Seven reasons that explain why the Calgary Stampeders will defeat the Montreal Alouettes in Sunday’s Grey Cup game at Olympic Stadium:
Defence wins championships
And the Stamps’ defensive unit, sparked by linebacker JoJuan Armour and lineman Mike Labinjo, was the stingiest in the CFL this season. The B.C. Lions couldn’t even notch a touchdown against Calgary in last week’s Western final, and that’s extraordinarily unusual in the high-scoring CFL.
Calgary’s defence subscribes to a bend-but-don’t-break mentality, drummed into the unit by defensive co-ordinator Chris Jones, who spent the past seven years as a Montreal assistant coach. Jones is entirely familiar with the tendencies of Als quarterback Anthony Calvillo.
A clutch kick could do the trick
The Stamps’ Sandro DeAngelis led the CFL in scoring this season. He also established himself as the league’s most dependable kicker. And clutch field goals historically have been key – and often dramatic – components of Grey Cup victories.
Als kicker Damon Duval is no slouch and his relationship with club president Larry Smith (Duval married Smith’s daughter) isn’t the only reason he is on the Montreal roster. But Duval became inconsistent this season and squandered several chip-shot opportunities.
Home-field disadvantage
This will surprise you, I suspect, but playing in Montreal won’t hurt the Stamps a lick.
Since 1958, when the CFL was officially formed, teams competing in the Grey Cup in their home city have a losing record – 3-5. Besides, Olympic Stadium isn’t really the Als’ home. They play their regular-season games at the McGill University field.
As for the fan noise and the so-called 13th man in the stands supporting the Als, the Stamps have prepared themselves by pumping taped, near-deafening sounds into the public-address system during practices at Olympic Stadium this week. And they need only to score quickly to take the crowd out of the game. Which leads me to my next reason. . .
The Stamps sure can score
No CFL team is more explosive. Joffrey Reynolds was the CFL’s leading rusher; Ken-Yon Rambo, its leading receiver.
Calvillo’s crashes
The Montreal QB doesn’t exactly have a great Grey Cup record. This will be his sixth championship game in a nine-year span. He has won only once before.
Trestman untested
Montreal’s Marc Trestman exceeded expectations in his first CFL year, no question, but Calgary’s John Hufnagel has oodles of CFL experience as a player and assistant coach and knows exactly what Grey Cup week entails. That’s a significant advantage.
Moi
Heck, I picked the Stamps in print to capture the Cup before training camp started this season. I’m not changing my mind now.
The final pick
Each week during the CFL season, I made my picks in this space against the spread and I am 42-33 going into the Grey Cup.
As you already know, I’m choosing the Stamps on Sunday. This game is a pick ‘em, and there haven’t been too many games judged by oddsmakers as even this season.
If you’re looking for a prediction on the score, I doubt it will be as outrageously high-scoring as many suspect. I’m thinking Calgary 28, Montreal 25.
The week that was
• If you missed my Tuesday York Report in Metro, read this:
The Alouettes lost only two of their 10 home games this season – one of those was a meaningless match – and yet they are not favoured for Sunday’s Grey Cup game in Montreal.
No, the oddsmakers decided yesterday to make the game between the Als and the visiting Calgary Stampeders a pick, meaning bettors will have to lay $1.10 either way to win a dollar.
“If the game were being played at a neutral site, Calgary definitely would be favoured,” Canadian handicapper Randall (The Handle) Steinberg, who is primarily responsible for establishing point spreads on CFL games, told me yesterday. “The Stampeders come out of a much tougher division in the West and they didn’t get to play the weaker Eastern teams as much as Montreal did. So, in reality, Calgary is the better team. But home-field advantage matters, and Montreal has that, so the game has to be a pick.”
Actually, the Stamps were one of the only two teams to defeat the Als in Montreal this season -- a 23-19 triumph back on July 19. The Als’ only other loss in Montreal was on Oct. 26, when the Winnipeg Blue Bombers defeated them 24-23. That game was meaningless, however, because the Als already had locked up first place in the East.
The Stamps also downed the Als 41-30 in Calgary in September.
“We know we can beat Montreal,” Stampeders receiver Nik Lewis said. “But we have to be all business. Montreal is a party town but we can’t let ourselves get caught up in all the atmosphere.”
The Stamps also will need to play better than they did last Sunday, when they edged the B.C. Lions 22-18 in the Western final. Other than linebacker Mike Labinjo, a Torontonian who recorded eight tackles and three sacks, no Calgary player was spectacular. In fact, the Stamps couldn’t even end the game properly. They tried to run out the clock – a pretty routine task in this era of quarterbacks kneeling – but they failed and actually left the Lions with a second on the clock and a shot at winning with a Hail Mary pass.
The Als, on the other hand, turned in a first-rate performance in their Eastern final victory over the Edmonton Eskimos. They weren’t even penalized once all game.
• And, if you missed my Wednesday York Report, read this:
Determined to win Sunday’s Grey Cup game, naturally, are all the dudes who’ll be participating in it, but I’m inclined to suggest there’s a certain member of the Calgary Stampeders who is even hungrier and more obsessed about emerging victorious.
This would be Chris Jones, the Stamps’ defensive co-ordinator.
Jones, you see, was bitter and irate that the Montreal Alouettes refused to hire him as their head coach before this season. He was livid that they rejected his application and instead selected Marc Trestman, an NFL coaching castoff who had virtually no CFL experience.
Jones had spent seven seasons as a Montreal assistant coach – five as the Als’ defensive co-ordinator – and, understandably, he felt he deserved a shot.
Not that he ever went public with his fury. The University of Tennessee graduate is sharp enough to know how the political game is played in the CFL, and he realizes public criticisms usually get aspiring head coaches nowhere in the little league.
So he bit his tongue, and likely will continue to do so in Montreal this week while the Stamps and Als prepare to meet for CFL supremacy.
Jones certainly has let his friends know his feelings, however, and several tell us his anti-Montreal sentiments haven’t exactly dissipated.
“Chris wants revenge Sunday, no question about that,” a source close to Jones told me. “You won’t be off-base if you said he’s still bitter and wants to shove it down (the Als’) damn throats.”
Could happen, too.
Quietly under Jones, the Stamps’ defence progressed from one of the CFL’s worst units last season to the very best. No CFL team yielded fewer points and fewer touchdowns this season than Calgary.
“Chris is a great football coach and he deserves more credit than he seems to get,” said B.C. head coach Wally Buono, whose Lions were held to no TDs (six field goals) by the Stamps’ defence in last Sunday’s Western final. “You could score a lot on Calgary in the past, but not this year.”
Jones’ first-hand knowledge of the Als’ offence gives the Stamps a notable edge. As he said in July, before Calgary upset Montreal in the Als’ only meaningful loss at home this season, “I know the things (Montreal quarterback) Anthony Calvillo doesn’t feel comfortable seeing and we’ll certainly try to exploit some of those if we can.”
The Als lost that game 23-19, and I’m sensing a similar outcome this Sunday.
• From Stampeders linebacker JoJuan Armour:
"I love the fact that we're playing Montreal in Montreal in front of their fans, at their place. That's the same thing that we've faced all year. Every time that we're faced with adversity, we step up. We don't plan on things changing."
Coach's corner
• John Hufnagel may be a rookie head coach with the Stamps, but he has a Grey Cup ring from 1992 when he was the offensive co-ordinator for Calgary.
That was when the Stamps’ quarterback was Doug Flutie. They defeated the Winnipeg Blue Bombers.
Montreal head coach Marc Trestman is also a head coaching freshman. He has no previous CFL experience but was offensive co-ordinator with the Oakland Raiders when they lost the Super Bowl game at the end of the 2002 NFL season.
• Hufnagel on Calgary quarterback Henry Burris:
"What I like about Henry is that he never allows a bad play to affect the rest of his game. He moves on, he reloads and makes plays.
"That's what I saw in Henry early on: his athleticism, his courage and his drive to do what needs to be done to win. A quarterback with that type of abilities, to be able to utilize all of them and make plays that are exceptional -- they might look easy, but they're exceptional plays -- not a whole lot of players fit that bill."
• Montreal defensive lineman Anwar Stewart on Trestman (and note the shot Stewart takes at former Als head coach Don Matthews:
"He (Trestman) is smart and intelligent. He's a genuine person. When he came, he got to know us as individuals. When there were issues, he came to us. That set him apart. If you think about Don Matthews, it was all about him. He made his own decisions. When you have a coach that comes to you, it gives you incentive and belief. We all bought into what he's doing."
• Calgary general manager Jim Barker on Hufnagel:
"He brings accountability and an all-business attitude. He's raised his voice maybe once all year on the field, but there's an understanding of what everyone's jobs are and he expects those jobs to be done. He does discipline better than any coach I've ever been around. I don't want to call it player-friendly, but because he was a player, it's done with a player’s' viewpoint in mind."
The feeling is mutual
• As I mentioned earlier, Calgary defensive co-ordinator Chris Jones wants revenge against the Als, but there’s a Montreal player with similar feelings toward the Stamps.
Lineman Keron Williams felt slighted by his sudden release by the Stamps only days before he was leaving his home in Florida for training camp in Calgary.
"I felt they didn't see what I could do," Williams said of Hufnagel and his assistant coaches.
"They were going off stats, size and my appearance. I didn't let that get the best of me because that would get me off my game."
Sandro the entertainer
• Sandro DeAngelis is the CFL’s leading scorer but he also may be its leading talker.
He loves talking.
"I tell a lot of crazy jokes and tell a lot of crazy stories," the Stamps’ kicker said. "Think about it. Through 18 weeks, there's a lot of free time at practice and a lot of free time on the road for the kickers. So we've got to come up with ways to entertain ourselves."
The Calgary kickers kill time by playing a game called '”What if?'”
"We come up with all kinds of crazy scenarios," DeAngelis said. "Like, if I gave you $100,000 to run butt naked through Chinook Mall, would you do it? Crazy stuff like that. And it gets worse than that. Really."
Changing of the guard
• Next week, once the Grey Cup is history, the Blue Bombers will announce that Edmonton assistant coach Mike Kelly is their new head coach.
Kelly, a former assistant coach in Winnipeg, will replace Doug Berry, who was fired recently.
And, in Toronto, the story on head-coaching is still this:
If club president Michael (Pinball) Clemons wishes to return as the Argonauts’ head coach, the job is his. If not, B.C. defensive co-ordinator Mike Benevides would be the top candidate.
Marty York is Metro's national sports columnist as well as an
instructor at the College of Sports Media in Toronto. He can be heard
regularly on Vancouver radio station CKNW with Sportstalk host Dan
Russell. Contact Marty at marty.york@metronews.ca
