CFL Previews, Week 17, Part 1

Hamilton at Toronto,
The last line I have seen is Hamilton favoured by 3.5 points. Which sort of makes sense, although when you look at losing streaks, Toronto has lost five in a row, with Hamilton not much better at four. Hamilton has also only won one game on the road against BC early in the season. Fortunately Toronto's home record is about as good as Dalton McGuinty governs, which after yesterday's $24.7 billion deficit is obviously not very good. But I digress. Kevin Glenn obviously starts this week after his monster passing effort last week that he ended up losing to Montreal's little used backup quarterback. As I have mentioned in a previous post, Glenn also was the quarterback in Toronto in September, which he also managed to lose. Fortunately for the Cats, the already mediocre Toronto offensive line has Keeping and Ramsay out so it will probably suck as much as any line has this season in the CFL. If Bart "Count Floyd" Andrus was smart, he would have starter Kerry Joseph roll out on every single play or hand off to Jamal Robertson. Andrus hasn't seem to adjust very well this year, so I'm sure we will see the pocket collapsing and Jospeh dragging himself off the turf, which should be enough for the Cats to win. The Cats are missing Rodriguez again, but that's hardly news at this point. Safety Sandy Beveridge is also out with a thigh ailment, but backup Dylan Barker isn't much of a dropoff and is faster. If the Cats find a way to lose this one, this season has been a failure. Plus we would lose out on the Ballard Trophy, which would be embarassing.

Edmonton at Calgary,
An important game for both teams, as Calgary is still going for first place in the West and Edmonton is trying to win a crossover. The line currently is six points in favour of Calgary. Calgary is missing non-import Labinjo this week, whereas Edmonton might be missing non-import running back McCarty. Edmonton is 3 and 4 away while Calgary is 5 and 2 at home plus a tie. Burris looked like he had returned to form last week after a few mediocre weeks, whereas Ricky Ray managed to beat the Argos. This game looks like it could be one of those weird surprise games, but you can't not pick Calgary, which is good for both Hamilton and Winnipeg in terms of the crossover.