Friday, July 18, 2014

Hamilton at Calgary Depth Chart Analysis

The Cats try to get off the schneid. Against Calgary. On the road. Ugh.

On to the offensive line. Alford and Lewis are the import tackles. And bizarrely import Simmons is a guard too. Three Americans on the line. I remember back when Marcus Kavka, an American played guard. As I recall that was a bad loss. Rice is the Canadian guard and O'Neill is the centre. The Cats are really missing Dyakowski. Non-import Wojt is on the one game injury list, as is import offensive linemen Dile and Figueroa.

The two wide receivers are the import Ellingson and Giguere. The three starting slots in five receiver sets are Grant and Tasker, both imports and the returning from injury Fantuz. Koch is on the one game injury list. Gable starts are running back with the non-import Prime as fullback when the Cats actually use one. With Prime not in, that's four starting Canadians out of seven required on offense, which isn't normal in the CFL. Masoli starts at quarterback, with LeFevour and McGee (who?) backing up.

On defence, Norwood and Boudreaux are the starting defensive ends. In the middle are the non-imports Bulcke and Laurent. Starting two Canadians in the middle is also a little weird, but not as weird as three Americans on the offensive line.

The linebackers are all imports this week, with Lawrence, Reed and Harris.

Corners are Breaux and non-import Stephen continuing the Cats experiments with non-import corners. Half-backs are Stewart and Davis. Non-import and former Rider Butler starts at safety. So that's four Canadian starters on defence, which is a little weird too. That's eight total starting Canadians, one more than required. I guess the Cats could have started four Americans on the offensive line.

For comparison purposes, Calgary starts four Canadians on the offensive line, no Canadian receivers and a Canadian fullback. Also non-import Walter starts at running back in place of Jon Cornish, which strikes me as a little odd, but Calgary is undefeated so what do I know. On defence they only start one Canadian, Corey Mace at defensive tackle.

At least the Cats don't have Cornish to deal with this week. However they have a cobbled together offensive line and Masoli starting. Unsurprisingly Calgary is nine point favourites.

Apparently the game is on ESPN2 tonight. Hopefully the Cats don't honk it up too much. Also in case you hadn't heard, the Cats have lost nine in a row in Cowtown.

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