We are officially 12 games in and have a decent amount of data to work with! Let's discuss Statistics, Power Rankings, Offensive Output Reports, and more in this week's breakdown;
Kickers
Kickers have bounced back this week after only making 80% of their kicks in Week 2. Across the league, kickers attempted 27 kicks this week and made 25 of those for a cool 93% completion percentage. Let's discuss how the players performed with a look at my (un)Official Week 3 CFL Kicker Power Rankings;
Working top-down;
Rene Paredes (CGY) will remain in the First Position in the Rankings this week after yet another seemingly routine game. 3 field goals, and 3 converts, all made for a total of 12 points. This will keep him tied for the most points by a kicker in the CFL.
Brett Lauther (SSK) will remain in the Second Position for Week 3 after completing both of his field goal attempts, and his single convert attempt. He is currently tied for most field goals made in the CFL with Montreal's David Côté, so it will be interesting to see what happens next week when they square off.
Sean Whyte (BC) will jump up 4 spots this week. He came out swinging after his Bye Week and went 3/3 on field goals. Some might say this is a bit of a hot take, considering he has only made 4 field goals but to that I would say; Look at his convert attempts. Through 2 games Whyte has gone 13/13 on convert attempts. If we extrapolate this data out to a full 18 game season, Whyte is on pace to make 93 convert attempts. This would easily break the record for Most Converts in a Season (80, Mark Mcloughlin, '94). Good luck Sean!
David Côté (MTL) made sure that everyone knows last week was not the norm for him. This week, he went 5/5 on field goals, and 3/3 on converts easily shutting his haters up. He will hope to continue his strong second season in the league!
Sergio Castillo (EDM) will stay in the middle of the pack this week after completing all 3 of his field goal attempts. He is playing very well and will attempt to keep pace with the league leaders down the stretch of the season.
Marc Liegghio (WPG) will jump another 2 positions in the Power Rankings. This week, Liegghio was 3/3 on field goals, and 2/2 on converts. He also proves his haters wrong after completing 2 field goals from 40+ yards, plus a new long of 45 yards out! Here is a compilation of his kicks this week.
Lewis Ward (OTT) will unfortunately drop into the Seventh Position this week after his competition set a very nice example for him. I suspect he will come out of the Bye Week playing well!
Michael Domagala (HAM) is starting to cause people to think about the kicking position in Hamilton. He seems to be either missing a field goal or a convert and will need to improve during the coming weeks or else he will find his seat heating quickly.
Boris Bede (TOR) played well this week after a tough season opener in Week 2. He was able to ensure the Argos at least put 3 points on the board. Come on Toronto, give our guy a shot!!
Punters
The first 15% of the season is finished and we have been gifted an awesome CFL Offensive Output Report by John Hodge. In this report, Hodge mentions that while it is a small sample size compared to a full 81 game season, it gives enough data to begin to identify trends in our game. The total number of punts has dropped 15.2% from last season and the 2022 season has had the fewest punts per game since Hodge began tracking in 2010. While this isn't amazing news for punters who are trying to get as much film out as possible, I believe this is good for the CFL as a whole. It means teams are keeping drives alive long enough to either get into field goal or touchdown raise.
Back to your regularly scheduled programming. Let's discuss how the players performed with a look at my (un)Official Week 3 CFL Punter Power Rankings;
Working top-down;
Marc Liegghio (WPG) is playing good... like really good. He will snake his way up the Rankings this week to the First Position! A beautiful game where 7 of his 9 punts were longer than 50 yards and 33% were inside the opponents 20 yard line. I am really starting to beieleive in Marc as a two-way kicker. I might even become a Stan.
Joseph Zema (MTL) will fall 1 spot after being dethroned by Liegghio. He still had an above-average game this week, punting 6 times with an Avg. of 46.5 yards per punt, and a NET Avg. of 36.2 yards per punt. I stand by my word that he is one of the better punters in the league and the Als are lucky to have him.
Stefan Flintoft (BC) did not do much this week, considering how well the B.C. offense played. He did manage to punt 2 times but his NET Avg. was quite low, at 32.5 yards per punt.
Matt Mengel (EDM) will also stay within the top 5 this week, mainly because he has hit a significant number of his punts over 50 yards (66%). He just needs to work on his directional punting near the end zone and he will be gold (and green).
Well it's time for James Smith (CGY) to slide in our Rankings. After coming out swinging in Week 1, he has had 2 down weeks. His NET Avg. yards per punt has decreased about 10 yards over the course of three games. I believe this was his last game as a Stamps punter, as Grace was listed as a healthy scratch in Week 3, and is given a Week 4 Bye to make sure he is 100%.
Richie Leone (OTT) will remain where he was last week, simply because he didn't get a chance to play.
Simon Laryea (HAM) jumps out of last place after the best game in his CFL career. He punted 7 times for a NET Avg. of 37.6 yards and a couple pinned inside the 20 yard line. This is the type of punting we want to see out of Laryea but we want more. I want to see him get more punts over 50 yards.
Kaare Vedvik (SSK) will drop a spot after a poor performance this week. He punted 8 times, for a Avg. of just 39 yards per punt. He also had his punts returned well, as he scraped by with 27.6 NET Avg. yards per punt.
John Haggerty (TOR) just hasn't been having a great season so far, but it is a young one for now. He has time to correct these mistakes and worst comes to worst, Bede can step in to pick up the slack.
Thank you for making it this far in my article! Please let me know what you think about the article through the contact page! Have a good day everyone :)
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