PREVIEW - STAMPS-BOMBERS, JULY 24
SETTING THE SCENE
The Calgary Stampeders look to follow up one of their most impressive wins of the season and stretch their winning streak to three games as they travel to Winnipeg to do battle with the defending East Division champion Blue Bombers. Calgary (3-1 and in second place in the West) dominated the Hamilton Tiger-Cats in Week 4, beating the Tabbies 43-19 for its fourth straight win over Hamilton at McMahon Stadium. The Bombers (0-4 and in last place in the East) made it to the Grey Cup for the first time since 2001 last season but have found 2008 to be a struggle so far as they are the only winless CFL team. This is the first time since 2005 the Bombers have started a season at 0-4. Winnipeg finds itself two games back of both Montreal and Toronto in the East standings and has lost to each of those teams once this year (23-16 to Toronto in Week 1 and 38-24 to Montreal in Week 2). Head coach Doug Berry is in his third season with the Blue and Gold and sports a 19-20-1 record. He finds himself with his toughest challenge to date, trying to turn the Bombers season around and avoid the longest losing streak of his head-coaching career (the Bombers lost four in a row under Berry in 2006, his rookie season). Calgary is in second place in the ultra-competitive West Division, two games back of division-leading Saskatchewan and one game up on both B.C. and Edmonton. Calgary is 2-0 against the East this year after beating Montreal 23-19 and last week’s win over Hamilton. Calgary is 5-5 in its last 10 games against the Bombers in Winnipeg and is currently on a two-game losing streak, losing 27-13 in 2007 and 28-13 in ’06. Turning around their terrible road record of the past few years is very important to the success of the Stamps in 2008 as Calgary plays just four of its first 10 games at home. In another scheduling quirk, the Stamps play five straight games on a Thursday night, with this week’s game being the fifth. Calgary played just two games on a Thursday night last season — on the road in Toronto and Montreal — and lost both. Calgary will play one more Thursday night game in Week 7.
HOW TO FOLLOW THE ACTION
This week’s kickoff is set for 6:00 PM MDT (8:00 EDT) on Thursday, July 24 at Canad Inns Stadium in Winnipeg. The game will be televised on TSN — the exclusive television broadcaster for the CFL. For the first time ever, TSN will broadcast all 72 regular-season games, as well as the playoffs and the Grey Cup. The game can be heard on the radio at AM 770 CHQR77 (am770chqr.com) and it will also be broadcast on the Internet on CFL broadband at www.cfl.ca. and on TSN broadband at www.tsn.caWHO’S SCORING ON OFFENCE
No team in CFL history has had the league’s leading passer, receiver and rusher all in the same season but in 2008, the Stampeders have a chance to accomplish that milestone. Should all three stay healthy, the trio of QB Henry Burris, SB Ken-Yon Rambo and RB Joffrey Reynolds have a shot of ending up as CFL leaders in each of those categories. Burris is currently in second place in the CFL with 1,255 yards passing and is on pace for 5,647 yards, which would be a career best. Burris hit the 300-yard mark against the Tabbies last week (finishing the game with 345 yards and an incredible 78.8% completion percentage) and has passed for over 300 yards in three straight games this year. Burris has a 5-1 record versus Winnipeg since rejoining the Stamps in 2005 and has passed for over 300 yards three times. Rambo caught six passes for 127 yards against Hamilton and increased his season totals to 26 catches for 386 yards and two TDs. Rambo leads the Stamps and sits in second place overall in the CFL while fellow slotback Nik Lewis is in 12th spot after his best game of the year. Lewis hauled in nine passes for 125 yards and two touchdowns, his first multi-touchdown game since 2005 when he also had two TDs versus Winnipeg. Reynolds had the first three-touchdown game of his CFL career to go along with 96 yards rushing last week and now has 373 yards, a 6.3-yard average and five rushing touchdowns to sit atop the CFL in rushing. Reynolds finished third in rushing in 2007 behind Winnipeg’s Charles Roberts and B.C.’s Joe Smith and finished second to Roberts in both 2006 and ’05.
WHO’S HITTING ON DEFENCE
Calgary had one of its best efforts on defence against the Ticats limiting Hamilton to 334 yards of offence and a season-low 16 points. Calgary has now allowed its opponents less than 20 points in three of four games this year. DB Brandon Smith continued his strong play thus far in 2008 with seven tackles and a QB sack. Smith now leads the team in tackles with 18, pass knockdowns with three and is tied for the team lead in sacks with two, numbers that should leave him as one of the early favourites for CFL Rookie of the Year. DE Charleston Hughes (#39) had his best game of the year with six tackles and a sack. The constant pressure applied by the front seven of the Stamps resulted in a season-high three interceptions, Calgary’s highest single-game interception total since Week 3 of 2007 when they had four against the Argos. CB Brandon Browner showed why he is considered one of the best corners in the West with the best statistical game of his Stampeders career as he had a pick, a forced fumble, a fumble recovery and three tackles. LB JoJuan Armour moved to the middle from weak-side against the Als in Week 3. He had two tackles and a pick against the Ticats after a six-tackle effort versus Montreal the week before. Calgary’s defence has made huge strides from its last place finish in 2007 and stability in personnel is a key component of that improvement. The Stamps’ secondary has remained intact throughout four games and all the changes upfront to the front seven have been the result of injury, not poor play. After DE Juwan Simpson and MLB Saleem Rasheed went down in Week 1, Calgary made three changes to the front seven (activating Hughes, moving Armour to the middle and making LB Shannon James a starter in Armour’s old spot) and has fielded the same starting defensive lineup for two straight games.
WHO’S SPECIAL ON THE TEAMS
K Sandro DeAngelis tallied 11 points in the win over Hamilton and is slowly climbing the ladder in terms of scoring in the CFL’s point race. DeAngelis now has 40 points and is only 11 back of CFL leader Noel Prefontaine of Edmonton. DeAngelis kicked two more field goals and raised his season mark to 72.7%, about nine percentage points off his career mark of 82.0%, which is the highest career percentage in CFL history. P Burke Dales was booming his kicks, finishing the night with a 49.8-yard average on five punts but is only sixth in CFL punting with a season average of 45.3 yards. Normally a fine average for a punter, this year an average of 45 yards is well back of the leaders Nick Setta of Hamilton and Damon Duval, both of who are averaging over 50 yards per punt. Calgary’s cover teams did a great job in covering Dales’ punts, keeping Hamilton’s Tre Smith to minus four yards on two returns and forcing a fumble that led to Calgary’s first points of the night.
THE OPPOSITION
As mentioned, Winnipeg has yet to win a game this year and the by-product of the team’s struggles are evident in the stats of all of its big guns on offence. After leading the CFL in passing in 2008 with over 5,000 yards (a feat matched only once before in Blue Bomber history, Khari Jones in 2001), Bomber QB Kevin Glenn (#5) sits fifth in league passing with 976 yards, two touchdowns and a quarterback efficiency rating of only 65.9. Glenn was actually pulled from the game in the loss to B.C. in Week 3 and replaced by Grey Cup starter Ryan Dinwiddie (#4) and Dinwiddie is expected to get the first regular season start of his CFL career. Dinwiddie passed for 225 yards, one TD and threw three interceptions in the Bombers’ Grey Cup loss to the Riders. Perennial rushing champion and the Bombers all-time leading rusher Charles Roberts (#1) is also of to a slow start, as he has only 161 yards rushing and a 4.1-yard average so far. Those stats leave him in eighth place in rushing, a position he is not very accustomed to be in even this early in the season. The Bombers placed three receivers in the top seven in 2007 as Terrence Edwards (#82), Derrick Armstrong (#83) and Milt Stegall (#85) all finished with over 1,000 yards, the first time since 1993 that Winnipeg had three receivers over that mark in the same season. This year, Stegall has yet to play a game due to a knee injury and Edwards and Armstrong sit 11th and seventh respectively. The Bombers leading receiver is rookie Romby Bryant (#81) who is in fourth place in the receiving derby with 17 catches for 309 yards and a major score to his credit. On defence, the Bombers sport one of the best front sevens in the CFL but lost MLB Barrin Simpson (a six-time All-Canadian) to injury in the loss to the Lions last week. Winnipeg’s front four will need to control the running game and get heat on Stamps’ QB Henry Burris. The Big Four are DE Gavin Walls (#98, 2005 CFL Rookie of the Year), DT Doug Brown (#97, 2001 CFL Top Canadian and a four-time All-Canadian), DT Jerome Haywood (#99) and DE Tom Canada (#44, two-time Eastern All-star). Winnipeg’s secondary is led by two former Stamps, DH Kelly Malveaux (#27, spent 2001-’03 with Calgary) and DH Anthony Malbrough (#3, spent 2002, ’03 and ’05 with Calgary) but the corners are young and inexperienced. Willie Amos (#14) played his first CFL game last week and Jovon Johnson (#28) has played in only six games in his CFL career (two with the Riders in 2007).
NUMBER CRUNCHING
Offensively, this week’s game favours the Stamps in a statistical comparison by a wide margin. The two key differences between the teams’ offences are points scored and total offence. Calgary leads the CFL in total offence with 453.5 yards per game — 127.5 yards more a game than the last place Bombers, who average 353 yards per game. Calgary is second in points scored with 124 (31.0 per game) while Winnipeg is last with only 66 points scored or 16.5 points per game. The main difference in offence is in the rushing totals. Winnipeg’s passing average is only 14 yards per game behind Calgary’s (301 to 314) and its completion percentage is a respectable 62.9% but it lags almost 10 points behind Calgary’s, which sits at a whopping 72.5%. The Stampeders average almost a full 100 yards per game rushing better than Winnipeg; 152 yards for Calgary compared to just 55 yards per game for Winnipeg. Defensively, that rushing difference gives Calgary the edge as Winnipeg is seventh in the league in run defence allowing 129.3 yards, while Calgary leads the league allowing a mere 61 yards along the ground per game. Winnipeg is last in pass defence, allowing 11 touchdowns, 371 passing yards per game and an average of 10.5 yards gained per pass. Winnipeg can get after the quarterback, however, and is second in the CFL with 11 sacks and has four interceptions, third overall. Calgary is third in sacks (10) and second in sacks allowed (six). Winnipeg has allowed 11 sacks (second).
THIS WEEK IN THE CFL
Week 5 in the CFL features the third straight week of inter-divisional games and all four games involve teams who have not seen each other yet in the 2008 season. Calgary and Winnipeg kick off the week on Thursday followed by a Friday Night doubleheader that sees Edmonton (2-2) continue its Eastern road swing with a game in Hamilton (1-3). Montreal (2-2) continue its Western trip with a visit to B.C. Place to take on the Lions (2-2). On Saturday, Kerry Joseph returns to Regina for the first time since being traded to the Argos in the off-season as the Boatmen (2-2) look to upend the undefeated Saskatchewan Roughriders (4-0).