Bombers ready for heavyweight tilt against Stamps

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 19/09/2016 (3302 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

From this vantage point, the two hottest — and probably best — teams in the CFL right now will be squaring off in Calgary Saturday afternoon. This is a long time in coming for fans of the Winnipeg Blue Bombers, who will be taking on the Stampeders. A regular season game in late September that will tell us if the juggernaut Bombers can compete with a team that hasn’t lost since Week 1? Yes, please, and make it a double.

We know what the cynics are going to say: But what about the B.C. Lions? The Lions are a team to contend with, for sure — they are the only ones who have beaten the Stamps this season — but they’ve only won three in a row. The Blue and Gold have won an epic seven straight, riding a rocket ship straight out of the toilet, where they initially flopped around at 1-4. No other team has been lighting the league on fire, to this degree, with both their propensity to take the football away and not turn it over.

The margins for error are going to get a lot tighter on Saturday. The windows for victory are going to get smaller, and this team won’t be able to take the entire first half to get on track like they did against the Toronto Argonauts last Saturday. Calgary doesn’t miss out on capitalizing against their opponents when they make a mistake, and for the most part, they don’t make many mistakes themselves either.

They have scored the most points in the league so far, with the second-place team more than fifty points behind. They have also given up the fewest points, and have a quarterback that is No. 1 in passing yards and touchdown passes. Their running back (Jerome Messam) is tops in the league in both rushing yards and rushing touchdowns, and he has had multiple monster games against the Bombers.

In the Blue and Gold corner, you have the longest winning streak this franchise has seen since 2001. They are better on the road than they are at home (5-1), and have been knocking out historical failures — such as not winning in Calgary for eons — one after another. Their defence has only given up eight more points than the Stampeders, but, considering how poorly they played during the first five weeks, it’s more than fair to say they’ve been better than the Stamp defence of late. They are also miles ahead of their next closest opponent when you look at how often, and by what margin, they win the turnover battle.

The blueprint for a victory in Cowtown is simple in theory, but harder in application. They need to be exactly what they have become in this winning streak, but for all four quarters. The offence needs to continue to play clean football and not turn the ball over. Running back Andrew Harris needs to play in this game, and if he does, he needs to be better on the ground and in the air than his counterpart. Quarterback Matt Nichols needs to continue to be precise with his passing, not force anything downfield, and continue to feed off the turnovers and momentum that the special teams and defence generate.

How they play defensively against the Stampeders’ prolific offence will determine the game. Quarterback Bo Levi Mitchell has only thrown six interceptions in 12 games, but if he thinks he is facing the same defence that he has already beaten twice earlier in the year, he may be in for a rude awakening.

Lets just go out and say it: At 8-4, this team is going to make the playoffs. It’s just a matter of seeding now, and finding out just how good this team can be.

Doug Brown, once a hard-hitting defensive lineman and frequently a hard-hitting columnist, appears weekly in the Free Press.

Twitter: @DougBrown97