Week 1: Thoughts and Impressions

[Belize City Lion]

First week of the 2023 is in the books. A few random thoughts on how teams look early in the season.

BC: Definitely some concerns with special teams (giving up too much yards on kick returns), and struggled early to stop the run. But compared to recent seasons, an improvement in both areas. VA is off to a great start. If he continues to play well and Smoke Mizzell lives up to the early promise he's show, this could be a special season in BC.

Calgary: A great running game but not much else. Maier is starting to look more like the next Nick Arbuckle rather than the new BLM.

Winnipeg: Only a one game sample against a mediocre TiCats team, but boy did they look in mid-season form to open the year. Yikes.

Saskatchewan: A week one win by the Riders could be the best thing for the rest of the west division. Riders did not look like world beaters in their 4 point win over the Elks. No team gets high on their own headlines after a win more than the Riders. Go ahead an plan the parade now but in about 6 weeks Riders may already be talking about a cross-over.

Edmonton: Elks looked better than last year, but that bar was set pretty low. An Edmonton loss to start the season could be great for the rest of the division as no team is more capable of imploding after a few losses than a Chris Jones team.

Hamilton: If BLM had played any worse I would have thought it was a Grey Cup game for the choke-meister. The good news for the TiCats is 6 wins probably gets them a home playoff game, and 8 wins could see them host the EDF. The only thing that matters is playing in the Grey Cup at home and there is no reason to think that is off the table yet.

Montreal: A win is a win, but that was an ugly win. Fajardo didn't look any better as an Alouette than he did as a 2022 Roughrider. Good enough to beat a very bad Ottawa team, but I don't see the Als winning many games that aren't against Ottawa, Edmonton, or Hamilton.

Ottawa: Can we just accept that Nick Arbuckle is not a CFL starting QB and move on? This poor franchise might be dead and buried by the time Masoli finally plays a game in red and black again.

[Hambone]

Sitting in the CW stands this evening the one thought that kept running through my mind is I was watching a 7-11 team duke it out with a 5-13 team and that might be generous on both behalves.

[B.C.FAN]

Sitting in the CW stands this evening the one thought that kept running through my mind is I was watching a 7-11 team duke it out with a 5-13 team and that might be generous on both behaves.

I agree. Winnipeg and B.C. are clearly the class of the West, in that order. No one else is close. I expect Saskatchewan to claim third place by default, on the strength of Trevor Harris’s experience, with the two Alberta teams racing for the basement. Lack of a proven quarterback hurts both of them. It’s a bit late for predictions but I expect the West to finish something like this:

WPG 16-2
BCL 13-5
SAS 8-10
CGY 6-12
EDM 5-13

[Hambone]

One of the crazy stats lines came part way into the 2nd qtr after Lewis hauled in the 102 yard TD. CW scoreboard showed EE with 174 yards in offense to the Riders' 13.

[David]

My thoughts?

VA doesn't get enough respect around the league. Hell, I believe there was talk on the Rider preseason broadcast (against BC) that Dane would be the starter here.

Sure, he's not always consistent (then again, neither was Damon Allen). But hell, I wouldn't take any other team's QB right now over VA, save for Winnipeg's.


DH

[SammyGreene]

Excellent original post and thoughts by everyone. I went into the season thinking how can the Lions close the gap between themselves and the Bombers and week 1 only confirmed this.

The league lacks talent at QB and on the offensive line and it shows. The Elks found a way to continue their stunning home losing streak with that abysmal attempt from 1 yard line.

Major kudos to McElvoy and Campbell for acquiring VA and Evans and putting the Lions in the best position to challenge Winnipeg even after losing Rourke.

First meeting with Bombers 11 days away. It will be a short week for a Thursday night encounter.
Hoping with Couture BC is in better position to run the ball as it was the biggest difference between the teams last season. Having Hatcher back for week 3 would be a nice bonus as BC will need all hands on deck.

[Toppy Vann]

Hamilton: If BLM had played any worse I would have thought it was a Grey Cup game for the choke-meister. The good news for the TiCats is 6 wins probably gets them a home playoff game, and 8 wins could see them host the EDF. The only thing that matters is playing in the Grey Cup at home and there is no reason to think that is off the table yet.

Agree with BCL that the Bombers look the toast of the CFL in week one. The Ticat bounce back was intriguing given that it didn't come from their offence and while I looked for that imperceptible overall team collective letdown that happens when the opponent looks done like dinner and didn't really feel that so Ticats had some positives there.

I'm not yet convinced that it's the season will go badly for the Ticats as the BLM passes off target are correctable and no doubt will be.
Defensively though, I thought the Ticats looked suspect as to defensive calls at times. However, the Bombers tossed everything out there.

The comments on the Arbuckle play are hard to argue with BUT if I'm cutting Bo Levi Mitchell some slack here, I guess I should be doing the same for Nick Arbuckle. His play had me thinking WTF was their GM thinking when he knew full well that Masoli wasn't able to start the season and who knows if he can play given that long absence. I know I felt Collaros might never come back so maybe Masoli will too.

Playcalling for Edmonton was questioned on 3 Down as their failure to get a competent RB into the mix.