http://www.winnipegsun.com/2014/07/30/west-dominance-stirs-up-realignment-talk

 

Pretty good all-encompassing article from Penton here... the one section that I thought was particularly interesting was the anonymous thoughts from CFL coaches and executives.... I'll post here for your convenience...

 

CFL coaches and execs give their anonymous thoughts on what they’re talking about behind closed doors:

If Montreal loses the next game or two, I don’t think they’ll fire Higgins. They shouldn’t, anyway. But Popp will do something. He has to. Something big. Maybe a trade … I’ve been saying since 2007 the CFL should be one division. Winnipeg and Saskatchewan in the Grey Cup? Who was the East team? That was a joke then … The CFL should keep its divisions because of tradition. It goes in cycles. The Grey Cup loses a lot of its country-wide interest if it’s up for grabs in just half the provinces … Chris Jones’ fake punt attempt was idiocy. Fake for what? To take a knee if they got the first down? … The Argos are still the best team in the East Division. They have the best quarterback, all-around team and veteran coaches. So any time you have the best QB in the division you are the top team when the rest of the teams’ QBs are struggling … I’m tempted to say the most underrated offensive player in the league this year is Steve Morley at centre in Winnipeg, but if not him then it’s Jeff Fuller in Calgary or Taj Smith in Saskatchewan … The league should have changed the ratio when we added Ottawa. Should have lowered the number of Canadians. It’s still July, and we can’t find Canadians worth a (hoot) on the street. If we lose another Canadian starter or two, where are we going to find replacements? No one will trade Canadians. We’ve tried, but we always get ‘Can’t trade our Canadians.’ Everyone has the same problem. Four months of football left to play and barely enough good Canadians in July … When we watch Winnipeg’s defence I ask myself ‘How was Gary Etcheverry out of work in our league?’ I didn’t return his call a year ago. Watching them play, I should have interviewed him … Nothing’s wrong with Ricky Ray. Right now we’re seeing the Ricky Ray we played against when he was in Edmonton. He was good for them, but not the best in the league. When he doesn’t have great protection, he’s not a superstar. Struggles against pressure … I don’t know Doug Malone over in Saskatchewan, but his offensive line is the best in the league. He’s got the young Canadian (Ben) Heenan playing good at tackle and their young centre, number 67 (Dan Clark), impressed me … The Bombers are for real. They’re solid … Toronto will win the East. They have the best quarterback over there. Ray will stay the same. No emotional roller-coaster. Unlike Burris, he won’t start pointing fingers … The most underrated offensive linemen, the ones who don’t hear nearly enough about, are Montreal’s Luc Brodeur-Jordain and Calgary’s Dan Federkeil … It’s too early to pull the chute on Troy Smith in Montreal. Give the kid a chance.

I also bolded the parts that I found especially interesting (mostly Bomber related).... thoughts?

Very interesting.  I agree about the ration and I suspect it'll be changed to a minimum of 6 starters once a 10th team enters the league.  Also nice to read about Steve Morley and Gary Etcheverry and the Bombers being for real; I think the BC win convinced a lot of people around the league. 

I'm curious to know which execs/coachs said what... eg which HC/GM was in a position to be hiring a new DC last year and passed on Etch?

I'm curious to know which execs/coachs said what... eg which HC/GM was in a position to be hiring a new DC last year and passed on Etch?

 

Pretty sure Etch interviewed with Hamilton last year. 

 

I'm curious to know which execs/coachs said what... eg which HC/GM was in a position to be hiring a new DC last year and passed on Etch?

 

Pretty sure Etch interviewed with Hamilton last year. 

 

 

But in the article the person says "...I didn't return his call... I should have interviewed him"

 

 

I'm curious to know which execs/coachs said what... eg which HC/GM was in a position to be hiring a new DC last year and passed on Etch?

 

Pretty sure Etch interviewed with Hamilton last year. 

 

 

But in the article the person says "...I didn't return his call... I should have interviewed him"

 

Probably Tim Burke

I’m tempted to say the most underrated offensive player in the league this year is Steve Morley at centre in Winnipeg

I’m tempted to say the most underrated offensive player in the league this year is Steve Morley at centre in Winnipeg

 

That's probably a big overstatement, but the reality is he's playing a position he never played before and doing it well.  He hasn't had a bad game yet, and it's a position that was of great concern going in to the season, and it's a position we haven't been particularly strong at in a long time.

 

And still it was only a few weeks ago that his name was mentioned in a post somewhere on this site as a player we can look forward to being done with once Goossen is ready, or something along those lines.  Bizarre.  Spite-based personnel decisions.

 

Most underrated is probably over the top, he was a number 1 overall draft pick back in 2003(?), but among his own fan base, most under-appreciated for sure.

CFL coaches and execs give their anonymous thoughts on what they’re talking about behind closed doors:

 

… The league should have changed the ratio when we added Ottawa. Should have lowered the number of Canadians. It’s still July, and we can’t find Canadians worth a (hoot) on the street. If we lose another Canadian starter or two, where are we going to find replacements? No one will trade Canadians. We’ve tried, but we always get ‘Can’t trade our Canadians.’ Everyone has the same problem. Four months of football left to play and barely enough good Canadians in July …

 

And this is what I mean regarding Mike's excellent post about a possible change in the mentality of CFL GMs regarding NIs.  Not going to happen.  It probably should happen, but it's not going to happen.

 

No team has taken as much NI knocks to the lineup as us and we're still moving forward.  Then again, maybe this quote is from Walters!!

Nice to know someone out there that matters thinks divisions in the CFL are useless. If 6/9 teams make playoffs, it should be the best 6/9.

 

Just watch this years cross-over team be better than 2nd in the east.

Nice to know someone out there that matters thinks divisions in the CFL are useless. If 6/9 teams make playoffs, it should be the best 6/9.

 

Just watch this years cross-over team be better than 2nd in the east.

At this rate, this years western crossover team and the western team that fails to make it would be better then the first team in the East.

Nice to know someone out there that matters thinks divisions in the CFL are useless. If 6/9 teams make playoffs, it should be the best 6/9.

 

Just watch this years cross-over team be better than 2nd in the east.

 

That's why I've been asking whether the CFL rules allow for 2 Western teams to crossover to the East.  No one seems to know for sure. 

 

Nice to know someone out there that matters thinks divisions in the CFL are useless. If 6/9 teams make playoffs, it should be the best 6/9.

 

Just watch this years cross-over team be better than 2nd in the east.

 

That's why I've been asking whether the CFL rules allow for 2 Western teams to crossover to the East.  No one seems to know for sure. 

 

There's nothing that I can see that mentions the 5th place team, just the fourth.  I know it doesn't answer your question, but I'm lead to believe that if it's not in the rules, there's no plan for it to happen. 

I think I posted this somewhere at some point but I feel the league should be 1-9, no matter of division.... but the top two seeds go to the division winners... so the playoff standings would currently be:

 

1. Cal

2. Ham

3. Edm

4. Wpg

5. Sask

6. BC

There's nothing that I can see that mentions the 5th place team, just the fourth.  I know it doesn't answer your question, but I'm lead to believe that if it's not in the rules, there's no plan for it to happen.

Is it even mathematically possible? The East plays each other so you'll have at least two teams in the East with records that should be better than the worst team in the West.

 

Nice to know someone out there that matters thinks divisions in the CFL are useless. If 6/9 teams make playoffs, it should be the best 6/9.

 

Just watch this years cross-over team be better than 2nd in the east.

 

That's why I've been asking whether the CFL rules allow for 2 Western teams to crossover to the East.  No one seems to know for sure. 

 

 

We know for sure, that won't happen.  That is not an existing rule.

 

 

There's nothing that I can see that mentions the 5th place team, just the fourth.  I know it doesn't answer your question, but I'm lead to believe that if it's not in the rules, there's no plan for it to happen.

Is it even mathematically possible? The East plays each other so you'll have at least two teams in the East with records that should be better than the worst team in the West.

 

 

It is mathematically possible to have all 5 western teams with better records than all 4 eastern teams

Personally I'm not surprised about Morley having a good season at centre. For those that recall Morley's best year with us was in 09 under Kelly when he was asked to play centre a number of times in place of Khan.

 

There's nothing that I can see that mentions the 5th place team, just the fourth.  I know it doesn't answer your question, but I'm lead to believe that if it's not in the rules, there's no plan for it to happen.

Is it even mathematically possible? The East plays each other so you'll have at least two teams in the East with records that should be better than the worst team in the West.

 

Not to mention the western teams all playing each other as well. You aren't going to see every western team with more wins than losses. either they'll split enough of them or someone will come up on the short end of western matchups. 

It is certainly mathematically possible that all 5 western teams could have more wins than the second-place eastern team

Personally I'm not surprised about Morley having a good season at centre. For those that recall Morley's best year with us was in 09 under Kelly when he was asked to play centre a number of times in place of Khan.

 

He played tackle all season that year.  Ryan Donnelly was our backup centre but I'm pretty sure Khan played there all year.

Would it really be a bad thing to have an all east or all west Grey Cup?

 

Obviously we're biased, but I thought everyone thought the WPG-Sask Grey Cup in Toronto was pretty cool.

 

Would a Calgary-Edmonton (or even Calgary-BC) Grey Cup really be less interesting to people in Ontario than, say, Calgary-Montreal? Or even Calgary-Hamilton. Does anyone in Toronto or Ottawa care more about that than a battle of Alberta?

 

I suspect the real issue is this: they want to increase the odds of Toronto/Montreal being in the Grey Cup as often as possible. Because that's the only way those teams survive.

The Grey Cup would be a better game - for quite some time, the West Final has really been the deciding game in the league

 

Some real easy fixes for the league... no east-west playoff format, smaller stadiums for BC and Toronto, more stats/info for fans to follow the game

 

Leave the ratio alone

They should have just left Winnipeg in the East this year. If a team is going to fail it'll be an Eastern team so if that happens god forbid it would mean yet another division switch for the Bombers. But I guess they want the playoffs to have eastern time zone teams... 

It was the Bombers choice and Wade chose to move back to the West, as that is where we belong.

I thought that move was a Joe Mack/Buchko decision?

They should have just left Winnipeg in the East this year. If a team is going to fail it'll be an Eastern team so if that happens god forbid it would mean yet another division switch for the Bombers. But I guess they want the playoffs to have eastern time zone teams...

Either Montreal or Ottawa will fold again and Winnipeg will be back in the East. It's just a matter of time.