Prophecies for the second week of November - professional division!

Yesterday, we posted the Following Football ACNC predictions for the college games of the week (since the MAC starts on Tuesday for a few weeks, giving us something like 26 days of non-stop football! WHOOPEE!). Today, let's dive into the pros on our normal Wednesday edition of Prophecies In Phootball!

CANADIAN FOOTBALL LEAGUE - Playoff edition!

Here's the playoff grid for the CFL, having just played twenty-two weeks to eliminate three teams...

EASTERN division)   BC Lions @ Calgary Stampeders Saturday. The odds favor Calgary by, and we like them by even more: a 7-11 team travels to a 14-4 defending champion? Take Calgary plus the points.

Next Saturday, the winner goes to Edmonton to play the division champion Eskimos.

WESTERN division)   Toronto Argonauts @ Hamilton TigerCats Saturday. Again, the home team is favored by, and even so we're going to take Hamilton plus the points. The TiCats were the best team in the league for most of the season, and really didn't fade as much as have quarterback injury issues, while Ottawa nipped them at the wire in that spectacular home-and-home series the last two weeks. The Argos get their starting QB back, but we like the experience of Hamilton.

Next Saturday, the winner of this game goes to Ottawa to play the second-year RedBlacks for the division title!

Then, on November 29th, the 103rd Grey Cup will match the division champions for the title!


NATIONAL FOOTBALL LEAGUE - week ten

Here's our grid for the week - DEN+ means we like Denver to win by MORE than the point spread, and MIN- means that we like Minnesota to do better than losing by the point spread (either lose by less or win outright):

Week 10		(Nov 12-16)
Home		Away		Vegas Line	FF Ratings	My Pick
Jets		Bills		NJ -3	E/D -1	BUF -
Ravens		Jaguars		B -5.5	E/G -7	BAL +
Packers		Lions		GB -11.5	B/H -15	GB +
Eagles		Dolphins		PH -6.5	D/F -7	PHI +
Steelers		Browns		PT -4.5	C/H -13	PIT +
Rams		Bears		SL -8.5	C/F -9	CHI -
Buccaneers		Cowboys		TB -1.5	G/F -1	TB +
Titans		Panthers		CA -4.5	A/G -15	CAR +
Redskins		Saints		NO -1.5	F/F +3	WAS -
Raiders		Vikings		OAK -3	D/C+ 0	MIN -
Broncos		Chiefs		DN -6.5	B/C- -6	DEN +
Giants		Patriots		NE -7	E-/A -6	NE +
Seahawks		Cardinals		SE -3	B/B -3	no pick
Bengals		Texans		CN -10.5	A/G- -16	CIN +

And because we hadn't had a chance to publish them yet, here are the current tiers and rankings:

Tier A) 1. New England. 2. Cincinnati. 3. Carolina.

Tier B) 4. Denver. 5. Green Bay. 6. Arizona. 7. Seattle.

Tier C) 8. Minnesota. 9. St. Louis. 10. Pittsburgh. 11. Kansas City.

Tier D) 12. Atlanta. 13. Buffalo. 14. Philadelphia. 15. Oakland.

Tier E) 16. New York Jets. 17. Baltimore. 18. New York Giants.

Tier F) 19. New Orleans. 20. Washington. 21. Dallas. 22. Chicago. 23. San Diego. 24. Miami.

Tier G) 25. San Francisco. 26. Tampa Bay. 27. Indianapolis. 28. Tennessee. 29. Jacksonville. 30. Houston.

Tier H) 31. Cleveland. 32. Detroit. 

Prophecies, part one...

Just for convenience of publishing, here are the predictions for the professionals first...college football will come out later in the day:

Here are our predictions for All Hallow’s Eve weekend of football!

RUGBY) We think the New Zealand All-Blacks will continue their dominance and rout Australia by more than a try (five points). The finals are on NBC this Saturday – check your listings; we don’t remember what time. (And if you’ve never seen the Haka, tune in early just for that!)

NFL) For some reason, we think it’s a boring weekend in the National!....Football!...LEAGUE! Out of the fourteen games on the slate for week eight, we see twelve of them as the favorite beating the spread:

New England (-8) over the Jets; Kansas City (-4.5) over the Lions; Atlanta (-7.5) over Tampa; Baltimore (-3) over the Chargers; Minnesota (-1) over Da Bears; Arizona (-5) over the Browns; Houston (-4) over the Titans [this one makes us uncomfortable, though, because of both teams’ QB situations]; New Orleans (-3.5) over the Giants [this one also took a long time…]; the New York Jets (-2) over the Raiders; Seattle (-6) over the QB-less (and rudderless) Cowboys; Green Bay (-3) over Denver [wanted to take Denver, and all our metrics say to…but Aaron Rogers, man…]; and Carolina (-7) over the listing Colts.

The only two underdogs we’re going with this weekend are San Francisco (+8.5) against the Rams [it’s just too high a spread], and we like Pittsburgh (+1.5) to beat Cincinnati outright at home this weekend, as much as we like the Bengals. Call it the 6-0 jinx – we don’t see any of the others losing (except Denver or Green Bay to each other, which is required), and it’s hard to see four 7-0 teams moving forward. Pittsburgh with Landry Jones has a functional offense, and the Bengals have a down game coming…

CFL) Two weeks left! Playoff spots and positions are on the line! Here are the standings as we speak…

CANADIAN FOOTBALL LEAGUE 2015						Week 18			FF Elo-style
Western Team	W	L	PpG	PF	PA	Avg PF	Avg PA	P +/-	RATING	FF rank
Edmonton	13	4	1.53	426	319	25.1	18.8	107	36.4	2
Calgary	12	4	1.50	408	320	25.5	20.0	88	38.4	1 (-2)
BC Lions	6	10	0.75	403	433	25.2	27.1	-30	32.7	4 (-1)
Winnipeg	5	12	0.59	342	481	20.1	28.3	-139	23.6	8
Saskatchewan	2	14	0.25	381	497	23.8	31.1	-116	23.1	9
Eastern Team	W	L	PpG	PF	PA	APF	APA	P +/-	RATING	FF rank
Hamilton	10	6	1.25	496	335	31.0	20.9	161	35.0	3 (+2)
Ottawa	10	6	1.25	408	420	25.5	26.3	-12	27.4	6
Toronto	9	7	1.13	392	461	24.5	28.8	-69	24.3	7 (+3)
Montreal	6	10	0.75	342	332	21.4	20.8	10	29.9	5 (-2)

Hamilton and Ottawa happen to have their two remaining games with each other on back to back weeks, starting this Sunday in Hamilton and concluding in Ottawa on Saturday the 7^th. Meanwhile, Toronto gets two home games to end the year, against BC this Friday and Winnipeg next Friday, but to place first they have to depend on Ottawa and Hamilton tying both of their games! (The CFL computers give them a one-in-ten-thousand chance. Not sure how they figure it.) For the Ti-Cats and RedBlacks, it comes down to the head-to-head; Hamilton owns the tie breaker in a three-way tie; if Toronto falls by the wayside, it becomes a soccer playoff scoring – point differential in two games.

Meanwhile, Edmonton plays its last game of the season on Sunday, and if they win against 6-10 Montreal, they clinch the division. If they lose, Calgary’s got to win both this Saturday at home against poor Saskatchewan, and next Saturday in Vancouver.

There are three playoff spots in each division – the first place gets a bye, which is all-important, and hosts the winner of the third-at-second place game the week before. So, Hamilton, Ottawa, and Toronto are in for the East, while in the West it’ll be Edmonton, Calgary, and either BC or Montreal, who would get in using what they call the “crossover” rule – if a fourth place team is better than the other third place team, they steal that playoff spot! MY FAVORITE PLAYOFF RULE! Last year, it worked the other way: BC stole a spot in the East. So why not root for Montreal to steal the West spot this time? Basically, though, BC owns the tiebreaker, so Montreal must win more of their two remaining games (@ Edmonton and home v Saskatchewan) than British Columbia does (@ Toronto and v Calgary). Very possible. It’s also conceivable that Winnipeg steals the spot, but they’d have to win at Toronto next Friday and have Montreal and BC lose both games. Good luck, Blue Bombers.

Our Picks This Week) Toronto over BC, 28-20…Calgary routs the RoughRiders, 41-19… Hamilton edges Ottawa at home, 33-27…Edmonton clinches by beating Montreal, 31-13.

WEEKEND WESULTS - a day late!

Sometimes the first day of the school year slaps you in the face... and you don't get your Monday blog post out on time! (And sometimes you don't get it out on time and there's no good excuse at all!)

SO, here's your very-late-Monday recap of the weekend's action!

IN THE AFL this weekend, Friday night saw some unexpected clarity come to the top of the ladder when Hawthorn was upset by Port Adelaide 108-86, in Adelaide, in a game that's GOT to make the Power supporters wonder where THAT effort had been all season! Along with West Coast's fourth quarter annihilation of the gallant Western Bulldogs, which ended 162-85 but which was much closer until the last nine goals went the Eagles' way, the two top positions were solidified and Domain Stadium in Perth is going to get a LOT of use in September, hosting BOTH Fremantle and West Coast's games. The road to the first Saturday in October runs through Australia's southwest coast.

Of the other results, Fremantle's loss to the Kangaroos may be the most significant - combined with Adelaide's 131-44 rout of Brisbane, the final eight are fairly close to set. Sydney overran GWS 133-44 to re-take fourth spot, and with fairly easy games to finish the season should be able to maintain that lead over Western, Richmond (147-56 over pathetic Collingwood), and North Melbourne. Only Adelaide is still not quite secure, as a loss to West Coast next week could set up a winner take all game in the final round with Geelong, whose surprising draw with St. Kilda left them a game and a half out but in a position to climb past the Crows with two final wins.

To the Canadian Footballers, Toronto came back from the brink again to beat Ottawa 30-24; Calgary held off winless Saskatchewan 34-31; Montreal won over BC 23-13, and once again, Hamilton overwhelmed Edmonton 49-20. All nine teams have their first bye behind them now, so with eight games each across the board, the three teams who've managed six wins are Hamilton and Toronto in the East, and the defenders Calgary in the West, with Edmonton at 5-3 right behind them. Second-year Ottawa manages a 4-4 record, already doubling last year's win total even with two come-from ahead losses, while Montreal, Winnipeg, and the BC Lions sit in striking distance at 3-5. Saskatchewan, one of the favorites coming into the season, somehow is left still seeking win number one, at 0-8, six games back with ten to play.With two-thirds of the teams making the playoffs, they're only three games out of a playoff position, but still...there's a lot to do.

As for the NFL, there were some very educational games this weekend! We learned that the Redskins are in more trouble than we thought, if they keep getting RG3 hurt like they have. We learned that both Johnny Manziel and EJ Manuel have quarterbacking futures in Cleveland and Buffalo, respectively. We learned Ryan Tannehill may actually deserve the money Miami gave him. We learned Peyton Manning may have nerve issues in his fingertips that are going to continue to cause him cold/wet weather issues like (apparently) they did last winter in the playoffs for Denver. We learned that the Jets aren't as bad off as we'd feared, that the Chiefs have some hope, that the Seahawks are NOT going to show their cards any time soon, We learned that thanks to the Philadelphia Eagles, both Sam Bradford and Tim Tebow have second life in the NFL. We learned that the QB future of the league is bright, thanks to strong showings from youngsters like Jamies Winston in Tampa, Marcus Mariota in Tennessee, and most especially Teddy Bridgewater in Minnesota, who has erased the word "future" from his title. But most of all, we learned that what we love about football is watching when 303-pound Mike Purcell intercepts a pass for the 49ers and runs a third of the length of the field back for a fat guy touchdown! FAT GUY TD's ARE OUR RAISON d'EXISTENCE!

Welcome to the WILD WORLD OF WEEKEND WESULTS!

Welcome back to Following Football 2.0! Here are football results that span the globe, giving you the constant variety of footy...thanks Jim McKay, may you rest in peace!

For the NFL pre-season games, you have to sort of ignore the FINAL scores and look at how the guys who'll actually BE on the team did. 

PHI def IND, 36-10 (Tebow scored a td as quarterback, got a standing ovation when he came on),
HOU def SF, 23-10
MIN def TB, 26-16 (Jamies Winston was outplayed by Teddy Bridgewater)
KC def ARZ 34-16 (but Arizona led 10-0 when the first string came out at the end of the first quarter)
DEN def SEA 22-20 (no Manning, but Brock Osweiler scored on first five drives)
OAK def STL 18-3 (welcome to the big time, Amari Cooper!)
CIN def NYG 23-10 (listened to the game on radio - good signs on both sidelines)
JAX def PIT 23-21 (like last week, first string Steelers played well and led.)
CAR def BUF 25-24 (Bills' Matt Cassell 7 for 8 w a touchdown)
ATL def TEN 31-24 (Marcus Mariota went INT, fumble, TD drive)
SD def DAL 17-7 (rough for Cowboys, talk of LA for Chargers)
WSH def CLV 20-17 (Josh McCown has the best quote after theowing a TD to a WIDE open receiver: "He looked lonely, so I threw him the ball.")
CHI def MIA 27-10 (but Miami's first string won 10-3; Ryan Tannehill went 6-7 with a TD pass)
DET def NYJ 23-3 (Nebraska's Ammer Abdullah had a good first outing!)
BAL def NO 30-27 (Joe Flacco led his first atring to a "victory" early)
And finally, GB def NE 22-11 - Tom Brady did play two short series, going 1 for 4.

 (Of course, we have no record of predicting this season...we are officially 0-0!)

In the CFL, we actually went four for four, raising our record above 50% to 17-15 and up into the top 20% in competition with the Canada Crew:

Edmonton over Montreal 15-12 (after the Alouettes held a 12-0 lead)
Toronto over Winnipeg 27-20 (not as close as it looks)
Hamilton over BC 52-22 (the Cats absolutely dominated all phases of the game)
Calgary over Ottawa 48-3 (looks more like last year's champ over last year's 2-16)

So, right now Hamilton and Toronto in the East, and Calgary and Edmonton in the west, are all 5-2, with poor Saskatchewan still at 0-7 on their bye.

Finally, in the AFL, round 20, Fremantle got their fondest wish by losing to their fiercest rival, West Coast, by a score of 104-80, going down early by six goals and struggling back in the fourth to make it respectable.

Let me explain.

With the win, West Coast stays ahead of the defending champion Hawthorn Hawks for second, which if it held up for three more games would most likely mean that the Hawks will probably have to travel across country TWICE: once at West Coast, and again to play at Fremantle in the prelim finals. That's a tough challenge, even for Hawthorn. Fremantle is still going to end in first place, even with the loss, and if the Eagles can get past the Western Bulldogs next week, they should be able to stay ahead of Hawthorn for second, and both would host qualifying finals in the same stadium!

By the way, we're up to 126-45 this season, positioning us in the top 2% in every comptitive category of punters predicting Aussie footy outcomes (there are 180,000 in the afl.com.au contest!).

The rest of the games this weekend...

Western led Melbourne 76-2 before slowing down a bit to win by a 'mere' 98 points, 153-55, to solidify fourth place (and as discussed in Thursday thoughts this week, fourth is WAY better than fifth!)...Richmond similarly disposed of Gold Coast, although instead of it being the Bulldogs' brilliance, it was the Suns' attrition as even more players went down to injury in a 138-55 loss...Brisbane climbed out of the basement with a dominant win over new wooden spoon favorite Carlton, 131-67...Hawthorn and Geelong had another classic Kenneth Curse battle, this time with the Hawks winning handily, 121-85...Port Adelaide probably ended GWS' finals hopes with a 111-90 win in Adelaide over a team with no healthy midfielders...North Melbourne survived St. Kilda's first half onslaught and came back in the second to win in Tasmania, 120-83... Sydney showed what a champion team is made up, overcoming a great effort that should've given Collingwood a win, instead resulting in a Swans 87-76 victory...and finally, Adelaide utterly annihilated what was left of Essendon's self-esteem, winning 171-59 after Essendon actually WON the first quarter. Pity the poor Bombers' fans, who watch their team literally give up each and every game now.

As for standings, here they are, with three rounds to go: Fremantle (16-3), West Coast (14-4-1), Hawthorn (14-5), Western (13-6), Sydney (13-6), Richmond (12-7), N. Melbourne (12-7), and Adelaide (11-7-1) fill out the top eight for the moment who would make finals. Ninth is Geelong (10-8-1), GWS (10-8), Collingwood (9-10), Port Adelaide (9-10); then a gap down to St. Kilda (6-13), Melbourne (6-13), Essendon (5-14), Gold Coast (3-15-1), Brisbane (3-16), and Carlton (3-16).

Tomorrow, our regular Monday report features updated ratings and rankings, deeper observations from the weekend's action, and FREE TURNIPS FOR EVERYONE! Yes, that's right, we... Oh. Never mind; I've just been told that we can't do the turnip over the internet thing. Yet. 

The Weekend In Haiku

This feature WON'T be
As regular as the rest,
But, ONCE in a while...

Michael Sam retired.
Well, "stepped away from the game,"
But, two plus two is...

Pre-season football
Doesn't have the appeal, but...
Better than nothing!

Up twelve to nothing,
Alouettes' offense did SQUAT:
Edmonton by three.

Magpies SHOULD'VE won,
But Sydney KNOWS how to win.
Swans finish up nine.

Hamilton Ti-Cats
an-NI-hi-late the Lions:
Three complete phases.

Great night of footy!
Stayed up all night listening:
Then slept in past ten...

Hawthorn smashed Geelong;
Essendon has given up;
and Carlton's now last.

Not a haiku, but an amazing statistic... Friday was the start of the German Bundesliga (major league futbol, one of the European Champions leagues), and the odds of winning the league title for favorite Bayern Munich was 1-12, which means they are SO certain of winning that betting a "dollar" (sorry, I'm American) would only earn you a twelfth of a dollar in winnings (1.08), or that if you bet twelve euros, you'd only get thirteen back if they win. By contrast, every American NFL, NBA, or MLB team had odds of at least 2.5 to 1, so you'd win at least $2.50 plus your original dollar at the very worst.

Would love to say that
The N-F-L inspires me...
But not pre-season.

Here is the Canadian Football season in a nutshell so far:

Our selections in the AFL have been spot on all year; we've gotten 84 out of 116 correct this season, (75%) and sit in the top third of 1% in every grouping we're part of in the official AFL "tipping" contest (that's what they call predicting down under). So we know how to pick games. 

In the CFL, we're 3 out of 8 so far. (Which is better than the odds makers at BoDog, the official CFL gambling site, who have only gotten two games right so far.) Despite what actually passes as worse than "flip a coin" prognostication, we're in the top half of the pool already, and moving up. Go figure.

Last weekend, in Round 2, the Eastern Division somehow went 4-0 against the "vastly superior" West, with Hamilton annihilating 1-0 Winnipeg 52-26 - and that was the LEAST of the four results! - "quarterbackless Montreal crushing defending champion Calgary 29-11 behind first-time starter Raheem Cato (of Marshall U fame); Ottawa matched its 2014 win total sixteen games early by upending the British Columbia Lions 27-16; and in the game of the young season so far, two incredibly proficient teams went toe-to-toe, slugging it out as long as theoretically possible - more on that in a moment - before Toronto upset Saskatchewan in the Mosaic in Regina 42-40 in double overtime. Two great writers to follow on Canadian football are Don Landry and Pat Steinberg on cfl.ca; here are their wrap-ups.

Backup QB Trevor Harris drove the Argonauts down for the tying score late in the fourth, and the teams traded touchdowns (and missed mandatory 2-pt conversions) in the first overtime together. In the CFL, OTs are run in the same basic Kansas City format the NCAA uses, except each possession starts from the 35 (the extra ten yards account for the goal posts being ten yards closer, on the goal line itself). They only allow two overtimes at most in a regular season game, and 2-pt conversions are required on all TDs. The Roughriders made their second TD to come within two of Toronto in the second OT, and then on the by-definition last play of the game, the Argos stopped Saskatchewan from converting to win the game by two. 

So right now, Toronto and Ottawa are 2-0 in the East (Toronto has a 17 point higher rating at the moment), with Hamilton and Montreal a game back at 1-1. Calgary still leads the West, tied with Winnipeg at 1-1; BC and Edmonton each sit at 0-1, and the Roughriders have looked good two straight weeks and are 0-2 to show for it. 

Next week, we see these likelihoods:
Edmonton over Ottawa 19-13 at home...Winnipeg at home over Montreal 28-23...Saskatchewan over BC 30-24 in Vancouver...Calgary edging Toronto 24-23 at home. The Hamilton Ti-Cats have the week off.

The CFL kicks off TONIGHT!

The pointy football's back in play starting tonight! Ottawa visits Montreal in game one of 81, and you can watch this one and many others on ESPN2 this year! You can also get involved in the pick'em game at cfl.ca - it's fun, free, and you can compete against us here at Following Football if you wish! (We're listed under "hesrdc", and our avatar is a sloth with sunglasses, smiling as only a sloth in sunglasses can!). 

There are a bevy of great articles there on www.cfl.ca that you can choose from to preview the 2015 season - we're picking Calgary to repeat, starting with a reprise of their Grey Cup victory over likely eastern-division winners (maybe) Hamilton tomorrow night. There are previews of each division, where Landry and Nye agree with us (with reservations), highlights on each team, and more. 

Remember the basic differences, Yankees - all of which make the Canadian version arguably more fun to watch...

1) The FIELD is 11o yards long (there are TWO 50-yard lines, with a C (center) line in between on 55). It's also about ten yards wider.
2) End zones are twice as deep, and the goal posts are UP FRONT, which makes for some VERY interesting pick maneuvers around it!
3) You only get THREE downs to make ten yards, so you cannot waste any plays!
4) But you can have danged near EVERYBODY in motion at the snap, even going towards the line of scrimmage. (And did I mention you have TWELVE guys on the field per team?)
5) Scoring has a twist: the rouge. Whenever you can stick the ball in the end zone (after a field goal attempt or punt, for example) without the other team being able to get it out, that's one point. So yes, in the CFL you can have those odd scores like 3-1, 7-4, and so forth!
6) Because the defensive line has to be a full yard off the ball (unlike in the US, where you have to stay just the length of the football away), QB sneaks are more successful, pass rushing is different, and all sorts of subtle line-related differences come up. (The biggest one, combined with previous rules, is the dominance of the passing game, even in cold weather.)

Personally, we here at Following Football started following the CFL when they very temporarily (over)expanded into the US, and there were teams all over BOTH countries about twenty years ago or so. (Sacramento was our team of choice.) That experiment was a financial disaster, but the CFL survived and recreated its original purpose.

As the pre-season ends up north...

...and the end of a few CFL careers come with the final cutdown tomorrow, we take a look at the final exhibition games and the starting Following Football ratings for the CFL:

- Troubled Toronto handles rival Montreal 30-10, to my surprise (the Argonauts don't play in their Rogers Centre home until August, including having to play a "home game" in Ft. McMurray next weekend. Their ownership is changing and the current owner's not likely to spend another dime on the Argos this year...)
-Hamilton over Winnipeg 26-15, posting a 2-0 preseason after two easy games against the two weakest teams after playing Grey Cup last November.
-Edmonton traveled to Vancouver and beat the BC Lions 18-13. They also went 2-0, but defeated two good teams in Saskatchewan and the Lions.
-Speaking of Saskatchewan, their broadcast went live on line tonight, so we watched them compete marvelously against the defenders from Calgary, who showed their class by coming back from being down all game to score the last two TDs and win 37-29.

Calgary certainly deserves the highest rating going into the 2015 season, which starts on Thursday night. Here's our picks for week one, with the FF Elo-style ratings in parentheses...

Thursday, Montreal (29.6) at Ottawa (10.1) - M should win 33-7.
Friday, Hamilton (29.9) at Calgary (48.9) - C should win, 34-21.
Saturday, Edmonton (38.1) "at" Toronto (29.9) - E in a close one, 31-28.
Saturday, Winnipeg (20.1) at Saskatchewan (30.0) - we see S big, 35-17.
(And in an odd-team league, it's the BC Lions (32.9) with the bye to start the season.)

If you're interested in joining me in the CFL Pick'em contest, go to cfl.ca and register before Thursday night! It's free, it's quick (only four games to pick each week), and it'll give you some insight into the Canadian game! Twelve men flying in all directions, three downs, big field - it's a blast!

Canada starts its pre-season! And, about the NBA Finals...

With a pair of games Monday and Tuesday evenings, the CFL has started its pre-season in preparation for opening night on June 25th! The Hamilton Tiger-Cats defeated the second-year Ottawa Redblacks (I refuse to write REDBLACKS every time this year - I felt like I was yelling at my readers!) 37-10 on Monday, and last night the Winnipeg Blue Bombers upset the Toronto Argonauts by a touchdown, 34-27, on the strength of too many Argo turnovers. I've noticed that the CFL, having only two pre-season games, uses its starters more than its neighbors to the south - listening to the first half last night, there was a real sense of playing a real game of football, not a uniformed scrimmage, although LOTS of men got into the action. 

Of course, I only listened to the first half of the Canadian game because there was a MUCH more important event going on just south of Toronto a few hundred miles! I know the ball's the wrong shape (and the court's wooden and much more indoors), but you've GOT to admire the work of LeBron James and what's left of the Cleveland Cavaliers, already distant underdogs to the Golden State Warriors before superstar Kyrie Irving went down...remembering the loss of Kevin Love in the first round of the playoffs...and of Anderson Varejao in December for the season...and then to have Iman Shumpert re-injure his shoulder in the first quarter last night and have it mostly useless the rest of the night...and yet somehow, they're leading the 67-win Warriors two games to one after winning last night! Normally, I'd be a Warrior fan - I grew up in NorCal, and remember the last Warriors title, forty years ago; they play a beautiful brand of basketball, and I have as much admiration for them as any team I've watched play. But if the Cavaliers somehow won this series? No team with at least 65 wins has ever failed to win the Finals, let alone to a team fourteen games below them, let alone to a team missing its 2nd and 3rd best players, let alone to a team whose now-second best player is an undrafted Aussie from St. Mary's University who looks like an accountant and has to show his ID to get into the locker rooms!!

Essentially, LeBron James is willing a team of castoffs and second stringers to a title riding his coattails. On Jimmy Kimmel's show last night, he referred to the series as being "tied up 1-1 between Golden State and LeBron James", and he's not that far from the truth. Matthew Dellavadova has been literally unbelievable, JR Smith and James Jones have played over their heads, Timofey Mosgov and Tristan Thompson have had their coming-out parties in this playoff series...but it's all because of The Man. It's fascinating to hear the distinction the announcers give Curry and James: Curry is "the MVP", but LeBron is "the best player in the world".

Yep. That's about the size of it. And if he wins this series more or less by himself, to bring that mystical title to starving Cleveland? 

There would be no words for it. Unprecedented. And he's halfway there.

Along the lines of the FF rating system for the AFL...

...comes the Following Football CFL rating system! (Yeah...we're bored. What's your point?)

This was formulated using the numbers from the last three CFL seasons (except for Ottawa, who was an expansion franchise in 2014), with each season being worth half of the one that followed it. The ratings have been normalized with 30 as a median, so that the sum of all the ratings should always equal 30*9 teams=270:

Calgary Stampeders           48.5
Edmonton Eskimos            37.7
British Columbia Lions     32.5
Saskatchewan R.Riders    29.6
Hamilton Tiger-Cats          29.5
Toronto Argonauts             29.5
Montreal Alouettes             29.2
Winnipeg Blue Bombers   20.2
Ottawa REDBLACKS           13.3

A few interesting notes about this rating system as it's played out...
--- Calgary seems really high, but that's what you get when you're as dominant as they were last year, plus very solid seasons the two previous years. It remains to be seen if that rating accurately predicts scores, however - my guess is that it's too high for that purpose.
---Given an average score of 30, it's funny to see only three of nine teams above thirty. Of course, having four teams in the 29s makes up for it! That's about how close those teams have been the last couple of years!
---What will home field advantage be worth? Traditionally, three points, but whether that works with this rating system is still anyone's guess. 
---Like Calgary, Ottawa is so far off the norm that it's anyone's guess whether that number will be accurate or useful in predicting outcomes and scores for the REDBLACKS, the only fully-capitalized team in professional sports! The great thing about these rating systems, though, is that they self-normalize over time - if they're not accurate yet, they will be soon!

So, we'll have to wait and see how this plays out over the course of the 22-game CFL season. We'll track the games here, right alongside the AFL in the early season and the NFL in the fall and winter. As need be, we may adjust the numbers slightly in the pre-season as we "tweak" the set-up for its initial use.

Play ball!

Less than two weeks to go north of the border!

Thirteen days and counting until the pre-season starts for the nine Canadian Football League teams! Ottawa will travel to Hamilton on Monday, June 8th for the first practice tilt, with the actual season opener three weeks beyond that: Thursday, June 25th, when Ottawa plays at Montreal!

Here's the entire schedule - with an odd number of teams at this juncture in their varied existence, the CFL has a bye every week, so three of the other teams will actually have two games under their belts before the BC Lions take the field on the Fourth of July.

Can anyone beat the Calgary Stampeders this year? Will the Eastern division produce a winning team this season? Will Ottawa be able to win a few games? Stay tuned!

Being a man in Canada

What does it mean to truly be a man?

Read this short portion of Pat Steinberg's MMQB column from the CFL website, about Hamilton Ti-Cats linebacker and special teams player Taylor Reed, whose holding call negated what would very possibly have been the Cup-winning touchdown for Hamilton....

It’s going to take quite some time for the Hamilton Tiger-Cats to get over their loss. They’ll be kicking themselves for their start, and they’ll be lamenting the points they left on the field. But, in the end, the Ticats should leave Vancouver with their heads held high, because they played a hell of a football game.

And special mention needs to go to Taylor Reed. The first year linebacker was the culprit flagged on Hamilton’s negated punt return touchdown in the final moments of Sunday’s game. It was him who was crouched on the ground, head in hands, at the Hamilton ten-yard line while everyone else was celebrating. He knew he’d been flagged, and he knew it had very likely cost his team a chance to win the Grey Cup.

And it was also Taylor Reed in the locker room, ready to answer the tough questions. Reed took the responsibility, put it all on himself, and didn’t for a second criticize the officials. That’s how a true professional handles making a mistake, costly or not.

In the end, the Tiger-Cats didn’t lose because of Reed’s penalty. You lose as a team and you win as a team, and that was very evident on Sunday. But that won’t make Reed feel any better, at least not right away. But, in time, when the Beaumont, Tex. product reflects back, he’ll know he didn’t shy away. He stood up and handled it like a true pro, and he deserves a lot of credit for it.

He certainly does. To us, that makes more of a positive impression than the penalty made a negative one. Good on ya, Taylor.