Bombers meet Edmonton in critical game today

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This article was published 03/10/2015 (3958 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The Winnipeg Blue Bombers are running out of last chances.

The Bombers, 4-9, face the 9-4 Edmonton Eskimos this afternoon at Investors Group Field (3 p.m.) in what is a critical contest for the locals with the football season slip-sliding away. A Bomber victory would move them, temporarily, into a third-place tie in the West Division playoff race with the B.C. Lions, who are 4-8 and home to the Saskatchewan Roughriders tonight. The Montreal Alouettes are 5-8 and currently hold down the final playoff position as a crossover team.

“We’ve got to stop talking about other teams helping us,” Bombers head coach Mike O’Shea said Friday, “and start helping ourselves.”

The forecast calls for sunny skies with temperatures around the 15 C mark.

Today’s game features some other juicy storylines beyond the playoff race, but none of them bigger than Bombers starting quarterback Matt Nichols lining up against the club that dumped him as their fill-in starter this summer despite a 5-2 record. Nichols was dealt to Winnipeg in early September for a conditional pick in 2017 and the Bombers could use some solid work from their pivot — the fourth to start a game this year after Drew Willy, Robert Marve and Brian Brohm.

Nichols will be throwing to a new target in receiver Kevin Cone and lining up behind an offensive line that features another change with another ex-Eskimo, Selvish Capers, making his first start for the Bombers at left guard.

Edmonton throws out one of the CFL’s most-ferocious defences and has manhandled the Bombers in their last three meetings by a combined score of 99-15.

Ed.tait@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @WFPEdTait