The “Staff” over at cfl.ca are just being mean right now, placing the Roughriders below the doleful and moribund Toronto Argonauts. Boo “Staff”! Unfortunately for the Roughriders, they are going to get a little taste of what it’s like to be on the wrong side of a motivated Darian Durant, so after Thursday’s season-opening beating, the team will remain at the bottom of the Nissan Titan Power Rankings for at least another week.
Let’s look at the rankings put together by the “Staff” this week and see if we can find anything wrong with them. Anything wrong with the rankings, that is, not the “Staff”. I don’t know what is wrong with the “Staff”. Too much iron?
- CALGARY STAMPEDERS
Correct.
- BRITISH COLUMBIA LIONS
Correct.
- OTTAWA REDBLACKS
Cor– wait. What? The Ottawa RedBlacks? No, no, no.
The mighty motivated Calgary Stampeders are going to murderize this squad on TSN’s Friday Night Football! That will set the tone for the rest of the year for Ottawa and there will be plenty of Grey Cup tickets on Kijiji by week 19 of the regular season.
- EDMONTON ESKIMOS
Nope. Too high.
This team is a bland collection of mediocrities outside of Mike Reilly. Edmonton gets fed to the Lions this week (See what I did there? That’s a quality pun.), so they will fall in the rankings next week. Thereafter, they’ll never get higher than fifth place. It’s just not their year this year. They will get to beat up the Roughriders a few times this year, just to pad their regular season record, but otherwise this team ain’t going anywhere.
- HAMILTON TIGER-CATS
Just a reminder, “Staff”. The Tiger-Cats have a quarterback named Zach Collaros. Just google him. Like the Pittsburgh Penguins’ Sidney Crosby, Mr. Collaros looks 12 years old, but if you ever get a chance to see Mr. Collaros play football, he’s pretty good. I think most reasonable people would agree that if he had not gotten injured last year, the Tiger-Cats would likely have lost to the Calgary Stampeders in the 2016 Grey Cup.
So, no, ranking this Tiger-Cat team at number five is not correct. It is incorrect. Number three, people. Do I have to do everything for you?
- WINNIPEG BLUE BOMBERS
Whatever. This team is almost as boring as the Calgary Stampeders, except they are not as good as the Calgary Stampeders. Number six in the Power Rankings is good enough. The Blue Bombers might float up as high as three this year in the Power Rankings, but otherwise, another forgettable season in Winnipeg.
- MONTREAL ALOUETTES
Last year, the Alouettes had no offense but a killer defense. This year they have a better offense but a suspect defense.
They get to open the season on TSN’s Thursday Night Football Presented by The Brick by beating up the Saskatchewan Roughriders. Everybody will be terribly impressed and the team might even move up in the Power Rankings next week. But it will be a mirage. The Alouettes are crappy and they belong mired in the bottom half of the Power Rankings.
- TORONTO ARGONAUTS
Ranking the Argonauts higher than the Roughriders is a little insulting. At best, the Argonauts and Roughriders should be tied for last place in the Power Rankings, but let’s just do a brief review.
The Roughriders and Argonauts had the same record last year: 5-13. They both ended up last in their respective divisions. They both have elderly starting quarterbacks this season. However, the Roughriders are in the second season of a team overhaul while the Argonauts are in the first season of a team overhaul. If we learned anything last year from the Saskatchewan Roughriders, it’s that it is difficult to rebuild a team in just one season.
The only quarterback more brittle than Mr. Durant is Mr. Ray. I hate when these guys get injured, but let’s be real here. Mr. Ray is probably going down with some damned thing (maybe botulism; I hear that’s going around, if my NKFL* sources can be trusted), and who do the Argos have behind him? Seriously. Who? I could probably google it, but I am too busy and important to waste a whole .79 seconds of my life waiting for the google machine to answer what is really just a rhetorical question. I don’t even really care.
Anyway, the 2017 Toronto Argonauts are the 2016 Saskatchewan Roughriders, except with literally two-tenths of the home-game attendance.
By the way, I just want to say that I always thought former Argonaut Head Coach Scott Milanovich was NFL material, and he’s now with the Jacksonville Jaguars. I take full credit for all of Coach Milanovich’s success. Full credit.
He’ll be back in the CFL in about two seasons. That’s on him.
- SASKATCHEWAN ROUGHRIDERS
Sadly, the Roughriders’ best chance of winning a game this season is their first game, but Darian Durant won’t let that happen. However, there is a glimmer of hope! Mr. Durant might get injured early enough in the game to enable the Roughriders to sneak out a win. I do not want Mr. Durant to get injured, so even though I want the Roughriders to win at least once this year, I would rather see Mr. Durant light up the league for an entire season and show everyone that he is indeed the best quarterback in the league. That’s all I got to say about that.
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*The North Korean Football League kicked off its inaugural season three weeks ago. A young rookie named K. Jong-un, who claims to be out of UCLA, is apparently tearing it up, leading in touchdowns, field goals, passing, receiving, rushing, sacks, interceptions, knock-downs, punt returns and some statistic called “Total Absolute American Football Skill”. He’s on Saskatchewan’s negotiation list but the Cleveland Browns have already traded their next ten years’ worth of draft picks for his rights.