Bombers and Edmonton Eskimos keep focus on game ahead

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This article was published 16/07/2014 (4112 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

It’s a battle of two Canadian Football League unbeaten teams, a marquee matchup between two traditional rivals that is the buzz of the early 2014 season.

And yet to hear the Winnipeg Blue Bombers and Edmonton Eskimos tell it, Thursday’s matchup between two clubs that are a perfect 3-0 is nothing more than the fourth game on the schedule.

“The unbeaten stuff, all that is really – no offence – a media thing,” said Bomber defensive end Jason Vega. “It’s something for you guys to talk about, but it doesn’t really do anything for us. It doesn’t matter.

“For us, we look at it as us being 0-0. It didn’t matter what we did last week or the last three weeks. We’re 0-0. Fortunately, we find ourselves in the position where we’re both undefeated. We’re playing much better than we did last year, whether that be personnel, coaching or whatever it is. It’s an interesting position. I’ve been in it before when I came in 2011 and we were really bad the year before.

“It’s going to be the same every week, all the way through hopefully to the end of November. It doesn’t really matter what we did before.”

That was a common theme spit out by most of the Bombers and Eskimos in their final chats with the media before the tilt (7:30 p.m., Investors Group Field; TSN/CJOB). Funny, given that last year the two sides were a combined 7-29.

“It is exciting, it’s a great opportunity to come and play against against team that has had a lot of success and is playing some great football,” said Eskimo quarterback Mike Reilly. “We feel like we’ve been playing good football, too, and so it’s going to be a good test for us. But I don’t really think that the last three weeks matters. I don’t think Winnipeg cares what we’ve done in the first three weeks. They want to come out here and beat up on us and we want to do the same to them.

“Just as we forgot about 2013, we’ve kind of forgotten about the first three games weeks as well. We’re concerned about this game and we’re not worried about anything past that or anything before it. We just know we’re coming in here to play against a very good football team and we’ve got to execute at a high level in order to come out with a win.”

Ed.tait@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @WFPEdTait