There are a couple of interesting articles, one at cfl.ca and one at tsn.ca, about which I feel compelled to comment before I am placed into a turkey-induced coma this weekend. I will be staying awake just long enough to watch the Roughriders-Argonauts game on Saturday afternoon and then I plan on waking up in a dumpster on Tuesday morning reeking of mashed potatoes.

At cfl.ca, there is an article suggesting that a CFL western team crossing over to the East Division for the CFL playoffs will not face an easy task.  Notwithstanding the well-reasoned article itself, I must respectfully decline to agree, at least for this year.

Anyway, what I found notable is that this article appears to reveal who exactly is the “Staff” over at cfl.ca.  The headline of this article suggests that it was written by Jamie Nye, but the article itself suggests it was written by the “Staff”.  Ah-ha!

I believe Mr. Nye’s cover has been blown.  He is the “Staff”.  This is like discovering that Darth Vader was Luke Skywalker’s dad.  This changes everything.  I’ll never read another “Staff” article the same way again.

Perhaps Mr. Nye likes to use “Staff” as his nom de plume, which is perfectly acceptable to someone like me who cowardly hides behind discombobulated and Anonymous Loser.  However, “Staff” sucks as a nom du plume.  (“Anonymous Loser” has, obviously, a certain cachet that “Staff” lacks.)

It just occurred to me that Mr. Nye might be related to Bill Nye, and if I were to follow this completely unsupported and more or less ridiculous conjecture to its logical conclusion, I would suggest that Jamie Nye change his pen name to Jamie Nye, the Football Guy.  He could be the next Bill Simmons.

Anyway, think on that, Mr. Nye…. Football Guy.

In the meantime, I move next to the “Kickoff” article at tsn.ca by Dave Naylor (if that is his real name), who delves into the allegedly mysterious phenomenon of CFL West Division’s dominance over the East Division.

That’s what Mr. Naylor thinks is the CFL’s deepest mystery?  Here’s the reason:  the East sucks.  Mystery solved.  We need an entire article about this? Get the fuck outta my office. You want to solve a real CFL mystery?  Who thought the current CFL logo was a good idea?  And if you answer– former CFL commissioner Jeffrey Orridge, then the next mystery is:  who thought hiring Jeffrey Orridge as CFL commissioner was a good idea?

Anyway, Mr. Nye’s aforementioned article talks about how a crossover journey to the Grey Cup is not as easy as it looks, but Mr. Naylor’s article uses statistics, common sense and good writing to make a point we all already knew: at least during the regular season (particularly this season), West beats East almost every time. One would think that the crossover would have worked out better for western teams in the past.  It hasn’t. Okay, fair enough.

However, we are still left with the reality that, during the regular season, at least, the East has virtually no chance against the West.  So why have all seven of the writers polled by cfl.ca chosen the Toronto Argonauts over the Saskatchewan Roughriders this week?

Yes, the Argos have won seven games.  But of those seven games, six have been against eastern CFL teams.  Those aren’t even real football teams!

So I get it. Toronto has that Ricky Ray guy, and that Wilder Jr. guy seems to be a gamer, and they did beat the Edmonton Eskimos (as did everyone else in this league), but come on! All seven writers think the Argonauts will beat the Roughriders?  You can’t even get seven CFL writers to agree on what colour the sky is, and they all line up against the Roughriders for this one game?

I want the Saskatchewan Roughriders to lose so that they do not end up in third place at the end of the year.  I want them solidly in fourth place and crossing over to kick some eastern semi-pro football team ass, notwithstanding Mr. Nye’s dire message of playoff doom.  But now these writers have just made me mad.

I hereby give the Roughriders my official permission to demolish the Toronto Argo-nots tomorrow.  Sheesh.