2019 Week 1 Pick 'Ems

[Rich]

Preseason is over and that means CFL football is back for the 2019 edition.  Pick 'Ems are back with the winner taking home a $50 Blue Bomber gift certificate.

How do they work?   Each week you pick the winners for each CFL game.  You get one point for every correct pick.  Whoever has the most points at the end of the year wins!

Picks will be done through the polling system.  Polls close at game start of the first game of the week.  I will accept picks for games that have not started yet through PMs if you are late getting them in.

Week 1 kicks off with Saskatchewan @ Hamilton on Thursday at 6:30 PM.   Please get your picks in by then!

[O2L]

16 votes and they’re currently all unanimous! 😂 

[GCJenks]

4 hours ago, O2L said:

16 votes and they’re currently all unanimous! 😂 

Make that 17...

[M.O.A.B.]

5 hours ago, O2L said:

16 votes and they’re currently all unanimous! 😂 

and it's obvious which teams they pick. 🤣

Edited June 10, 2019 by M.O.A.B.

[TBURGESS]

20 and everyone is still on the same page.

[Wanna-B-Fanboy]

22 minutes ago, TBURGESS said:

20 and everyone is still on the same page.

Yeaaaah. make that 21.

 

 

lol

Edited June 10, 2019 by wanna-b-fanboy

[Nash00]

23

[MOBomberFan]

Jeez, we're up to 27 unanimous votes at this point! Great minds think alike?

[mbrg]

37 minutes ago, MOBomberFan said:

Jeez, we're up to 27 unanimous votes at this point! Great minds think alike?

If TBurg isn't going to be a contrarian, who is?

 

I'd change one of my picks if the system allowed it.  A few years ago that was an option.

[Tracker]

52 minutes ago, MOBomberFan said:

Jeez, we're up to 27 unanimous votes at this point! Great minds think alike?

And fools seldom differ.

[AtlanticRiderFan]

31. If I'm going down, you're all going down with me!

[Bigblue204]

34!

[Jesse]

36!

[Bubba Zanetti]

37

[Jesse]

Obviously we're not all going to be correct.

Where's the best chance for an upset?

BC/Winnipeg is the biggest toss up, right?

Sask/Montreal/Ottawa are all obviously hot garbage. 

[Rich]

Putting picks into the spreadsheet this week is going to be really easy.

[TrueBlue4ever]

4 hours ago, Jesse said:

Obviously we're not all going to be correct.

Where's the best chance for an upset?

BC/Winnipeg is the biggest toss up, right?

Sask/Montreal/Ottawa are all obviously hot garbage. 

If this was not a Bomber site, the Leos would get a bunch more votes, if for no other reason than being the home team. And the Bombers have had a tough go in BC of late, losing 3 of their last 4 games there (and in all 4, the team leading going into the 4th quarter blew a double digit lead). And we know that Mike Reilly can be a Bomber killer on his own. But I picked the Bombers because if I'm wrong it won't cost me a position in the pool to everyone else. But a loss to BC wouldn't shock me. I will say on paper the Bombers are better and certainly deeper in talent, it just might take a bit for them to gel. I envision a 3 point game.

And on the flip side, it is easy to dismiss the Riders on this forum, but yet they always seemingly do better than the doom and gloom everyone predicts for them. And 12-6 was pretty far from doom and gloom last year. So Jefferson is out, but they added Micah Johnson, and Elimimian may still have something left in the tank (and even 75% of his best is still better than a lot of players in the CFL), and we know how good that D was last year. Although I can't see them winning as many games solely on defensive scores like they did last year. And their offence is not fearsome (Arceneaux, unlike Solomon on D, does not appear to have anything left in the tank) and not sure if Collaros can ever be half of what he was in his best days in Hamilton, even if he stays healthy, but Powell will be a great equalizer there to keep drives going offensively. Again, I picked Hamilton because they are the class of the East and playing at home, but I'd likely pick the Riders against any of the other Eastern teams, even on the road. We finally saw the 5th place team in the West be better than the second place team in the East but miss the playoffs, fuelling the "one 9 team league and no East and West" debate - this could be the year the top 5 teams in the league are all from the West.

Calgary doesn't traditionally lose in July and August, and doesn't traditionally lose at home. And Ottawa by far lost the most talent in the off-season. Stamps are an easy call.

Who knows what Edmonton has? Lots of offensive talent last year but no playoff spot, and they seem to have re-built well as "Ottawa west" this year, but Trevor Harris is like Reilly in that he can put up huge numbers but it doesn`t translate into more than a 9-9 record at season`s end. But none of that matters, they are playing the Als. I thought Montreal was in tough to stay out of the basement before they decided that Antonio Pipkin was their saviour. His promotion clinched it. AND THEN they canned Sherman and promoted K. Jones, who ran the worst offence by far in the CFL last year and did all the play-calling because Sherman couldn`t grasp the CFL game apparently. Now Khari is doing both jobs, yikes. Most of the assistants were Sherman`s guys too (including his son, who is still on the team). Here`s a Vegas wager - will Montreal be the underdog for every game this season? The Esks are another easy call here.

Edited June 10, 2019 by TrueBlue4ever

[bigg jay]

11 minutes ago, TrueBlue4ever said:

And on the flip side, it is easy to dismiss the Riders on this forum, but yet they always seemingly do better than the doom and gloom everyone predicts for them. And 12-6 was pretty far from doom and gloom last year. So Jefferson is out, but they added Micah Johnson, and Elimimian may still have something left in the tank (and even 75% of his best is still better than a lot of players in the CFL), and we know how good that D was last year. Although I can't see them winning as many games solely on defensive scores like they did last year. And their offence is not fearsome (Arceneaux, unlike Solomon on D, does not appear to have anything left in the tank) and not sure if Collaros can ever be half of what he was in his best days in Hamilton, even if he stays healthy, but Powell will be a great equalizer there to keep drives going offensively. Again, I picked Hamilton because they are the class of the East and playing at home, but I'd likely pick the Riders against any of the other Eastern teams, even on the road. We finally saw the 5th place team in the West be better than the second place team in the East but miss the playoffs, fuelling the "one 9 team league and no East and West" debate - this could be the year the top 5 teams in the league are all from the West.

This is an easy call, bomber site or not. They are going on the road against the best team in the East (low bar I know) and don't have some of their biggest name players.  LaBatte could be out with what might be a long term injury.  Elimimian and Arceneaux are still injured so they haven't even practices with their new team yet.  The stuff you are talking about is fine for the overall season predictions thread but most of it doesn't apply to the week 1 match-up.

[Mr Dee]

Hamilton is going to be a very good team - finalists in the East. I expect them to beat Sask. on Saturday.

[TrueBlue4ever]

53 minutes ago, bigg jay said:

This is an easy call, bomber site or not. They are going on the road against the best team in the East (low bar I know) and don't have some of their biggest name players.  LaBatte could be out with what might be a long term injury.  Elimimian and Arceneaux are still injured so they haven't even practices with their new team yet.  The stuff you are talking about is fine for the overall season predictions thread but most of it doesn't apply to the week 1 match-up.

All fair points, which is why I have Hamilton this week. And I was not fully appraised of the injuries, thanks for letting me know.

[Fatty Liver]

1 hour ago, bigg jay said:

This is an easy call, bomber site or not. They are going on the road against the best team in the East (low bar I know) and don't have some of their biggest name players.  LaBatte could be out with what might be a long term injury.  Elimimian and Arceneaux are still injured so they haven't even practices with their new team yet.  The stuff you are talking about is fine for the overall season predictions thread but most of it doesn't apply to the week 1 match-up.

I'm worried Neufeld could be in the same boat as LaBatte, it sounded from Walters press-conference that he is week to week, which could mean anything but troubling having not touched the field.  Anyone know if Paddy had off-season surgery?  Apparently Foketi did.

[Tracker]

1 hour ago, Mr Dee said:

Hamilton is going to be a very good team - finalists in the East. I expect them to beat Sask. on Saturday.

And they could with Maudie Frickert behind center.

[O2L]

I think the BC/WPG game is the biggest toss up with HAM/SSK being next. Ham often played down to their opponent last year and they’ve had a bunch of turnover on their coaching staff and Sask won games that they had no business winning. Ham should still be favoured by far, just saying it wouldn’t surprise me if Sask won. 

[Mark F]

Interesting to see how Craig Dickensen, Steinhauer, and Claybrooks do this season. looked up Dickensen, been coaching for 19 years.

 

Edited June 11, 2019 by Mark F

[JCon]

I actually believe the Montreal/Edmonton game is a bit of a toss up. Montreal has a sneaky good D and Pipkin can make plays. If it's close late, I could the Als stealing one. But, I picked Edmonton.