CFL Week Two Preview

Article by Duncan Gray

 

Game of the Week

Toronto Argonauts v Saskatchewan Roughriders is our pick for this week. The Sunday afternoon kick-off in Regina is giving us a chance of the year to watch a live game on BT Sport/ESPN and still make it to work or school in the morning. (Except those of you whose schools are already on summer holidays of course.)
Week 1 was a good week/bad week for these teams. Toronto had the good week. They won their game against Edmonton, in fact they had the biggest winning margin of the week. Stand-in quarterback Trevor Harris had a fine game and he was well supported by the various new faces around the team. If they perform like that again we'll be looking at them as real contenders.

On the other hand things could have hardly have gone worse for the Roughriders. They lost at home to their great rivals from Winnipeg who they had beaten at Mosaic Stadium eleven times on the trot. Worse still, they also lost their quarterback. Darius Durant is out for the season with an Achilles injury.

So are the Argos favourites for this game? Well maybe not. Unlike last season Saskatchewan have an able back-up QB in Kevin Glenn and they hope to have a couple of players returning from injury. If they can help it they're not going to let visitors win on their field, in front of their fans, certainly not for a second week running. Watch for the crowd shots in the TV coverage, Rider Nation are the wildest fans in the country and the stands will be a sea of green.

Riders Fans

 

 

This week's TV Schedule   Hamilton  Tiger-Cats v Winnipeg Blue Bombers - LIVE Friday morning 3 July 0130 hrs – BT Sport ESPN   Toronto Argonauts v  Saskatchewan Roughriders  - LIVE Sunday evening 5 July 2030 hrs – BT Sport ESPN   BC Lions v Ottawa Redblacks  - recorded Monday afternoon 6 July 1230 hrs - BT Sport ESPN   Calgary Stampeders v Montreal Alouettes - recorded Wednesday afternoon 8 July 1315 hrs  - BT Sport ESPN       For those of you who can't access the BT Sport channels there are online subscriptions available through the Canadian broadcaster TSN. Options include $35 for the full 6 month season of games. Visit http://cfl.officialsatellitetv.com/live.html for more information.

 

Nissan Titan Power Rankings
After their big wins last weekend Toronto and Winnipeg are the big upwards movers in the first update of the CFL's power rankings.

 

1	Calgary Stampeders	Last week 1
2	Hamilton Tiger-Cats	2
3	Toronto Argonauts	6
4	Winnipeg Blue Bombers	8
5	Saskatchewan Roughriders	4
6	Edmonton Eskimos	3
7	BC Lions	7
8	Ottawa REDBLACKS	9
9	Montreal Alouettes	5

 

 

The other games

Week 2 starts on Thursday night with Hamilton Tiger-Cats at Winnipeg Blue Bombers, so it's 2nd v 4th from the Power Rankings. The Ti-Cats must be hurting from their last play loss at Calgary last week, even though it was to the top rated team in the league.  The Bombers will be on a high after beating the Roughriders, but did they over perform in the excitement of their rivalry match? Watch out for the running attack of Winnipeg and the kick returns of Hamilton's Brandon Banks.

 

On Friday night Calgary Stampeders play Montreal Alouettes at the Percival Molson Memorial Stadium. There's a crisis at Montreal after their top two quarterbacks were injured last week and it's not clear yet who will play in this game. Could Brandon Bridge be the first Canadian to start a game at QB for twenty years? The Stampeders found a way to beat the best the East Division has to offer last week so they'll come into town with a lot of confidence.

 

Making it four inter-divisional games out of four this week, BC Lions start their season on Saturday with the 2200 mile cross country trip to Ottawa for their game against the Redblacks. With quarterback Travis Lulay now recovered from the shoulder injury that kept him out much of last season the Lions will be looking for a strong start to their campaign. However the Redblacks showed in Week 1 that they're not the pushovers they were last season. Ottawa's defence knocked out two Montreal quarterbacks last week, BC's offensive line better be sure they can protect Lulay.