Eternal optimist

The CFL is such an afterthought in Toronto it's ridiculous. I remember when visiting relatives there we passed by a local Toronto sports shop and it having room for emblems of relevant, local sports teams - the first three? Toronto Blue Jays, Toronto Maples Leafs, Toronto Raptors... the fourth slot? The Argos emblem? Nope - A second Maple Leafs logo.

Wide right???!?

Cheers to the first Riders loss of the season!

It's funny, a good offensive line can make a bad QB look great.. but a good QB can't masque the sheer terror experienced when taking snaps from a bad offensive line...

I'll go out on a limb with Duron Carter against his former team.

The most recent case I can remember of stuff like this happening was in the 2011 playoffs when the Ti-Cats signed Terence Jeffers-Harris 2 days before the Eastern Semi-final...but even that was only after the Bombers had released him.

The biggest problem with going against the "Gentleman's Agreement" is essentially the other teams would just set up an embargo against your team. Although trades are uncommon in the CFL, if you were blacklisted for breaking the Gentleman's Agreement, you'd miss out on potential win-win trades with other teams, and trades that often occur shortly before the CFL draft. In economics, a similar scenario is commonly referred to as the "Prisoner's Dilemma" provides an interesting example of common group decision-making problems and could shed some light on this issue. That said, I agree and it is stupid that they don't just sign off each other's practice rosters.

I was just trying to make the general point that football (like many sports) is a team game, and the team wins and loses as a whole. In fact 2013 was a failure on all counts (offense and special teams as well).

Slightly off-topic, but interesting note the Argos released Drew Willy as part of their final cuts. Did we ever get a steal with that trade!

It was not too long ago that the Bombers proudly displayed one of the best middle linebackers in the league while having a "meh" defense elsewhere... Henoc Muamba and 2013, methinks? That turned out swell didn't it?

Denmark knows the offense better as he's a veteran. He always seems to be in the right place when the team is in the red zone. Stafford may as well have been a ghost this preseason.

When was the last time a team went undefeated, and win-less in the same preseason?

I'm just saying it's happened before where a new QB looks superhuman against a few teams because there's no film for the D to study. I guess the general consensus is that Bridge was going to start anyways.

Anyone else getting the vibe that Vince Young being out is just a ruse so the Bombers don't have any film on him for the season opener on Canada Day?

How does one "hold him hammy"?

I question your source here... this implies some Saskatchewan folk have their high school diploma.

My wife and I have our seats in section 109 right behind the away team bench. Excellent for heckling and awesome when the place is really bumping. Close enough that when you hit a player with a beer bottle, he stays down.

I'm not disagreeing with you regarding using 2nd-down conversion as a predictor, in fact it looks like it has some merit. I was just saying that nobody (as far as I can tell) has run the numbers on it for the CFL. As for your other post regarding the QB efficiency rating, its shortcomings are well known and documented.

Did a bit of digging, and there doesn't appear to have been any analysis between 2nd down conversions with wins for CFL quarterbacks. However, I did find comparative analysis using a similar thought process with 3rd down conversions in the NFL. The correlation coefficient between 3rd down conversions and wins in the NFL is about 0.43 which is pretty good for as a single-variable predictor. The QB passer rating still surpasses it though and has a correlation with wins of about 0.51. That said, the NFL/CFL are completely different games and the shortcomings of the QB passer rating are well documented. For those who want a bit of reading, here's the articles that I found on the subject: Source regarding 3rd down conversions: http://archive.advancedfootballanalytics.com/2008/01/is-3rd-down-conversion-percentage-good.html Source regarding QB passer rating: http://www.footballperspective.com/correlating-passing-stats-with-wins/

It proves that wins is not an input variable in the QB efficiency rating (which was the "horse behind the cart" dilemma you had mentioned). I'm not sure you're understanding what I'm saying, but I don't know how better to explain it. Bottom line is the best predictor for determining the number of wins a quarterback is likely to have is the QB efficiency rating. It is a calculation designed to predict the output variable (wins) based on the given input variables as discussed in my prior post.

A quick wikipedia search of the formula for determining the quarterback rating yields the following. As you can see, the number of wins a QB has is not a input variable for determining the quarterback efficiency ratio. Straight from wikipedia; as mentioned above: The four separate calculations can be expressed in the following equations: a=(COMPATT−.3)×5{\displaystyle a=\left({{\text{COMP}} \over {\text{ATT}}}-.3\right)\times 5} b=(YDSATT−3)×.25{\displaystyle b=\left({{\text{YDS}} \over {\text{ATT}}}-3\right)\times .25} c=(TDATT)×20{\displaystyle c=\left({{\text{TD}} \over {\text{ATT}}}\right)\times 20} d=2.375−(INTATT×25){\displaystyle d=2.375-\left({{\text{INT}} \over {\text{ATT}}}\times 25\right)} where ATT = Number of passing attempts COMP = Number of completions YDS = Passing yards TD = Touchdown passes INT = Interceptions If the result of any calculation is greater than 2.375, it is set to 2.375. If the result is a negative number, it is set to zero. Then, the above calculations are used to complete the passer rating: Passer Rating=((a+b+c+d)6)×100{\displaystyle {\text{Passer Rating}}=\left({(a+b+c+d) \over 6}\right)\times 100}

The QB efficiency rating is essentially the 'gold standard' for QB effectiveness because it is the statistic that has the highest positive correlation with the number of wins said quarterback produces. To put it in a statistical nutshell, the correlation of variable x to variable y indicates its ability to predict the outcome (output) of a given variable (y - in this case, # of wins by a QB), based on a known quantity (input) of a known variable (x - which in this case, would be the QB efficiency rating). Correlation values range from -1 (a perfect negative 1:1 correlation) to +1 (a perfect positive 1:1 correlation) - a quick google search shows that the general consensus is that the correlation between QB rating and # of wins is about 0.50ish. To date, no other statistic has a higher correlation with the number of wins a QB has. This means that, generally speaking, if you were to look at all QB efficiency ratings since the dawn of football to present day, the QB efficiency rating is the best statistic to determine the number of wins a quarterback will get. The higher their QB efficiency rating, the more wins they are likely to have. Analysis has also been done on other statistics such as total passing yards, completion % etc. In terms of testing, you could hypothetically use anything as your x for testing your null hypothesis. For example, you could do analysis testing the correlation between the temperature the day of the game and # of wins (hint: you probably wouldn't see any correlation that is meaningful). The testing done to date shows that the number of wins a QB has is correlated most consistently with the QB efficiency rating.

So much this.

I think the best way to describe is it brilliantly desperate. The signing itself is desperate, the entertainment value is brilliant.

How do you guys not see the genius that is Jonesy? Obviously he didn't sign Young as a plug-and-play QB upgrade... Young is obviously their import offensive lineman that can also run the fumblerooski...and throw in a pinch.