Kickoff: Saturday, November 9th, 5:30 p.m. CST; Princess Auto Stadium, Winnipeg, Mb.
TV/Streaming: TSN; RDS; CFL+
Radio: 680 CJOB
Streaks: Wpg.: 1W; Sask: 1W.
Road/Home: The Blue Bombers are 6-3 at home this season and a remarkable 37-6 at home in the regular season since 2019 and 40-6 overall including the playoffs, with West Final wins over Saskatchewan in 2021 and the Lions in 2022 and 2023.
Part of that run includes an eight-game home winning streak against Saskatchewan, which last won in Winnipeg in the 2018 Banjo Bowl.
The Roughriders are coming off a 28-19 win over the B.C. Lions in the Western Semi-Final last weekend in Regina and are 5-1 in their last six.
Head-to-head: The Blue Bombers won two of three against the Roughriders this season, falling 19-9 in Regina on July 19th and then capturing the Labour Day Classic 35-33 and the Banjo Bowl 26-21.
Notable: Home teams have won eight of the last nine Western Finals and are 15-6 since 2002. The Blue Bombers have not lost a home division final in 30 years dating back to a 14-12 loss to the Baltimore Stallions in the 1994 East Final. Winnipeg has won its last five home division finals with victories in 2023, 2022, 2021, 2011 and 2001.
Scene Setter
We open with a simple question on the eve of the Canadian Football League’s Western Final, featuring two prairie squads with diehard fan bases that shape the best rivalry in the land:
Could it possibly get any better than this?
Now, no doubt there will be arguments from other locales across the CFL’s map, but the Winnipeg Blue Bombers hosting the Saskatchewan Roughriders Saturday for a berth in the Grey Cup provides every imaginable dramatic element for another epic showdown.
It features the charging Roughriders — winners of five of their last six including last weekend’s Western Semi-final victory over the B.C. Lions — against a Blue Bombers squad that is 9-1 in its last 10 and chasing a fifth consecutive Grey Cup appearance. And it comes with the backdrop of another sold-out crowd at Princess Auto Stadium — the fifth in a row and eighth plus-30K audience of the season — and a decent game-day weather forecast for November with a high of 11C with a 60 percent chance of showers in the evening.
Linebacker Tony Jones
“I can’t wait for it,” Blue Bombers linebacker Tony Jones told bluebombers.com earlier this week. “It’s going to be smash-mouth, and I love smash-mouth football. Everyone buckle up and let’s go get it.
“All the chips are in and we’ve got this one at our house. We’re extremely focussed to go out there and play our brand of football.”
Still, to truly appreciate where the Blue Bombers are right now it’s important to rewind back to the 0-4 start that then turned into a 2-6 stumble after a 16-14 overtime loss to the Argonauts in Toronto in late July. The Blue Bombers had spit up all over themselves that night by turning the ball over five times, including three in the fourth quarter, with Sergio Castillo then missing a kick in overtime and were then facing a double-header with the B.C. Lions.
Said dime back Redha Kramdi afterwards in a morose Blue Bombers locker room after the loss in Toronto:
“We’ve got to figure this thing out. It was right there. They found a way to win, and we didn’t. It’s not about keeping the faith. We’re going to wake up tomorrow, the sun is going to rise and it’s back to work.
“Nobody is going to feel bad for us. If you don’t have faith, you shouldn’t be in this business. It’s football, you’ve got to win games.
“It’s suck it up, go to work and start winning some football games.”
Prophetic words, for what followed was an eight-game winning streak that, coupled with sweeps of the Lions and Roughriders, helped breathe new life into the Blue Bombers season.
And so here we are with a Winnipeg lineup minus Dalton Schoen, Adam Bighill, Cam Lawson, Drew Wolitarsky and Chris Streveler one win shy of another shot at Grey Cup glory.
“There’s a lot of confidence in this locker room,” said league rushing champion Brady Oliveira. “You look back at the start of the season and there were a lot of young guys who were in new positions and now they’re confidence has grown because they’ve been maturing over their last number of weeks. Their football I.Q. has grown, too. You’re seeing that in their game because they’re playing looser and fast because they understand the concepts and the bigger picture.
“We embraced those tough times at the start of the year,” he continued. “We knew what we could do. We had a vet-heavy team but also lots of young guys in new positions. Now they’re playing like vets. It’s a thing of beauty.
“It’s not cockiness whatsoever with this group, it’s confidence. It comes from being prepared. We’ve earned that because we come in here every day and work our asses off to then play at a high level.”
“Now it’s time to do it again. Job’s not done.”
THE DEPTH CHART
The Blue Bombers have made four changes to the depth chart this week from their roster in Montreal for the regular-season finale — all on defence.
On are safety Brandon Alexander, linebacker Kyrie Wilson, who does have a ‘GTD’ — game-time decision — designation, along with defensive end Celestin Haba and defensive back Nick Taylor. Off are defensive back Marquise Bridges, linebacker Brian Cole and defensive tackles Jamal Woods and Devin Adams.
Alexander and Taylor bolster the experience levels in the secondary, even though the latter hasn’t suited up for a game since last year’s Western Semi-Final in Vancouver as a member of the Calgary Stampeders.
3 THINGS TO WATCH
1. THE HOMEFIELD BUMP
The Banjo Bowl has long been the signature regular-season game on the Blue Bombers schedule, with Winnipeg’s faithful rocking the building with a sold-out crowd since the second year of the game’s inception.
The West Final? That’s a completely different level and no matter how opponents prepare or spin it, it’s a very real advantage for the home side.
The Blue Bombers are 40-6 at home, including playoffs, since 2019
“You see it throughout the year and how it helps us out defensively where teams have to go with their silent count and can’t use their standard cadence,” said veteran defensive tackle Jake Thomas. “It’s pretty loud out there. I don’t know what that number is up to now that they track on the scoreboard since this building opened (note: it’s 141), but we usually get one or two offside or delay of game penalties because of the crowd.
“It’s huge for us and for our offence that doesn’t have to go up against that. We do have the loudest fans in the league, and it does field like a homefield advantage.”
Worth noting here: the Roughriders have handled the noise effectively in their last two visits, taking one offside penalty at this year’s Banjo Bowl (which was declined due to an incomplete pass) and just one illegal procedure call in last year’s Banjo Bowl.
2. HARRASSING HARRIS
Roughriders QB Trevor Harris has made 112 career regular season starts and eight more in the playoffs dating back his first postseason start with Ottawa in 2017.
So, yeah, he’s seen some things.
Harris was down for the Riders win over the Blue Bombers in July — that game was started by Shea Patterson — but then went 30-for-49 for 368 yards and three TDs in their Labour Day Classic loss and then was 21-for-33 for 287 yards with two TDs and two picks, both by Tyrell Ford, in their Banjo Bowl defeat.
That’s a ton of production without the Ws to go along with it.
Question now is, how does Winnipeg’s stingy defence limit the effectiveness of a QB who can be surgical if he gets comfy?
“You want to give him as much as you possibly can because he’s seen so much,” said Blue Bombers defensive coordinator Jordan Younger. “I tell the guys here I was teammates with Trevor Harris at one point — to give them an idea of how many snaps he’s had, how many defences he’s played against, how many different systems he’s played in and his ability to read coverage, read structure and then make quick decisions is arguably the best in the league.
“So, being able to keep him off balance, being able to show him multiple looks and not just multiple looks but different body types doing it, is important to your success in keeping him guessing.”
So many fans have commented about the Blue Bombers tendency to rely on a three-man defensive front this year — the upside is to drop more in coverage and make it difficult for enemy QBs to find spaces. Asked about using that approach versus blitz-heavy packages, Younger added this:
“You’ve got to be able to do both in different ways. You may be able to get him once, but he saw it and knows that’s what got him. So, if you show it again he’s ready for that look. You’ve got to have multiple effective looks in order to keep him off balance. He’s going to make plays, but we have to try to limit how much he can anticipate what we’ll be in.
3. BRADY BALL = BULLY BALL
Brady Oliveira’s rushing totals against the Roughriders this year have been a talking point all week — including by yours truly — and it needs to be repeated here again.
In their three meetings this year he was limited to 49 yards on nine carries, 42 yards on 12 carries and 43 yards on 11 carries. What also needs to be added — and this could be a factor on Saturday — is his effectiveness as a receiver. In the three meetings against Sask he had 19 catches for 149 yards.
Somehow, some way, #20 needs to get his touches.
CFL rushing champ Brady Oliveira
“I want to do my part,” said Oliveira. “I owe it to my teammates to go out there and give it my all like I have been every single week of this season. It’s going to start up front with the offensive line and myself. It’s going to start with us to get this game going and determine how we want this thing to play out.
“We know they’ve got a great defence, great defensive line, great linebackers and they’re tough against the run but there’s still other ways to attack defences. Obviously, we want to run the ball, but we can still attack them in other ways and watching tape this week there’s lots of holes in that defence that I think we can attack whether that’s me running the ball, me catching the ball out of the backfield.
“I know it’s important to get me involved in this game because if we do that, good things will come from that.”