johnzo

Another recent CFL upload by youtube hero Calgary Stampeders Classics. This one's interesting for historical reasons, it's the mid/late-dynasty Eskimos against an Als team that was stacked with big-money imports including QB Vince Ferragamo. That Als team went 3-13 and it was the start of the 1980s decline of the CFL in Montreal. Had never seen Ferragamo play before. He threw 7 TD passes vs 25 picks that year. According to a youtube comment, Chris Walby is in there somewhere playing on the DL for Montreal. Haven't spotted him yet. And damn that stained and seemy turf is terrible, and the Big Owe is only five years old at this point. What a boondoggle.

Fellow Fantasia watcher here.

Our OL was just outstanding in this game -- and Clements matadored everyone who leaked through. I think we got a little lucky in this game, facing Tim Cowan instead of Roy Dewalt. Cowan couldn't hit the broad side of a barn -- he was playing with a bad elbow.

Watched this gem last night. Check out Clements' footwork!

I have had lots of creative hobbies over the years but nowadays I mostly play drums and write songs with my hobby band. My band is all gen-x people so we're about rock but some country will creep in now and then. We don't gig for the most part, occasionally we'll play a backyard or a pub but we're mostly about "mom and dad get away from their kids and get loud." This is my favorite of our recordings -- something my band and I threw together during pandemic lockdown. it's a weird electro jazz thing, totally not what we would usually play live.

should've been more clear. I think if a safety leads the team in tackles, like Lysack did in 2005, that safety probably played on a pretty shitty defence.

When it's a safety who leads the team in tackles, that is definitely an indicator of something...

Oh man, the field was so bad in some of those old playoff games. Snow-crusted mud. The turf at CNE stadium must have had brutally bad drainage, some of the rainy games there, skidding players would throw up sheets of water.

nothing to add, I just like seeing this here.

speaking of Ottawa Redblack QBs, I'm curious to see how Tyree Adams does in 2024. He looked like he knew what he was doing in his one game against the Elks last year (although yeah the Elks made a lot of quarterbacks look good last year.) No picks, moved around well, found the open man downfield. He's a beanpole, though. 6'2" and 185lbs.

yeah, the main changes I see are in the formations -- shotgun was very rare back then and most teams were lining up with two backs. Calgary started using five and six receiver sets in 1990 and it was Hufnagel who pioneered that, according to cfl.ca: https://www.cfl.ca/2007/12/02/offences_can_thank__huff__for_six_pack_air_attack/ It's kind of nice to watch the old game without replay reviews. Official makes the call and the game moves on, no delays.

That game was a heartbreaker. I really wanted to see Hufnagel start in a Grey Cup -- he was a good soldier backup all those years.

Kicking was so bad back in the day. Kennard had a couple of seasons of <60% kicking and was always invited back. Bernie Ruoff had a 50% year and a 40% year (!) early in his career but his career survived. I think it was around the turn of the millennium when the top kickers started regularly hitting 80%.

Watching games from back in the day, it's astonishing the big hits that a QB was expected to absorb ... especially a guy like Hufnagel who played from the pocket a lot. Like, check this play out, Huffer gets obliterated after he throws a gorgeous deep pass to Tuttle. No penalty, he bounces right back up. Those guys were tough back then. It's so awesome to have access to these old games, you can really see how the game has changed over the years. It seems like it was around 2004-2005 when the CFL started making rules to try to keep quarterbacks alive.

oh hell yeah, I've been feasting on old CFL during this long stupid offseason. Just watched this one last weekend. Edmonton was the first victim of our 1984 championship run. We absolutely demolished them.

I listened to that game on the radio and I can still hear the Bob Irving call. "He dropped it. He. Just. Dropped. It." edit: found the play on youtube:

edit: it's been said already, no value in piling on further.

Lions signed Dolegala yesterday. https://www.si.com/cfl/fannation/news/bc-lions-sign-contract-former-saskatchewan-roughriders-jake-dolegala?utm_source=reddit.com I'm in the "maybe he's got upside?" camp so I think this is a decent signing for them.

will he wind up anywhere? Is there any money left out there for him? Maybe it'll be a storybook Clarence Denmark kinda thing where he comes back to us midseason as an injury replacement and tears it up. that would be a bummer because it means one of our battleship receivers is on the sidelines but man would I be pumped for a Sheed comeback in blue.

Sean Thomas Erlington to Montreal. Als going national at RB with Antwi and STE?

love me some big Stan but I think the very first piece of the turnaround was the 2013 Alex Hall for Neufeld trade. Hall put up seven sacks for the Roughriders in nineteen games. In return, we got a Canadian OL starter for a decade. I think that was Walters' first trade. Nice debut.

Anyone who's got the pride and drive to succeed at this level is gonna have serious feelings when the day comes to shut er down. His onfield contributions are what matters to me, not his exit interview. Thanks for being a great Bomber, Mr. Jeffcoat.

good catch. I thought Tate was recruited by the Stamps, but yeah he was a Roughrider originally.

I got curious.... In the last twenty years, the only Calgary QBs who were not first recruited into the league by the Stamps were Glenn in 2012-2013 and McManus in 2006. that's a pretty amazing run of homegrown QBs.

each video links to a different play. it's just that the preview doesn't show that.