Other Games -- Weekend starting Jun 20

[Blueforlife]

Yup, they're as solid a football team as there is in this league. They ll be tops in the east this year and defend their crown well

At $371k, he's a steal and he's worth every penny. 47 points is only something we can dream about and we re paying our $600k. Wow, just wow.!

We have had one of the best offenses for many years. That dream is still alive.  Montreal looks amazing.  Zach is worth the salary and has earned every dime.  Rough start, 2 games means nothing. Panic just panic!

[dd]

He's scored 31 points in 2 games or 16 points a game, not 47. He's thrown 0 TD s and 3 picks. He hasn't earned any of his salary and I don't know how he sleeps at night. Him and BLM must text each other to see who's pulled the biggest fast one in terms of salary for zero productivity.

[Road Griller]

Zach against MTL at home 20/33 209 YTD 0 TD 1 int

Dru  against MTL in MTL.  21/35 292 YTD 1 TD 1 int

Head to head game.  Zach 15/31 285 YTD 0 TD 2 int
                                   Dru  20/33 238 YTD 1 TD 0 int

Passer rating after 2 games Zach 60.3

Passer rating after 2 games Dru  88.5

Looks like Ottawa is getting the better bang for the buck so far.  Plus a young QB who will only improve.

To perform quite well in such a hostile environment shows exactly what Dru is.   Going to be interesting when they play here.

[Throw Long Bannatyne]

I am happy for fajardo, a guy cut and left for dead by the criders of all teams has come back with avengence. Same for Maas, let go, couldn't coach. Looks like he's figured it out in la belle province. Good for both of them, Montreal has went from a team on life support to the leagues best. Having Darnell Sankey running the show in the middle of the field was key to turn8ng that team around. Yep, good thing we didn't pick him up. Ha!!!

Dirty hit by Sankey on Jaelin Acklin absolutely blew him up and looked like there may have been head contact as well.  Hopefully the league fines him, time to put a stop to attempted decapitation of receivers and running backs.

[TecnoGenius]

Not surprised to see D.Wynn take a misconduct on the huge Sankey hit to Acklin.  I'm ok with the hit, except there were a few like that from Loffler that got UR flags...

Wynn is such a turd, hasn't changed at all since being out much of 2023.  Acklin is blown up and laying unconscious (or nearly so) and still has the ball because he's a good player... and Wynn walks over well after the whistle and knocks the ball out of Acklin's limp arms.  What a DB loser!

I waited a whole minute for the flag as the on-field pro-MTL refs are clearly blind tonight.  Command had to call the Wynn penalty after the fact, only once some OTT players took offense, as they should.

Wynn is going to be the next Marino: book it.

[TecnoGenius]

Montreal has went from a team on life support to the leagues best.

Ya, but that kind of story always really miffs a lot of (other team) fans.  People are often happier about teams who go through the long process of slowly improving.

I always use F1 analogies, so I'll use another one: Braun racing came out of nowhere and went from bad (Honda team) to #1 constructor in 1 season.  Everyone hated them (except me, but that's because I was a suffering Honda fan!).  And then Mercedes bought Braun and was nearly instantly world-dominating for a decade.  If Braun had taken 5 years to slowly improve, they would have been more liked.  (Red Bull did a similar thing, coming out of nowhere at first.)

Back to MTL, weren't they insolvent and ownerless as recently as 2022?  And to start 2023 they were picked as league's biggest dumpster fire.  From zero to GC hero in one season.  Meanwhile TOR spent more time building, BC has been spending a ton of time building, SSK has been trying for like 5 seasons... and they all get bupkis (well TOR got their reasonably-deserved GC). 

How long did it take WPG to go from zero to hero?  6 seasons(?), many of which had mega-pain.  No matter what teams' fan you were, you couldn't fault WPG/MOS finally achieving it after 5 years of building!  We kind of "deserved it".

Ya, so I don't think MTL "put in their dues".  So I dislike them, I dislike anger-management Maas, and I really(!) dislike "Sprinkles" Cody.  But they have the best scouts and drafting, and all their amazing players are ELC and can play for a decade to come.  Unless there's massive incompetence there, they'll make half the GCs in the next 3 seasons.  I give all the credit to Maccioccia: that guy is a little wizard.  (And I like Calvillo.)

[TecnoGenius]

Yup, they're as solid a football team as there is in this league. They ll be tops in the east this year and defend their crown well

At $371k, he's a steal and he's worth every penny. 47 points is only something we can dream about and we re paying our $600k. Wow, just wow.!

Cody is still just a middling QB.  He is a beneficiary of the system and talent around him.  Proof?  It's the same Cody/Maas as was in SSK.  When the talent was around after Jones left, they looked good, but not great.  We beat them 2 years in a row to go to the cup.  And the last Cody/Maas SSK year they stunk the joint out enough to get fired.

Has Cody improved at all?  Ya, a little.  Maas' influence is certainly good for Cody: it helps having an old QB as a HC.  And I bet Calvillo can take a ton of credit too.  But Cody still has many of the same downsides, like every mid/deep pass still has the mechanics of a shot-put!  And we think Strev's mechanics is weird!  And Cody has always been great at thriving under pressure.  My main point here is Cody has always been middle/upper-middle tier, so to see him being just that in MTL, or better because the supporting cast is so strong, is not surprising to me.

Now, in MTL they have the extreme talent all around them, in every phase.  And probably the best GM/Prez of any team.  The team is as balanced as 2019-2021 WPG.  And they want you to know they are going to bash your skull into the turf.  That is a hard thing to beat.

But we won't know the real answer until TOR gets to face them.  First sans Kelly, then hopefully with Kelly.  TOR is the "rightful" GC contender, not the MTL pretender.  Will TOR just give up all those years of building and hand it all over to MTL?  I wouldn't bet on that.  It may be the best match-up of the year, way better than WPG/BC.  The East being more entertaining than the W, who would have guessed?!

If TOR clobbers MTL without Kelly, it'll be a huge blow to MTL.  And if MTL wins, TOR will brush it off as a mulligan because they don't have a QB.  Then comes the games with Kelly... it'll be a brutal slobberknocker.

[TecnoGenius]

MTL is fulfilling my prediction of week 1 winner will win .75 (or 100%!) of first 6.  (And the loser or week 1 will be .25 (or 0%!) in first 6...)

MTL has all the belief, mojo and cockiness now (we know how that feels after 2019) and it will be hard to knock that out of them.  They are the complete team right now.  It's a darn good thing they are in the East that can't damage us too much... until a possible GC rematch.

Did you see how MTL completely ignored their IMP Rs?  It was all Philpot and KJG: giving conniptions to fantasy players!  Since when does any team do that as their game plan?  Imagine if we had a game where 90% of our yards were just Demski/Woli?  Totally crazy.

As already noted, this game tells us a lot about ourselves as we are the only team so far to have faced both MTL and OTT.  OTT is probably still a basement dweller, and they beat us by a teensy bit.  MTL gave OTT fits, Dru didn't do any better than Zach (TD aside), which actually make us look not too bad, IMHO, as MTL clearly is a very strong team that we probably can't measure ourselves against yet.

The real downside to tonight: boooooring lopsided game where MTL just beat up on the JV squad.  Kind of sad to watch, actually.

[Road Griller]

Dru didn't do any better than Zach (TD aside), which actually make us look not too bad, IMHO, as MTL clearly is a very strong team that we probably can't measure ourselves against yet.

Dru did much better IMO.  He did it in a hostile environment.  Zach was at home.

I can't imagine if we opened up there.  Zach wilted at home, Dru made some really nice plays.  His pocket awareness, escapability and arm strength is better.

Dru was stepping up and evading the pass rush very well in the second part of the game, he has the quickness. This game will make him much better, other D's will not be as challenging for him.

Your second part is very true, better coaching, better players.  Pretty hard to compete against that.

They play like the 2021 Bombers.  Hard and fast, everyone chipping in  making big plays. 

[Blue In BC]

Montreal game has just about everything you could imagine in a game.

Brown has some good tools and may become a successful QB as early as this year. My fear is that I'm not convinced the team around him is good enough yet. Not on either side of the ball and that seemed evident yesterday.

He'll have to survive the problems and not let it destroy his confidence.

Obviously the Als are an excellent team but they put up nearly 500 yards of offence. Ottawa was behind immediately with the 1st turnover which was not Browns fault.

Fajardo looked good but that usually happens when receivers are open all night making big plays. It takes that combination and some attitude in the play calling.

[Stretch]

Montreal is the real deal. Haven't lost since last September. 

Yes they are rolling, but how many games did they play from December to May?

#fakestat

[Road Griller]

Yes they are rolling, but how many games did they play from December to May?

#fakestat

Well, in fairness some people like to bring up Collaros used to play good as well so we should just keep on playing him.

One season does run into the next, teams should be building all the time.  They did their homework and came out even better.

Or did we step back that much?  Tonight will answer that.  We beat BC at home last time, should expect  the same results.

[blue_gold_84]

He's scored 31 points in 2 games or 16 points a game, not 47. He's thrown 0 TD s and 3 picks. He hasn't earned any of his salary and I don't know how he sleeps at night. Him and BLM must text each other to see who's pulled the biggest fast one in terms of salary for zero productivity.

Probably just fine. He plays a sport for a living.

Get a grip.

[dd]

Dirty hit by Sankey on Jaelin Acklin absolutely blew him up and looked like there may have been head contact as well.  Hopefully the league fines him, time to put a stop to attempted decapitation of receivers and running backs.

Why on earth was there no flag on that play?? And why can't command centre call down and call a penalty. To me, there was both targetting- a 25 yard and expulsion foul and a 10 yd misconduct penalty for jumping around and celebrating the dirty hit. Absolutely classless act.

[dd]

Probably just fine. He plays a sport for a living.

Get a grip.

Don't kid yourself, he knows full well others have sacrificed $$ off of their contracts to keep him happy and he's rewarding everyone by laying a giant osterich egg. he better pull out of his funk soon...