Alright lads and lasses, do we improve literally at all this year?
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Someone else can start off I figure.
For now, âOh let me count the ways.â
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Well looks like Kicker Vincent Blanchard is back through 2027, which is good to see. If he can work on his accuracy issues, he will be one of the top guys with the goalposts at the back of the endzone. Dude has a huge leg.
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With the exception of BC, every teams stadium has itâs own wind and wind shape. If you notice in Edmonton, almost without exception punters go for the east side (visitor bench) side of the field.
I think if he gets his âdrawâ on his kicks more controlled that will help too.
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As a professional kicker of any kind, indeed itâs your job to read the winds and those high seas.
You must also hone your pirate skills, and donât anybody give any damn lip about that here and now on the new forum, for you canât blame the wind for your kick either without being a no-good galoot and a bojack too, because youâre a pro.
On the high seas we have a song for this, for indeed itâs important to read those high seas / winds in the kicking game, for itâs simply part of the game whether you like it or not.
Youâll take your windy medicine as a pro kicker, punter, holder, long snapper, or kick returner, and youâll like it too.
/strums guitar
Every âŚgale has its storm
just like every night, has its dawnâŚ
just like every pirate, sings the same drunk songâŚ
every gale has its stormâŚ
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Hey wait a minute! I gave a speech yesterday too! It was about uniforms and presentation and image. Iâm no expert, but somebody had to start things off.
Anyway, good luck with your speech competition.
Give âem hell like Frank Slade or Frank âThe Tankâ too, as inâŚ
Moderator: âIllinois Welles, sir, do you know that the competition has not yet started?â
Illinois Welles: âHuzzah! I know! Iâm only getting WARMED UP!â
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I think Rugamba was really good for one of his years with the Lions. Ed Hervey brought him here and then didnât play well and was released quickly. Thatâs cool you spotted this.
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Yes the Elk will improve.
The problem is Cowtown, the Lions, The Ridersand most likely the Bombers will too.
Year two of a new coach rebuild in Edmonton. What can you honestly expect. Tough hill to climb when there are already 4 teams on the same path to the top of the hill and T least three of them arguably more than a few steps in front of you.
Riders always seem to run the risk of falling far from the benchmark they held when they won a Great Cup going into the next year. So there is thatâŚ. And who knows how the Bombers will trend. Calgary and BC though will be tough nuts to crack
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Yes it is his job. Still, Iâm for giving a guy a break.
We lost more games with dropped passes than missed field goals.
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We are going to be better this year. IMO Calgary played a bit over their heads and I think Winnipeg could take a step or 2 back, that could open the door for the Elks
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I agree. We should be improved this year. I think we need to focus on beating the Stampeders and the Blue Bombers. The Stampeders especially got off to an excellent start, but then started to fade. I think they had that good start mainly because of Vernon Adams Jr. He came into Calgary in the off season with such a positive attitude and seemed to be connecting and training with many of the receivers well before training camp. I think when the Stampeders lost Orimolade that really finished their season. If Ed Hervey does some work on the OLine and also sees the need to bring in a proven veteran receiver that would be a good start. We will be in tough in the West with the Roughriders and the Lions. Calgary and Winnipeg taking a step back as you said could open a door for us.
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Elks scoring stats in 2025, in brief: (all post-week 4, since the first month of the season in the CFL is a poor sample size)
Points Scored per Game
Best: 24.25 points per game, Week 19 (technically it was 26 points per game in Week 5 but this was an extreme outlier)
Worst: 22.55 points per game, Week 13
Points Allowed per Game
Best: 27.06 points per game, Week 19
Worst: 34.5 points per game, Week 5
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Lets take that further. The older Zach has gotten the more of a band aid he has been, getting injured multiple times a season. Mostly due to his O-line getting older and slower, which also negates their run game and severely limits their backup QB.
In Calgary, VA always has a smoking start to the season but a lack of depth on the O-Line and D-line meant he was beat up and teams with good run games were all over them the last half of the season.
Vancouver, the hard running style of Butler meant he was least effective when they needed him most. It didnât affect them at home as much as on the road at the end of the season. Defensive secondary was a mess they could overcome with a strong passing game - at home. They could be playing the playoffs at home this season.
Saskatchewan, good team. Built around the strengths of several key players. Run game is stoppable. They looked great in the GC but Montreal was in the bottom half of the run stop stats all season. Teams that could stuff the run game and negate the onslaught of their defence to get to their secondary were successful all season.
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Not only I see Vernon Adams as also far more vulnerable when he does not have good weather.
Adams is a great fair-weather quarterback. By all means, we should take greater advantage of that reality in the bad weather, shoring up our own game of course, but also definitely study him in his good weather play for what I think is limited game for only great playing conditions. Of course without discipline playing against Adams, most teams will lose, for he is just that solid, especially when allowed to make plays outside the pocket.
If I were around the defensive coordinator against such a quarterback, itâs very basic to design your defence to do more not only to try to keep such a quarterback in the pocket, but by all means do not let him roll to his strong side, in this case his right, where he makes great plays regularly.
Of course with his guile and agility as well, thatâs easier said than done, but we can put up the speed and discipline on the defence to do it to contain Adams.
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Team Room Reminder to Lurkers and Those Who Are Not Primary Fans of the Elks or Edmonton in General
As this is a new forum and a timely reminder to any critics who are not fans of the Elks,
and as we have had one drive-by lurker and stranger with a rusty old axe to grind stop by already, and well, heâs been eliminated from the room:
This is a team room, and all the prior rules apply, included protected homerism of the Elks when the occasional case.
All the same, constructive criticism or questions of play can be welcome, especially when backed by evidence or stats that are otherwise not obviously cherry-picked to homer your own team or merely to bash the Elks or Edmonton.
But a regular pattern of bashing the Elks for whatever reason, nope, find your own team room or debate in a general thread.
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That didnât take very long unfortunately.
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I feel a bit bad about the Elks schedule this year. It seems the schedule makers are stacking it against them.
They have the leagueâs longest stretch between byes (11 weeks) and then weeks 16-20 looks like this (@CAL, @TOR, HAM, bye, @HAM).
That is a grueling amount of travel to end the season.
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I always liked what your HC Mike OâShea said about the schedule, that itâs always perfect and that thereâs no bad schedule! From a fan perspective, I donât mind that there is just 1 home game on a Thursday night. Although being retired I guess it doesnât matter any longer as we are generally happy to go to the games whenever they are scheduled. I think itâs nice for families that a good number of games are on a Saturday. For the players it looks like more short weeks though and as you mentioned heavy travel to end the season. Not ideal. Hopefully our Elks come out strong this next season and are not so dependent on what other teams do towards the end. They need to be in charge of their own destiny.
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Every season one or two teams in the cfl do get what is considered a tough schedule. It is just part of the league, any league. One of those things that canât be helped unless you extend the season by 4 more weeks. Then weather becomes an even bigger issue.
Regardless, the Elk will improve. I donât think they were too far away this season to have been four or five more wins than they ended up with. That would have been a game changer for how the West shook out.
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