SportsFullCircle

The B.C Lions, Edmonton Eskimos, Calgary Stampeders and Sasketchewan Roughriders make up the CFL’s Western Division. At the same time, they all are tied for 1st in the Western division with each team either boasting 9-5 or 9-6 records, 18 points apiece. This tie will be broken as the Roughriders do play the Stampeders this weekend so it makes sense one team will win and one team will lose. The fact that one team in the West will have ten wins and the other three have nine is completely remarkable. The dominance of the West division in the CFL this year continues the trend of the West division becoming the stronger division CFL which has been held by the Eastern division for the past few years.

All four Western teams are all over .500 and have a combined record of 36-22. The four Eastern teams only have one team over .500 (Montreal) and have a combined record of 22-36 having the two conferences contradict each other.

The consistency of a team’s QB is also a reason to why the CFL Western division is so dominant. Besides B.C that finally saw that Buck Pierce not Jarious Jackson should be their number one QB, and Saskatchewan having injuries to their QBs but now are under the helm of Michael Bishop, these four teams now have four of the most consistent QBs in the league. Ricky Ray, Buck Pierce, Henry Burris and Michael Bishop have all played a role to making their teams go over the top.

The East division, QB inconsistency is the game there, and when your QB is inconsistent in the CFL, do not plan on winning. Only one QB has stayed consistent all season and that is Montreal’s Anthony Cavillo. The Blue Bombers started with Kevin Glenn, last year’s East Most Outstanding Player winner, he struggled, Ryan Dinwiddie came in, he struggled, Glenn is now back in and it appears that the Blue Bombers are starting to right their ship as Glenn is coming back to form. The Argo’s have last year’s Western Most Outstanding Player in Kerry Joseph, he struggles. MIchael Bishop gets traded to Saskatchewan afterwards. Then Cody Pickett of all people starts and struggles as well so its now back to Joseph, who’s still struggling. The Hamilton Tiger-cats have been much of the same with Toronto, Casey Printers plays inconsistent and has injuries, Richie Williams played good at the start of the season but is struggling now. Now the go to guy is Quinton Porter, you know…he was like Matt Ryan’s backup in college, he has a bad week against B.C but then goes against Montreal and throws five TD passes. Hopefully this third week the real Quinton Porter will stand up and since I am a Ticats fan, I hope it’s the guy who played Montreal.

The CFL West Division is so tight but if I were to predict the rest of this season, the standings would end up as Calgary, B.C, Edmonton and Saskatchewan. Of course, even though each division only has three teams making the playoffs, all four teams are a lock to make the playoffs as the 4th place team can take the 3rd place spot in the East if they have a better record than the 3rd place Eastern team according to the CFL’s crossover rule. Right now, the 9-6 teams in the West look a lot better than the 4-11 Argos so barring some breakdown or miracle on the Argo’s behalf, the Western division looks ready to complete its dominance of the CFL season with a Grey Cup victory in November.