Hidden Dragon

A few random notes from the end of the CFL week:

• Somewhat surprisingly, Eric Crouch got to take a meaningful snap in a CFL game when he was forced into the game following the injury to Spergon Wynn.

I'm partial to Crouch enjoying some level of success in the CFL. After all, Crouch is Big Red. Nebraska Heisman. The guy who did this, and this and then punked this guy.

He did himself well in his first action since 2001 and let's be real here, can the Argos be any worse off with Crouch in at QB than Wynn? Wynn has been entirely ineffective and has been way too slow in decision making and even if he is good to go next week, I'm not so sure he's necessarily the right choice. In fact, I know he isn't. When in doubt, never gloss over the Nebraska guy to get to someone who went to Southwest Texas State.

• So let's get this straight: Last week, CBC studio analyst Sean Millington steps up and speaks out on the CFL refereeing. CFL head ref — and resident "nothing is wrong" guy — George Black lashes back at Millington. Result? The CBC broadcast team practically falls over itself trying desperately not to say anything that could be deemed inflammatory during the Toronto-Saskatchewan game. In fact, colour man Darren Flutie set the all-time record for "the refs made a good call on that one" proclamations, shattering the previously untouchable mark shared by Glen Suitor and Leif Petterson. Pathetic.

Look, we know the CFL never wants anything negative to come out in public and we're well aware that Black will never, ever, EVER admit when his crews mess up, but openly capitulating on national television with all the backbone of a snitch whose getting squeezed by the Don was embarassing to watch.

Two instances. First, Millington's assertion during the halftime that the league needs to crack down on helmet-to-helmet hits. As Millington was in mid rant, Greg Frers butted in and said something akin to "hey this is a tough league and it's unfortunate when a guy gets hurt, but let's talk about Toronto's defence..."

Astonishing. Millington might as well have been castrated on sight or just had his mic cut by production control. It would have been less obvious.

Have a look at what led to Millington's speech:

Any question that this is a helmet-to-helmet hit? I'm not sure what's worse: The fact there was an official right there who didn't make the call (I guess his helmet shooting off his head wasn't enough of an indication) or the fact that no one on the CBC crew deemed it necessary to call it as it was. Sure, they dabbled in it, but the severity of that hit deserved more than a once-over.

For years broadcasters have shied away from lambasting poor officiating in this league, as if the hidden agreement between the league and networks is "we're trying to promote the league, don't call us out."

It's astonishing to me that someone can't step up and call the CFL officials what they are: At best, a 50-50 crap shoot. At worst, a gathering of low-paid full-time 9 to 5ers who are lucky to get the calls right.

• Tough on Ricky Williams. Have to get my sister in on this one to prognosticate the length of time out of action from a fractured forearm. I didn't want to see Ricky go out like that.

• How is Danny Barrett still employed? Ask Roy Shivers who insists on hanging with DB regardless of results: See sub-.500 record in eight seasons and nary a Grey Cup appearance in the mix. Shiv won't make a move to fire his boy even though the writing is on the wall that this organization is better off without the both of them.

• One last note on the officials, just because I want to: Kerry Joseph's touchdown in the second quarter was an example of why I was moderately against the league going to instant replay.

Despite the replay showing Joseph's foot touching out of bounds, they still awarded him the touchdown, just going to show that the only thing more infuriating than watching a CFL ref blow a call, is watching a CFL ref blow a call after he's had 90 seconds of replay time to watch it over and over.

Oh, and add this to my conspiracy theory list. The video review is being used to further the CFL's agenda that the refs get a large part of the calls right. The league has been quick to trumpet the percentages of calls that have been overturned vs. calls that have stayed as originally ruled on the field (largely in favour of the latter). You don't think it's in the best interest of the league to use this as their marketing tool?

"Look, you can't argue the refs are bad now, the stats show the rulings on the field are standing."

Please. The Internet doesn't provide me with enough space to adequately argue that.

• Tell me again, what is there to like about the Montreal Alouettes? Their coach is a puke, they have the dirtiest and most overrated player in the league (Ed Philion), the most obscenely atrocious uniforms in the league, their constantly being lauded for their sellout streak even though the place only seats 20 grand and their fans need those obnoxious thundersticks to generate noise. I don't believe I've ever hated a team like this.

I can think of only one thing good...

They once had a guy who went to Nebraska.

Go Big Red.

The band is on the field!

Well, with all due respect to the play that has actually become "The Play" — the historic Stanford-Cal ending from 1982 — what happened in Edmonton on Thursday night is my equivalent.

In fact this"The Play" was arguably the best thing I've ever watched my beloved Blue Bombers do. Big enough for ESPN to think it worthy of a little air time.

My colleague Swatter — the famous Barney to my Fred on local basketball broadcasts — called it the Immaculate Reception and ironic that I, as devout Steeler fan, didn't even think of that reference originally. Instead, I thought of Stanford-Cal. Of course, I thought of Nebraska-Michigan from the 2005 Alamo Bowl.

What the ramifications of pulling that win out of the jaws of defeat will be, however, remains to be seen but as we sit here six games into the Blue Bombers season, it looks pretty pivotal. Think about it, you go from having a game in your grasp, yours for the taking before a shocking fumble sways everything madly in the other direction. Now you're looking at having an L hung on you in a game you shouldn't have lost; A deflating defeat that sends you to 3-3 and puts the term mediocre suddenly on a season that had started promisingly.

There's a big difference in 4-2 and 3-3.

So instead of stinging, life-draining loss you get envigorating, thirst-quenching victory. And I, my friends, come to work with a little extra hop in my step today.

Consistency issues offensively are still lingering, however, for the Bombers. An inability to sustain drives really makes watching this team a nerve-wracking experience. There hasn't been — save for the thrashing of Edmonton a few weeks back — a time this season that Winnipeg has taken advantage of a lead and put the foot down. And teams are hanging around and hanging around and then ... well let's just say those kinds of Thursdays don't show up very often.

Other random stuff from the game: Danny Maciocia should have some questions to answer after that loss. It is utterly unimaginable that the Esks would BLITZ on the final play of the game when the opposing team has 100 yards to go to score. If you watch that clip, the Eskimos put seven guys in the box and blitz a corner leaving basically man-on-man coverage on the Bomber receivers. It was a completely brain dead decision — and Friday's Edmonton Journal said as much — that Maciocia should have to answer to. The theory perhaps says that sending a blitz forces Glenn into a quicker read, a faster throw and a shorter pass play. That theory applies when there's eight minutes left in the second quarter, not when there's four seconds left in the fourth. (Don't forget, this is the guy who prematurely celebrated a Grey Cup win last year before the game was over, then realized they still had another play to go — causing national humiliation — and then reacted to the eventual victory in a manner that can only be described as something you'd see in the ballet or an off-Broadway musical. So, let's just say the jury is reconsidering its verdict on him.)

Memo to Coach: I'm officially extending an invitation to you Mr. Maciocia to come visit me and watch me play a game of EA Sports Madden '06 so you can see how it is you should defend a lead on a last-second play. It's called Prevent, Dan, and you will be able to find it in your dime coverages section of your playbook. You see, I tend to drop all my virtual players back in coverage. I know what you're saying: "But then they can complete a 20-yard pass!" That's true, they can. But 20 is not enough yards when they need 100. Get it? Oh look who I'm talking to! You're a professional football coach, I don't need to tell you this. After all, you get paid to strategize football. Ah forget it, send the house. Nothing bad could possibly come from that.

Winnipeg still hasn't allowed a 100-yard rusher and now has back-to-backs with a frisky Hamilton Tiger-Cats team. While the Ticats sport the league's worst record I'm not assuming two wins here. Looking ahead, however, to the very real possibility of being 6-2 is a nice thought. Side note: My "source" in Hamilton tells me that the vibe around the Steel City before the Cats finally got off the schnide was that Hamilton's first win would come against Winnipeg. See, that's the perverted logic that makes Hamilton fans so loathsome and, well, so utterly stupid.

Side note No.2: While discussing the Tiger-Cats woeful situation with a die-hard fan a couple of weeks ago, I suggested Hamilton and the Saskatchewan Roughriders just put together their two pathetic franchises. After all, each of their recipes of middling success mixed with abject failure have only produced a melange of dreadful sucking. What, you ask, will that team be called?

The Saskatchilton Tiger Riders.

In the words of the anonymous sportscaster on an episode of Seinfeld: "You gotta love sports!"

Winnipeg 24, Toronto 17

Williams put Toronto in position to go for it with a stellar seven-yard reception. He took a swing pass from Wynn, delivered a brilliant stiff-arm on Winnipeg's Kelly Malveaux, then hurdled cornerback William Fields before being pushed out of bounds.

That's enough already.

I've never heard of a stiff-arm being brilliant and it's a rarity that a seven-yard screen pass is worthy of being deemed "stellar."

Again, I like Ricky Williams. Got nothing against the guy. Think he marches to the beat of his own drum and that's something you can say about very, very few athletes, which I find refreshing. However, that paragraph appeared in the Canadian Press account of the Bombers latest victory, exalting Williams for his lone highlight in another fruitless effort against the CFL's top defence. Undoubtedly, he stuck Malveaux good with a solid right, but just pump your breaks for a few seconds here. In the scheme of things, that play barely warranted mentioning, let alone puffed up with words like "stellar" and "brilliant."

That said, I'm starting to get absolutely giddy over this defence, which I'm trying to suppress if only because I don't want to get caught up in things too early just to watch the team break my heart. Case in point, just when things are going along smoothly DT Ron Warner goes down with an injury and is likely out of next week's game against Montreal.

I'm also remaining in the category of cautiously optimistic in regards to Kevin Glenn. Although it's hard to argue with what he's done in the last two weeks. He hasn't thrown a pick in those two games, has thrown for three TDs and Sunday went 24-for-36 for 261 yards while running the offence efficiently and picking his spots of when to stretch the field. (Side note: Winnipeg's play-action to Roberts was effective all game long and it was almost dumbfounding how the Argonauts never found a way to control it. What they ran was close to a QB waggle: A fake to Roberts with the offensive line pulling one way while Kanye roles out the opposite way in a naked bootleg. It was good for eight yards on average, I'd guess, and they must have run it 20 times in the game.)

So, for those keeping score, Williams has now run 17 times for 22 yards in two games against the Bombers and i honestly feel sorry for the guy. His offensive line is a joke right now and in the games against Winnipeg he has been rendered useless because the front line can't help out enough for him to get much more than a yard or two on first down. First-down production is critical in the CFL and Williams' sightings on the T.O. sidelines will become all the more frequent if they can't muster some assistance for him. That said, in the two games I've watched the Argos, their play calling has been very vanilla (save for the botched reverse between Ricky and Arland Bruce) and clearly running in between the tackles hasn't done the job.

So Saturday will roll around and the Bombers will host the Alouettes in what is already a critical game and a chance for the Bombers to shove it down all the "experts" throats by winning and going into first place in the division. There's no way I'm NOT going to be at the Stadium for that game.

In my uneducated, unsolicited opinion, the biggest thing the Bombers need to change is how they handle the inevitable Montreal blitz. Speaking of not making adjustments! In Week 1 it was as predictable as a Jenna Jameson screenplay: On second and long, loaded up the box and blitzed the edge leaving Kanye little to no time to make a decision. Whether it's KG needing to recognize blitzes better or Winnipeg needing to bring another man in on protection, something has to be better. Montreal mustered six sacks and forced Glenn into two ill-advised throws that became interceptions. There's nothing surprising defensively from Montreal, you know the Als are putting an extra guy in the box in their "all or nothing" attack.

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RANDOMNESS: ESPN.com has a great feature,George Solomon, Ombudsman, in which the public's concerns, complaints and queries are aired publicly and answered by Solomon. Now, for all that TSN has stolen from ESPN (yes, I know, they're "partners"), this isn't something that silly network could think to incorporate? I know I have a few questions regarding Jennifer Hedger and her phony sports' guy voice. Honestly, does she HAVE to talk like that?

Aerial Assault?

People know I'm the eternal optimist with my teams and that giddyness over the start of the Winnipeg Blue Bombers season wasn't tempered slightly by the fact every so-called "expert" around the Canadian Football League was picking on my beloved Blue.

That said, I'm playing the role of cautious optimist with the Bombers latest spanking, a 46-10 rumbling over the Grey-Cup champion Edmonton Eskimos on Saturday night, specifically as it relates to this man ...


The teaser on the front page of the Winnipeg Free Press on Monday proclaimed "Everyone Loves Glenn" while the main hed on the sports front screamed "Glenn shutting up doubters." After the embattled quarterback had shouldered the brunt of naysayers through the first two weeks of the regular season — as well as all preseason — Glenn stepped up with his best performance as a Bomber on Saturday with this line:

15-24-368-3-0

That three is for touchdowns and the zero? Interceptions. That's over the course of three quarters, to boot.

To be sure it was a nice little effort from Glenn who finally got the memo that Chris Brazzell plays on this team and the deep threat caught two of those three TD strikes.

Still, it's unbelievable to me that one game has all of a sudden made Glenn Public Hero No. 1 when everyone and their sister was rushing to burn his likeness in effigy right up until kickoff on Saturday.

This is where my hesitance comes in. Listen, I'm by far the biggest Glenn hater on the block, in fact this season I'd arguably be considered one of his supporters — sometimes a reluctant one, but a supporter nonetheless. My theory is you dance with the one that brung ya and so long as Kanye is leading this team as its starting quarterback, I live and die with him. In my book, it's fan sacrilege to boo the starter and cheer for the reliever especially in situations where you likely won't be significantly better a team by going to the back-up.

But I digress. It's just to say that I'm excited about the Bombers again but Glenn still needs to back it up with a few more like performances in the coming weeks for me to be completely on board. And Bomber fans are being hypocritical to being rah-rah over Glenn after the Edmonton win when most of them know damn well they'll boo him the first chance they get.

But you know, I documented the lunacy of the Winnipeg football fan in July of last year and how it makes no matter what is actually going on on the field, Bomber fans will always hate their quarterback. Trust me, this honeymoon phase is over as soon as Winnipeg loses another game and Kanye has a subpar performance.

I just hope it's not forthcoming anytime soon.

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Other notes from Winnipeg through Week 3: The Bombers haven't allowed a 100-yard rusher yet this season despite facing three of the best in the league to start the season — Robert Edwards, Ricky Williams and Troy Davis. ... Doesn't that just go to show how solid this front seven is? So why, then, did every expert granted a voice have the Bombers finishing somewhere between the Minnesota State Screaming Eagles and the Orlando Breakers? Because of one guy (Glenn) they didn't think could get the job done? Or because we had a dreadful defence last year? ... Glenn's not being asked to do much in the offence and that's a good thing. Charles Roberts was quoted in the FreeP on Monday saying "look at the Pittsburgh Steelers and Ben Roethlisberger. He doesn't put up big-time numbers every week but he wins games and people respect him." Good quote. The similarities should be similar. Roethlisberger shines because the offence — specifically in his rookie year — was simplified to make his life in a tough spot that much easier. So it should be for Glenn and then when he is asked to make a play, he can do it. ... Along those lines, Glenn's best play was his touchdown to Stegall who got open in broken coverage. While the cynic will say all he had to do was throw it to a wide-open man, the reality is Glenn made a nice play by staying in the pocket, checking receivers before rolling out into space and finding Stegall. In order for that play to ever happen, he had to let it happen and that's not something he's always done in the past.