Time for some cutthroat football

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This article was published 15/10/2011 (5162 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

EDMONTON — The recipe, on the surface, couldn’t be simpler: Win, win, win — and they’re in.

Win in Edmonton tonight. Beat Montreal at home next Saturday. And then, once again at home, beat the hapless Toronto Argonauts on Oct. 28. Do those three things and the Winnipeg Blue Bombers will host this year’s CFL East Division final — and with it have a chance with one more win at home to play in the 2011 Grey Cup and end a championship drought for professional football in Winnipeg that is two decades and counting.

Now, there are, of course, other paths to the East final for Winnipeg. A Montreal loss to Hamilton on Sunday, for instance, wouldn’t hurt. And then there’s the final week of this year’s regular season, when the Bombers close out on the road in Calgary, while the Als must travel to B.C. and face a Lions club that at this moment has won seven straight games in a row. Or Winnipeg could simply win the East semifinal.

But on a Bombers team that has talked all season long about wanting to be masters of their own destiny after having been doormats for so long, the most desired path is to just win, win and win again.

It must all begin here tonight, however, against an Edmonton team that is vulnerable, even with the advantage Commonwealth Stadium provides and the Eskimos’ seemingly lofty position in a three-way tie for first in the West might suggest.

Undistinguished

Look a little deeper, however, and what emerges is the Eskimos have won just one of their last three games — an ugly and undistinguished 17-1 victory over the hopeless Saskatchewan Roughriders last week — and they have mustered just three wins in the nine games since they opened the season at 5-0.

That’s not good, in other words, and suggestive of an Edmonton team that is going the wrong way at precisely the wrong time. And it is precisely for those reasons that this is exactly the kind of game that a team with genuine championship aspirations — which the Bombers claim to be — should be expected to win.

But it is also exactly the kind of game Winnipeg has lost before on the road. First, there was the Labour Day debacle in which the 7-1 Bombers somehow lost to the 1-7 Riders at Mosaic Stadium — and then, even worse, somehow did it all over again the following week in Winnipeg.

And then there was the loss to the Argos at Rogers Centre last month, one of just four games Toronto has won all season long.

In a season in which Winnipeg has been dominant on the road with a 5-2 record, it’s been games exactly like tonight’s that have seemed to befuddle them. Some of that may simply be a function of the lack of focus that comes with youth — Bombers head coach Paul LaPolice pointed out to reporters here Friday that his club remains the youngest in the CFL.

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But whatever the cause of the blips, it needs to stop if this team is going to advance to the next level conferred by hosting a division final.

There seem to be two defining characteristics — in the CFL, but also sports generally — in championship teams: They win the games they’re expected to win, and then they win a few more.

These 2011 Bombers have been very adept at the latter category — wins on the road last week in Hamilton and Sept. 18 in Montreal were particularly good examples of gritty Winnipeg victories.

Tonight, they need to demonstrate the ruthless efficiency and cutthroat focus that wins all those other games, too.

paul.wiecek@freepress.mb.ca