RICKY WILLIAMS IS AN INSPIRATION .... TO CHARLES ROBERTS, THAT IS

Hey, Ricky Williams is accomplishing one thing in his CFL tenure.

He's bringing out the best in Charles Roberts, who has ratcheted up the vengeance scale in his Winnipeg Blue Bombers' two wins over Toronto, including yesterday's 24-17 win in T.O. where Ricky averaged precisely 24 inches per carry. (For you Americans who will snickeringly ask for the metric conversion, that's about 61 centimetres.)

So who is Charles Roberts and why is has he been so inspired in the Winnipeg Blue Bombers' two wins over the Toronto Argonauts, outgaining Williams 238-20 in those contests? This angle won't get explored by the Toronto and/or national media, two entities are practically synonymous, but Winnipeg's two wins have been about Roberts channeling his Little Big Man's resentment into two inspiring performances, while his teammates simply outblocked, outtackled and outsmarted Toronto.

Granted, that's not as sexy as the "Williams flops" angle that will be heavily played after he gained a pitiful six yards on nine carries yesterday at Rogers Centre, but that's what it is.

Not to get carried away, but yesterday and two weeks ago last Friday you could almost see the resentment of generations of CFL stars -- and diehards fans too -- coursing through C.R., as he likes to be called. What the hell? Dude gets suspended in the NFL, so he comes up here and everyone drools about him? I've been here for years. Let's see him prove it on the field.

For the uninitiated -- and that includes CFL fans, many of whom would not, if asked, immediately name Roberts as the league's best runner -- C.R. is a Warrick Dunn-style scatback who's only 5-foot-6 and 175 pounds. Everywhere he's been, there have been bigger, stronger more north-south runners, not unlike Ricky Williams, that he's had to prove himself against. Even in Canadian ball, a tailback Roberts' size has to prove he can play; if you have Williams' size and 40-yard dash time, it's assumed you can.

You can only imagine what C.R. thought this off-season when, after a season when he won the rushing title on a sub-.500 team, the Bombers signed suspended NFL back Onterrio Smith -- another big back who runs north-south. Roberts easily beat out Smith, who was cut and perhaps still stinging from that perceived slight, has simply been an Argo-killer when he's matched up against the more famous NFL exile. No doubt his defensive teammates have rallied around their star ballcarrier and turned their matchups against Williams into a bit of a grudge match.

The CFL is built on the backs of Canadian guys who couldn't play hockey or do stand-up comedy and Americans who didn't fit the NFL mould (Doug Flutie, anyone?), although, the overhyped league to the south is becoming more accomodating to players with diverse talents. Thanks largely to Roberts and an overhauled Winnipeg defence that has been better than advertised, Williams and the Argos got some comeuppance.

As an Argos fan, the losing is hard to take, even for yours truly, who is on record saying Ricky will not win the rushing title. (To be honest, though, Roberts wasn't the hand-down pick to lead the league; Calgary's Joffrey Reynolds, who's about the same size as Williams and even played his college football in Texas, seemed to have just as good a shot.)

At least now there's an answer to a question posed here about seven weeks ago, when the Williams talk become serious: "How much of a grace period does he get with the media?"

Turns out it was four games. The nuances of said comeuppance, though, will probably be dumbed-down in Toronto, which already has its ready-made storyline: Williams rushes for next to nothing, the Argos lose again; ergo, it's type to start finding 10-dollar synonyms for debacle and disaster.

Any declaration that a 1-3 start, with each loss by a touchdown or less, with your starting quarterback (Damon Allen) hurt and a newcomer (Spergon Wynn) filling in, in a league where 6 of 8 teams make the post-season is a disaster doesn't really pass the sniff test.

This is the CFL. You can't make any conclusions about a team based on three or four games; for pity's sake, the Ottawa Renegades even had a 3-0 start a few years back. You can't make any conclusions about a team until after Labour Day.

It's not about Ricky Williams. Toronto's offensive problems begin with a line that's been a collander, and continues with Wynn. His stat line yesterday -- 27-of-38, 330 yards, 2 TDs and no picks -- was misleading; take away a 75-yard TD catch by R. Jay Soward and the multiple occasions when Wynn completed a short dump-off after a sack or penalty put Toronto in second-and-forever, and those numbers are a more accurate reflection of how he's played.

Once Allen comes back and Toronto reworks its offensive line, all should be fine. As for Winnipeg, it will be interesting to see how long its rebuilt defence holds up once the entire league gets to study it on film. It may turn out that it has a "Best Before Labour Day" expiration date.

Lastly, there is an argument that the Argos brought bad karma on themselves by bringing in Ricky Williams and pretending the motivations were anything but purely about winning football games. That, along with the Roberts angle, is worth fleshing out.

Previous:
Ricky's Run For The Border (May 18)
The Ballad of Ricky & Barry (May 29)
Onterri, Erri, Erri-O Can't Hack It In The CFL (June 10)

That's all for now. Send your thoughts to neatesager@yahoo.ca.