Week 10 CFL Excitement Rankings

Websites and other news organizations often compile statistics to determine how good a team is and call them 'Power Rankings'. These rankings are completely meaningless since the only true indicator of how good a team is is by its win-loss record, which is the same way that the league determines it.

These rankings are not totally useless, however, since they've given the 'Eh' Factor an idea into compiling statistics to determine how exciting the team is in played games. While close defensive battles may be a signature of the game of football, we all know that long bombs and high scores put butts in the seats and close games keep you tuned in on the couch.

Call these what you will. 'Excitement Rankings' suffice for us.

There was such little change in the rankings in the Labour Day games, except for the fact that in every statistic I use, the average excitement level dropped. Hamilton won with stringent defense and an inept quarterback on the other side. Calgary was Calgary and Edmonton was Edmonton. Earlier in the weekend, BC won with a road blowout and the only game that offered any sort of drama was the Saskatchewan/Winnipeg game.


We were spoiled with the Montreal/Saskatchewan overtime game to start the year, and we're paying for it now because no two teams in this league are evenly matched at all, except for maybe Hamilton and Toronto. I don't read power rankings, (if you like power rankings, I'd suggest Brad Gagnon's NFL rankings) because the eight teams are indubitably organized as such: Calgary -> Montreal -> Saskatchewan -> Hamilton -> Toronto -> Winnipeg -> BC -> Edmonton.

Thus, the Excitement Rankings show no sense of change at all. The 4 and 5 team this week were flipped:

1: Toronto Argonauts (5-4 3rd East)

You know your league is running into trouble when the lowest average point spread is 9.89 points. That is what Toronto is running at. It is 20 per cent of the entire average offensive output of both teams.

2: Hamilton Tiger-Cats (5-4 2nd East)

Hamilton's three return touchdowns have kept them up top. After we dubbed the season 'the year of the return' its been a couple of weeks since we've seen one. There have been 13 kicks returned for touchdowns this year among all teams, in 36 games.

3: Calgary Stampeders (8-1 1st West)

Next year I'm going to adjust the rankings so that greater weight is given to teams who have a quarterback with laser rocket arms who feel like its necessary to put up all those points on poor Edmonton. Calgary scored 52 points. The over/under was 54. One fumbled snap was all they needed.

4: Montreal Alouettes (6-3 1st East)

The problem isn't so much that Anthony Calvillo will play hurt the rest of the season so much that the Montreal defense gave up 38 against frigging BC. That's the worst defensive performance in Canadian football since Waterloo's Matt Socholotiuk apologized to his teammates.

5: Edmonton Eskimos (2-7 4th West)

Toronto has the lowest point spread in the league at 9.89 points per game. Edmonton's is the highest, at a whopping 16.7. That's an oddity because Edmonton are still actually tied for the lead league in fourth quarter lead changes, after a week where we didn't get a single one.

6: Saskatchewan Roughriders (6-3 2nd West)

At last count, only 200 tickets were left for the Banjo Bowl rematch in Winnipeg this week, so at least somebody has been entertained by Rider football this year. I maintain that it should be illegal to hand the ball off to the running back from the one yard line.

7: BC Lions (2-7 3rd West)

Both of BC's wins have been blowouts on the road. Since they totally ran over Chris Leak, Rodnei Santos and the Montreal Alouettes, gameplanning for Toronto this week should be easy, since they're another team who don't have a legitimate starting quarterback.

8: Winnipeg Blue Bombers (2-7 4th East)

The stretch run should be interesting, as one of the either Edmonton, BC or Winnipeg will get that final playoff spot to get rung up by Saskatchewan. The Bombers and Lions have a BIG home and home in Weeks 14 and 15.

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Welcome back to the 'Eh' Factor. Sorry for the absence. I hear it makes the heart grow fonder. Week 11 preview will go up Friday morning.