The BC Lions should have an easy time with the Calgary Stampeders this week. Peter Klein explains why he's not totally confident that will happen as he previews the full week in the CFL.
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00:00The always unpredictable world of the Canadian Football League travels into week 18, with
00:15just three games on the schedule, two of them tonight, and then a Saturday night tilt in
00:19Edmonton between the Saskatchewan Rough Riders and the Edmonton Elks.
00:24Um, let's, just gonna go quickly, because I, quite frankly, I've seen the numbers,
00:29and I know that the CFL segments don't necessarily thrive on here.
00:33So that is why I told you, coming in, um, hey, we're gonna talk about some other stuff
00:37in a second, but just let, let me get my jollies off here with the Canadian Football League,
00:41and uh, we'll go on from there.
00:43Winnipeg taking on the Hamilton Tiger Cats.
00:45Um, by the way, for uh, best bets, uh, projections or predictions or whatever, um, I do have
00:52a story up, uh, I'll put it here in the uh, the chat actually, you know, gotta promote
00:56myself where I can, uh, but the uh, the best bets for three down nation for this week,
01:03uh, there's three picks that I am going with.
01:06You have to go read that to get the, the official predictions, I guess, um, so I'm not gonna
01:11give out any like, official plays here, uh, but just gonna tell you what I think about
01:15each game.
01:16Um, so we start with the Winnipeg Blue Bombers taking on the Hamilton Tiger Cats, um, Winnipeg,
01:22they seem like they have figured it out now.
01:24The offense hadn't really been clicking up to this point, like they were scoring points,
01:28they put up a bunch of points against Saskatchewan, but it still didn't look comfortable.
01:32It looked comfortable against Edmonton last week.
01:34And that's an Edmonton defense that was kind of improving, but kind of not, um, but defensively
01:39this team is just SO good right now, and while Hamilton is doing a better job of limiting
01:47points, um, with their defense, I do worry about what this offense can do against Winnipeg's
01:53defense.
01:54And so, like, Hamilton's bounce back here has been great, they are basically pushing
01:59up on BC for that last playoff spot in the first ever east to west crossover, we've never
02:05had it before.
02:06Um, and I made the joke on CFL This Week when I was there a couple of weeks ago, I actually
02:10had someone tell me that you can't at one point because, oh, well, one league has more
02:14teams than the other, so you can't, or one division, sorry, has more teams than the other,
02:17so you can't have an east-west crossover.
02:20And I was like, okay, well, that checks out, we've never seen it, so maybe that's why.
02:23And it was only until years later that I realized that, oh no, that's actually not a thing.
02:27Um, Hamilton does have a real opportunity here, but this is a really tough matchup against
02:32Winnipeg, and I just think the Bombers are playing as the most complete football team
02:36probably in the league right now, so I think the Bombers do end up getting the job done.
02:39Calgary, going into BC to take on the Lions, Conrad, only prediction I think, Stamps officially
02:45eliminated.
02:46Yeah.
02:47Yeah.
02:48Yeah.
02:49Um.
02:50This is tough.
02:51Like, the spread in this game was seven, and so, admittedly, I stayed away from it on the
02:55best bets, um, because I just, I don't trust BC to be a team that can put up those sorts
03:01of points.
03:02Now, Calgary has been doggy-doo-doo on the road so far this year, and BC actually has
03:07a pretty good home-field advantage, which could help them out into November, although
03:11it seems like they're going to have to win at least one road game if they are going to
03:15get to that point.
03:16And that is a road game that they have had challenges with in the past, but we will talk
03:19about that next month.
03:21For now, it just, it's so inconsistent with BC.
03:25One week it looks like Rorik's figured it out, the next he hasn't.
03:27One week, this defense looks great because they have bets, and then they get Hladik back,
03:32and he, the defense gives up a ton of points to Hamilton and loses.
03:36They have had too many, ah, we got this, games, and have not looked good.
03:40And honestly, Calgary was the benefactors of one of those, where the Lions I think had
03:44their worst game of the year at McMahon, and ended up losing, um, 25-24, even though
03:50the Stampeders gave them all sorts of opportunities to come back into that game.
03:55So I do think that, I do think BC wins this game.
03:58But it is going to be, I think, surprisingly close.
04:01And then we get to Saturday.
04:02It is the Saskatchewan Roughriders taking on the Elks of Edmonton, um, Saskatchewan coming
04:06off of back-to-back wins, Edmonton, it feels like their party has kind of calmed down after
04:12Winnipeg kicked the shit out of them last week.
04:14Um, the one thing that I think Saskatchewan is going to have to do, A, they have to be
04:20better on first down.
04:21They are the worst team in the league on first down, and it has set up so many, 2nd and 7th,
04:262nd and 8th, 2nd and 9th, and… the joke amongst my Ryder fan friends has been for
04:33the last, like, couple of years, even though we only had them for a little bit last year,
04:37man, if you need 9 yards on 2nd down, there is no one better than Trevor Harris at getting
04:42you 7 yards.
04:43Um, and part of that is the receivers running the routes and stuff like that, like, I don't
04:47know what it is about this team that if it's 2nd and 7, we are running a 5 yard out.
04:53Like, I get tackling in the CFL ain't the NFL, but it's gotten better, and we need
04:59to stop relying on those sorts of things.
05:01Just as a league in general, but as a Saskatchewan Roughriders definitely.
05:04So they need to be better on first down.
05:06But they need to be a little bit more aggressive, offensively.
05:08And they have been that, at times.
05:11But Edmonton is so bad at giving up the big play.
05:15They have given up the most in the Canadian Football League this year.
05:17Now Saskatchewan has some of the least amount of big plays, but with guys like Emelus, Keyshawn
05:23Johnson has shown to be a real weapon, I think, down the field as well.
05:27I think you have a couple of guys that Saskatchewan can take advantage of that against Edmonton.
05:30And as Ryder's defense is getting healthier, I didn't, sorry, I didn't see the practice
05:34report yesterday so I don't know if Rivas is playing, or if Cox is playing, but still,
05:39getting Milligan back, getting Lanier back on the defensive line, along with Micah Johnson.
05:43Those guys have stepped up.
05:44I just think it's a long day for Edmonton.
05:47The Ryders got run all over by Edmonton when these two teams played.
05:51You can tell by the breakdowns which game I'm the most focused on, right?
05:54But they ran all over Saskatchewan last time these two teams played, but that was with
05:59Trey Ford.
06:00It's going to be MBT back there, and against basically everyone else.
06:04Saskatchewan has done a great job of shutting down the run.
06:06And so I think they will turn Edmonton into being a bit of a one-dimensional football
06:12team, and that's where the Ryders thrive.
06:13So I think Saskatchewan ends up getting the job done there.