https://www.tsn.ca/naylor-many-questions-but-few-answers-on-a-2021-cfl-season-1.1543725

The Canadian Football League has been outrageously quiet since it pulled the plug on its season more than two months ago, leaving behind a wake of speculation about where things are headed next.

With the reality setting in that COVID-19 is likely to still be around in some form next summer, there is real concern about what the 2021 season might look like or if it will occur at all.

There are teams that believe it is vitally important to play in 2021 and that without a season the CFL is in danger of being mothballed. Whether every team believes that is another question. And there is a lot to sort out before anyone can accurately predict what a season might look like and how much pain the teams are collectively willing to stomach to make it happen.

The league and its franchises are currently running through various scenarios for next season, trying to get a handle on true costs of each and working at ways to trim budgets and save money. That’s likely to continue until the league can truly choose a course of action, which feels like next April at the earliest.

Why? Well, there’s not much point in fully committing to a scenario that’s seven months away if that scenario might be totally unrealistic by the time you get there.

There has been no 2021 business plan presented yet, only regular updates to the presidents and governors about what the league is doing to prepare for the unknown.

It should be noted that teams will need to make decisions about retaining assistant coaches with expiring contracts by December, which will be the first real economic commitments to a 2021 season. Restrictions on signing players will need to be lifted well before the opening of February free agency, where players are likely to meet a cautious market – one in which signing bonuses will probably be absent.

There’s a collective bargaining agreement to amend, if not renegotiate, with the players, which will require some kind of pressure point because it always does. But the league can’t sit down with the players until it gets a true handle on revenues and it can’t do that until it chooses a course of action.

Will CFL teams be allowed to have full stadiums next summer? It doesn't seem likely. But just what percentage of capacity will be allowed – if any at all – is impossible to guess. It seems as if the league is counting on the restrictions that currently prevent fans from being in stadiums being lifted. But to what degree?

When will we see a schedule? Good question. Or could we see multiple schedules for different scenarios? Never say never.

Could it be a 21-week, 18-game season played in home stadiums? Unlikely, given the losses teams are expected to take with reduced numbers of fans in the stands. Could we see a return to the 10-week bubble? Maybe. A nine-game schedule played in home stadiums before fans? Perhaps.

The point is no one knows, so demanding answers to questions that can’t possibly be answered right now is a waste of time.

All we know is that there’s going to be a lot less revenue for teams to operate with under any scenario, not just because of crowd restrictions but also due to older fans choosing to stay home for their safety. The CFL’s fan demographics do it no favours in this regard.

Getting consensus on a best course of action won’t be easy for the CFL’s nine teams. Back in the summer, there were teams that were willing to play without government support and teams that weren’t. And just like then, the biggest challenge commissioner Randy Ambrosie faces now is finding a scenario they can all live with.

Adopting a revenue-sharing model so that each team absorbs the same amount of red ink would certainly make consensus-building easier, which many believe should be the direction for the future, COVID-19 or not.

The other elephant in the room is federal government, which many in the CFL believe left it high and dry last summer after months of back-and-forth talks where the league believed it was making progress.

Is the CFL prepared to go down that road again, knowing it doesn’t control the timeline and larger forces can change things in an instant? Perhaps, although it’s not as though the feds don’t have a long list of people coming at them with their hands out.

There will be voices demanding the owners suck up the losses of playing a season under any circumstance, as owners have done in other sports. But the business calculation in sports such as MLB, NFL, NHL and NBA is different because of the percentage of revenues those leagues derive from television.

Losses sustained by playing in those leagues can also be viewed as investments towards protecting massive franchise values. That’s not the case in the CFL, where teams can’t just float money on the backs of their franchise values, and where one third of the teams are publicly owned.

It would be beneficial for the league to soon announce its formal commitment to play some kind of season in 2021.

But beyond that, get ready for months more of waiting with lots of questions and speculation but very few answers.

yeah catches per target isn't a very good indicator of anything other than how many times the QB went that way, not the success of the receiver so much

9 hours ago, 17to85 said:

Which is a stupid stat because at least half of those missed passes were godawful throws. Maybe more but I don't remember all of them. 

Not trying to make him a pariah, just sayin' those were his numbers. I agree though that Collaros had a rough game.

Cant speak for TV, but Irving made it sound like on a few occassions they were catchable.

2 hours ago, Eternal optimist said:

Cant speak for TV, but Irving made it sound like on a few occassions they were catchable.

Yeah, Bob will tell us what he really thinks during broadcasts.  But in his segments the next day - he's back to the same old Bob. 

Bailey has had his struggles, and I can think of at least one if not two catchable passes he whiffed on in the last outing. But he is tied for the club lead in TD catches. And he was hardly alone in the subpar game against Toronto category. Lawler dropped one, and he has been our best receiver so far. Adams lost control of a crucial one near the goal line, and seemed more interested in jawing the Argos than just concentrating on playing. Demski seems to need to get involved early or else he becomes an afterthought. Wolitarsky has been virtually invisible so far this year. And Collaros was definitely off, and his best football this year is when he has been running for his life, not the preferred way to play QB (at least I think that is true, having never played or coached at a high level, maybe that is how the best offences are drawn up). 

8 minutes ago, TrueBlue4ever said:

Bailey has had his struggles, and I can think of at least one if not two catchable passes he whiffed on in the last outing. But he is tied for the club lead in TD catches. And he was hardly alone in the subpar game against Toronto category. Lawler dropped one, and he has been our best receiver so far. Adams lost control of a crucial one near the goal line, and seemed more interested in jawing the Argos than just concentrating on playing. Demski seems to need to get involved early or else he becomes an afterthought. Wolitarsky has been virtually invisible so far this year. And Collaros was definitely off, and his best football this year is when he has been running for his life, not the preferred way to play QB (at least I think that is true, having never played or coached at a high level, maybe that is how the best offences are drawn up). 

Demski didnt play...hence the invisibility 🙂

2 minutes ago, Booch said:

Demski didnt play...hence the invisibility 🙂

I was referring to a more general pattern than specifically the last game, but I will walk back that comment on him while he is off the roster. 

7 minutes ago, TrueBlue4ever said:

I was referring to a more general pattern than specifically the last game, but I will walk back that comment on him while he is off the roster. 

haha...no worries...but I agree...we need to involve him early and he seems to excel

33 minutes ago, TrueBlue4ever said:

Wolitarsky has been virtually invisible so far this year.

again.

is he not getting open, I dont think he drops a lot of the few that are thrown to him.

forgotten man.

If all he can do is block, might as well put a tight end in his spot. like a running back that gets no handoffs.

anybody?

41 minutes ago, Mark H. said:

Yeah, Bob will tell us what he really thinks during broadcasts.  But in his segments the next day - he's back to the same old Bob. 

funny thing about Bob to me, is he kind of goes to far with even handedness; in a game a few years ago he was really excited about the play of bo levi smith during one game. to the point of irritating.

 

Edited August 26, 20214 yr by Mark F

5 minutes ago, Mark F said:

again.

is he not getting open, I dont think he drops a lot of the few that are thrown to him.

forgotten man.

If all he can do is block, might as well put a tight end in his spot. like a running back that gets no handoffs.

anybody?

funny thing about Bob to me, is he kind of goes to far with even handedness; in a game a few years ago he was really excited about the play of bo levi smith during one game. to the point of irritating.

 

The problem isnt the wrs. Remember when lucky whitehead was invisible for us last year? Yeah leading the league in receiving. Weve seen lots of wrs leave winnipeg and suddenly be legit threats. Idk how many itd take, the issue is not talent. Woli is very good, but hes playing the field side wide out. Thats a hard position to excel at. Its long passes no matter what. We dont do much to involve him in the offense. The play call has to utilize its weapons. It isnt play ground football where you run what ever route and just try to get open. Being open is about a couple seconds of a throwing window. And on the field side, that window is small. 

We also use motion with our wrs to run flood / sweep concepts with demksi and bring woli in from the field to block. That motion changes defensive back leverage and can shift defenders to open the run. Last year we saw more yankee concepts where we would play action to move the box defenders up and to a side and open up short seams and passing windows. We havent done that much this year, and our run game hasnt been good for 2 out of 3 games. 

Our passing offense is not self sufficient for the most part. We dont make heavy use of timing routes, rubs, attack the seams we rely on play action, sweeps and motion. When the run game fails, play action doesnt work. We havent used PA alot this year, and didnt have demski last week so we didnt even have the jet sweep / motion fake to set stuff up. Hamilton moved guys out of the box to match our motion and bit on PA. That opened up holes for our inside zone running scheme. Toronto did not. Their DL anchored and disengaged for tackles, gap cancelled and they loaded the box with various defenders at varied depths. If we dont improve our play call and execution every team will start doing that. 

Buck pierce has made some changes to what we do, but he is still very much a plop disciple. His offense is very similar. As of yet it hasnt shown to be better at much other than deeper passes. 

On top of all that, woli's been banged up and was questionable last week. He would be much better off at SB with a faster guy at his wideout spot. Woli would put up 1k+ receiving with any team save ottawa and be an elite ni wr.  

22 minutes ago, wbbfan said:

The problem isnt the wrs. Remember when lucky whitehead was invisible for us last year? Yeah leading the league in receiving. Weve seen lots of wrs leave winnipeg and suddenly be legit threats. Idk how many itd take, the issue is not talent. Woli is very good, but hes playing the field side wide out. Thats a hard position to excel at. Its long passes no matter what. We dont do much to involve him in the offense. The play call has to utilize its weapons. It isnt play ground football where you run what ever route and just try to get open. Being open is about a couple seconds of a throwing window. And on the field side, that window is small. 

We also use motion with our wrs to run flood / sweep concepts with demksi and bring woli in from the field to block. That motion changes defensive back leverage and can shift defenders to open the run. Last year we saw more yankee concepts where we would play action to move the box defenders up and to a side and open up short seams and passing windows. We havent done that much this year, and our run game hasnt been good for 2 out of 3 games. 

Our passing offense is not self sufficient for the most part. We dont make heavy use of timing routes, rubs, attack the seams we rely on play action, sweeps and motion. When the run game fails, play action doesnt work. We havent used PA alot this year, and didnt have demski last week so we didnt even have the jet sweep / motion fake to set stuff up. Hamilton moved guys out of the box to match our motion and bit on PA. That opened up holes for our inside zone running scheme. Toronto did not. Their DL anchored and disengaged for tackles, gap cancelled and they loaded the box with various defenders at varied depths. If we dont improve our play call and execution every team will start doing that. 

Buck pierce has made some changes to what we do, but he is still very much a plop disciple. His offense is very similar. As of yet it hasnt shown to be better at much other than deeper passes. 

On top of all that, woli's been banged up and was questionable last week. He would be much better off at SB with a faster guy at his wideout spot. Woli would put up 1k+ receiving with any team save ottawa and be an elite ni wr.  

Further to the point on woli who is a under 10%. The 8 catches on 10 attempts isnt him breaking free all of a sudden. If we threw 20 times to him instead he probably would still have caught 3/4 of those passes. 

 

Ottawa loses abdul kanneh to the 6 game ir. That hurts. He was a big part of their defense and offense. 

On 2021-08-26 at 10:54 AM, Booch said:

haha...no worries...but I agree...we need to involve him early and he seems to excel

Why haven't they moved Wolitarski inside, Booch? Any thoughts?? 

7 hours ago, SpeedFlex27 said:

Why haven't they moved Wolitarski inside, Booch? Any thoughts?? 

No clue..maybe he doesn't feel comfortable there? Also I think they like him in blocking schemes coming from off the outside too...he woukd be an insane inside threat tho

11 hours ago, SpeedFlex27 said:

Why haven't they moved Wolitarski inside, Booch? Any thoughts?? 

It's depth chart only that has him out there. During the game he regularly lines up inside. 

39 minutes ago, Bigblue204 said:

It's depth chart only that has him out there. During the game he regularly lines up inside. 

He lines up at field wide out. But he is heavily used in motion to block on the edge. He almost never lines up at slot waggles and runs a route. 

To me, it looks like a LaPolice offence that a non-LaPolice person is trying to implement. As a rookie OC, Pierce may be reluctant to try non-LaPolice stuff, because, a) he is a rookie. and b) that offence won a Grey Cup and c) maybe O'Shea is directing him. In any case,  he will never be as good as LaPolice at being LaPolice and maybe its time for him to start introducing his own wrinkles because one of the knocks on LaPolice was the predictability of the Bomber offence.

13 minutes ago, Tracker said:

To me, it looks like a LaPolice offence that a non-LaPolice person is trying to implement. As a rookie OC, Pierce may be reluctant to try non-LaPolice stuff, because, a) he is a rookie. and b) that offence won a Grey Cup and c) maybe O'Shea is directing him. In any case,  he will never be as good as LaPolice at being LaPolice and maybe its time for him to start introducing his own wrinkles because one of the knocks on LaPolice was the predictability of the Bomber offence.

I wish we'd throw a pass to Woli as a slot. Every year we say he needs to get more involved & every year it never changes. And this answer should have been for wbbfan. 

Edited August 28, 20214 yr by SpeedFlex27

https://3downnation.com/2021/08/29/cody-fajardo-to-donate-100-trees-for-every-touchdown-he-scores-in-2021/

Credit where it's due, I like this a lot

I feel like Brandon Banks is done as an MOP and maybe in Hamilton. I'm sure nothing will happen any time soon but I could see him traded mid before the deadline. 

He's tied for 4th in targets and is 24th in yards. His ypc has been cut nearly in half. 

He looked like he can still do some damage when he was returning. But idk if he can get back to his peak form at 33. 

4 hours ago, MOBomberFan said:

https://3downnation.com/2021/08/29/cody-fajardo-to-donate-100-trees-for-every-touchdown-he-scores-in-2021/

Credit where it's due, I like this a lot

Cue the "No. More. Trees!" chant at the Banjo Bowl.

4 hours ago, MOBomberFan said:

https://3downnation.com/2021/08/29/cody-fajardo-to-donate-100-trees-for-every-touchdown-he-scores-in-2021/

Credit where it's due, I like this a lot

More latrines for Saskatcewanites.

I remember the Bombers were interested with him in the past.

2 hours ago, M.O.A.B. said:

I remember the Bombers were interested with him in the past.

Id much rather have duke. Michel can return too though. 

Sadly, Duke isn't available. He was injured, which is why the Bills waived him. He cleared waivers and the Bills have re-signed and placed him on the IR. They must still want him.