Its Raining, its poor-ing, the Argos are snoring

Monday August 27th- The Argos took the field against the Eskimos early in the evening, Rogers center was the setting. Both teams were 4-3 and respectively second in their division. Cory Boyd was ready to make his return to the Argo turf, but in different colours and the dome was closed due to poor weather. needless to say this was going to be a hard-nosed game.

With all this said and as i try to bring emotion to this Monday night match-up the truth of the matter is that the Argos resembled the Toronto weather last night, scary. The Argos offense was dismal to say the least, the only major highlights were when Ray found Inman two times down the field for huge gains, (49 yards plus) where one resulted in a touchdown. Other than these two glimmers of hope Ray was majority of the time getting sacked or throwing interceptions (9 int for Ray this year so far). The offensive line was horrible allowing breaks from the middle and both right and left sides multiple times throughout the game. When Ray scrambles he gets nervous and thus throws interceptions. The Time of possession for the Argos was bad, 108 yards plus, whereas the Eskimos controlled the ball for about 201 yards plus. The major factor to why the offense was not on last night though was because of the O-Line, if more holes were blocked then Ray had more time and patience to find receivers like Inman running down the field all night.

On the other side of the ball it wasn’t much better, but it was better. Proving once again that the defense for this Argo squad is the true backbone. Great plays made by import players Ahmad Carroll and Pacino Horne, to receive their first interceptions in the CFL, which highlighted the defensive effort especially on the more important plays of the game. The defence’s rushing squad also did an alright job, keeping any big rushing play from happening all game, capped off by a Ronald Flemons tackle for a 5 yard loss. Even though there was a lot of good to take away from the defensive side there were also a lot of bad. Two costly penalties by Ahmad Carroll ate up a lot of yards (one that went for 49 yards deep in Argos zone). Penalties were easy to come by as Kerry Joseph was repeatedly hooking up with Fred Stamps for large gains along with short side throws for consecutive first downs led to Argo frustration. Late in the ball game where the Argos were in desperate need of the ball the Eskimos had a field day, marching their team down with 10 progressive plays. This led to more penalty problems on the Argos. As for Cory Boyd’s big return…well he was alright gaining short yards that equalled for a solid game altogether, there was no bad blood however as both sides were showing love for the fallen Argo.

Sure there were things that the Argos did right that can be used for other games, but there always is. This time the bad overcame the good and it was easily shown as the Argos forfeited their fourth loss this year. The team needs more work to ensure that next game they will click and become the team that we all know is capable of not only winning but blowing teams out!