boyd can be attributed to Ray throwing it to the wrong shoulder and not leading him properly, a timing issue, but then again Ray was running for his life most of the time so he can't really be blamed.

Speaking of mixing it up a little bit, why does Ray line up in shotgun formation 100% of the time? Shotgun is really better suited to the more mobile QB with quick feet who can change direction quickly. What's wrong with letting a dropback passer play his own game once in a while? The running game is much more effective when the QB is under centre, since the RB has some momentum when he takes the ball. It's a mystery why we don't do it.

This is yet another example of that same-old same-old CFL groupthink that my friend OV rails so eloquently about. Somewhere somebody decides that QB's just don't line up under centre in the CFL, and so nobody does it, nobody's got the stones to run an "unconventional" offence in the CFL.

[paulwoods13]

This is yet another example of that same-old same-old CFL groupthink that my friend OV rails so eloquently about. Somewhere somebody decides that QB's just don't line up under centre in the CFL, and so nobody does it, nobody's got the stones to run an "unconventional" offence in the CFL.

I basically agree wih this. The Run and Shoot offence the Argos ran in 1982 and '83 was a very innovative and successful offence, and they never ran it out of the 'gun because everything was timed to the number of steps the QB would take dropping back or rolling out. Be interesting to see teams go back to mixing it up, putting the QB under centre at least on occasion.

[ArgoRavi]

I basically agree wih this. The Run and Shoot offence the Argos ran in 1982 and '83 was a very innovative and successful offence, and they never ran it out of the 'gun because everything was timed to the number of steps the QB would take dropping back or rolling out. Be interesting to see teams go back to mixing it up, putting the QB under centre at least on occasion.

Mike Kelly did have his QBs operate under centre for the first half or so of his one season as Winnipeg head coach but he eventually abandoned that due to his team's struggles. It is interesting how it has evolved to every QB being in shotgun on every play. I remember Chris Isaac being one of the first to do this with Ottawa back in 1982 and the idea was that it would be easier for him to read defences from there and he would get that extra bit of time to get rid of the ball. Other than Kelly's experiment in Winnipeg, does anyone remember when the tipping point was for the shotgun to be used the majority of the time?

[ArgoRavi]

I'm excited about this defence. There's definitely more closing speed than there was last year. Our CBs and OLBs were right on top of those receivers in the flat as soon as they got the ball. Ball took some bad penalties but was all over the field, closing in on the ball carriers a lot faster than Kevin Eiben can. He and Kuale are gonna cause a lot of offences some grief this year. Did Pottinger play at all?

Pottinger is injured and did not dress on Saturday. I believe that it is expected that he will be back in the lineup against Calgary.

[QBall]

Penalties and Prefontaine were brutal but I'll chalk it up to first game jitters. These are things the coaching staff can fix (well I can only hope with Prefontaine). I thought Chad Kackert had an okay day. He's the guy I'm hoping will break out this year. I guess the best news is all the teams in the east lost this weekend, so this loss really means nothing in the east's standings since everyone is still at zero.