At least the Bills didn't lose as badly as the Acadia Axemen did. After the Michigan game was out of hand on Saturday afternoon, I noticed that the Uteck Bowl was on and, since my alma mater was playing in the game, I decided to check it out. The score when I flipped to it, which I thought was a typo at first, read Western 74, Acadia 3. The Mustangs went on to score another touchdown - just to be sure I guess - making the final score in Wolfville, N.S. 81-3. Western will face the Laval Rouge et Or, winners of the Mitchell Bowl, in the Vanier Cup in Hamilton on Saturday.
As bad as Acadia's run defence was on Saturday (and it was pretty bad), Nathan Peterman's first half of football as an NFL starting quarterback was arguably worse. I think what we saw was the extreme swinging of the pendulum from the conservative play of Tyrod Taylor through his first two and a half seasons as Bills quarterback to a young player who thought he would try tossing the ball all over the yard in order to distinguish himself from his predecessor. Well, he threw it all over the yard alright and proved that if you throw 5 interceptions in the first half, your team will be down by 30 points by the time the coach benches you in favour of the guy they benched to give you a shot. Ball protection has been Tyrod Taylor's signature trait in his career in Buffalo and it is one which I value this morning more then ever. He settles for too many check-downs; he's afraid to throw the ball down the field; he relies on his legs too much, he needs to open up the passing game and take some chances......these have been the Tyrod Taylor naysayers criticisms. I, for one, love his instinct for ball protection and, yes I wish he could generate some bigger plays in the passing game but his ability to avoid the disastrous play has served him and his team well - even if the fans and the coaching staff haven't fully appreciated it.
I have no idea what Sean McDermott is going to do next week going into Kansas City. He stuck his neck out by making the quarterback switch last week and it backfired spectacularly. Will he double down and give Peterman another shot or does he chalk it up to a failed experiment and stick with Taylor? He certainly has the confidence of ownership so his view on the question will be at least be medium term if not long term. My guess is that Peterman starts again on Sunday at Arrrowhead. It just seems like Taylor now has no shot at being under centre in Buffalo in 2018 with a strong quarterback class in next spring's draft and the Bills improving their draft position with each passing week. So, if they still want to see what they have in Peterman - recognizing that one really bad half can not define a player - then giving him another shot is the logical decision. When they were at 5-2, the goal was to make the playoffs for the first time in 17 years. Now, even though they are theoretically very much in the hunt for a wildcard spot, it feels like the season is slipping away with 3 lop-sided losses since beating the Raiders. It should be said that the real elephant in the Bills locker room is the defence which appears to be entirely unable to stop the run. Maybe Marcel Dareus would have helped over these past 3 weeks.
Back to Canadian football which now moves into its final week. Thanks to the best traveling fans in the CFL, the Toronto Argonauts drew just under 25,000 at BMO Field for the Eastern Final where the visiting Green Rider fans left disappointed after their team came all the way back only to lose at the end. So, the Grey Cup in Ottawa will be the Argos against the Calgary Stampeders - the same match-up as the very first Grey Cup game I can remember in 1971 where the Joe Theisman led Argos fell short of winning the game on a late fumble near the Stampeder goal line by Leon "X-Ray" McQuay at a rainy Empire Stadium in Vancouver.
I'm siting inside the cottage as I write this. It sure looks like winter in the early morning twilight with the temperature at minus 7 and light snow falling on the 10cm we already have from the night before. The woodstove is pumping out the heat, a pot of tea made and the porridge is on. We will hike around the lake and sauna before we leave today. Who cares about football anyway?
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