Mid Pre-Season CFL 2014 Power Rankings

Power rankings during in the middle of the pre-season is bound to be arbitrary. But it is necessary.

1. Calgary
Mostly on the strength of John Hufnagel, Jon Cornish and Bo Levi Mitchell and definitely not the whiny and injury prone Drew Tate. Calgary I can say will field a decent team this year. That's enough to be number one at this point.

2. Hamilton
Can Hamilton win with Zac Collaros as quarterback. That I'm not completely sure about, but with LeFevour and Masoli as backups if Collaros falters someone will emerge. C.J. Gable has the capabilities to have a breakout season and the Cats have a strong receiving corps. Plus surprisingly strong Canadians on defence. In the land of the eunuchs, the man with one ball is king.

3. BC
I'm not sure if Travis Lulay has begun his descent into an injury prone quarterback like Drew Tate, but I'm not not sure either. If he's in he's good, otherwise they have Kevin Glenn and the chip on his shoulder to come in and play successfully if Lulay is injured. And then not play after Lulay becomes healthy again no matter how well Glenn had played during the interim.

4. Saskatchewan
They won the Grey Cup last year, but they lost a lot of talent, like Butler, Dressler, and Kory Sheets. They still have Darian Durant so they shouldn't be total excrement this year, but expect a lot of bitching in Saskatchewan.

5. Toronto
Rick Ray is still an effective if somewhat aged quarterback and I'm going to assume the Argos defence will be good, because they always seem to be of late. That's enough for the fifth ranking out of nine teams.

6. Montreal
Since the last pre-season rankings, the Alouettes fired their offensive co-ordinator possibly because he had a beer during a meeting. I guess head coach Tom "Ned Flanders" Higgins runs a pretty tight ship. I'm not particularly impressed by the Alouette quarterbacks and won't be until they show me something. Chad Johnson strikes me as a distraction, although I'll admit by CFL player standards his Twitter feed is amusing.

7. Edmonton
Maybe Mike Reilly will have better protection this year and won't get killed. I don't know if that last statement is true and I kind of doubt it is. They lost Ted Laurent to Ticats just before the start of camp. Considering the mediocre play of the Eskimos last year, that can't help.

8. Winnipeg
At least former geezer GM Joe Mack isn't around to fuck things up anymore for the Bombers. However he left his mess behind and the Bombers are now in the West. Much bitching from Bomber fans and Doug Brown's newspaper column will ensue.

9. Ottawa
Last place prediction for an expansion team seems safe.