Standings climb starts in Edmonton

The Winnipeg Blue Bombers kept busy in different ways during their recent bye week.

Some took the opportunity to head home, while others stayed in town to get in some extra work and bond with teammates.

One thing they didn’t do, however, was stress over the playoff picture and all the uncertainty surrounding it.

“You start doing that you’ll get lost in it. There are too many scenarios,” said offensive co-ordinator Jason Hogan after Tuesday’s practice, their second day back from their final break.

“We just focus on what we can handle and what we can do week in and week out.”

This is uncharted territory for many members of the Blue and Gold. In recent years, they’ve made a habit out of clinching the West Division’s crown around this time. All bets are off now, though, as they have three games remaining — starting with Saturday’s road tilt in Edmonton against the Elks (6-9) — and every single one of them is going to have major post-season implications.

“This is exciting,” said defensive end Willie Jefferson.

“I’ve been in this league for a long time, and I’ve seen teams make it to the playoffs in many different ways and have seen seasons end in many types of ways. This is fun, right? You never know what’s gonna happen, but you don’t want to look too far ahead. You want to stay locked in and focused on what your team needs to do that week to win that game.”

The Bombers (8-7) currently sit in fourth place in the West behind Saskatchewan (11-4), B.C. (9-7) and Calgary (8-7). If the season ended today, Winnipeg would be the crossover team — which would be a first for the franchise — and play the Montreal Alouettes (8-7) in the Eastern semifinal. They could also climb all the way way up to the No. 2 seed in the West and host a playoff game if they can close out the regular season with a trio of victories.

“Whatever it ends up looking like for us this year, it’s good for us — it’s perfect,” said running back Brady Oliveira. “Hosting the West obviously is fun and it’s great for this fan base, but if you look at the last number of years, it obviously hasn’t worked out for us so maybe we need another path. Maybe that is having a little chip on our shoulder and being underdogs and road dogs and going into people’s places and spoiling it for them.”

The good news for Bomberland is the club is showing signs that they might just be peaking at the right time. They enjoyed their most complete game of the season two weeks ago when they smacked the Hamilton Tiger-Cats 40-3 in front of the diehards at Princess Auto Stadium.

“It didn’t matter if we won by 20, 30, 40 or 50,” said Oliveira. “For me, I was just waiting to see an offence put together an entire game like that and the whole team come together with all three phases and be dominant. We have a very tightknit locker room, and we just worked through the tough times, and we knew that we would eventually break through.”

The challenge now is to carry that performance through their week off and into Edmonton.

“It’s a little hard, so you’ve got to look back at the tape to remember what you did because it is a week and a half ago now, but you definitely want to build off of it,” said Hogan.

“I think just going into the bye week off of that win is the good momentum that we needed.”

The Elks will likely finish last in the West for the second time in three years, but they are fresh off a 27-25 win over Saskatchewan and beat Calgary 31-19 earlier in September. The Double-E are 5-5 since veteran quarterback Cody Fajardo became their starter in Week 8.

The last date the Bombers had with the Elks was back in Week 4 in a 36-23 win.

“They’re fiery, they play hard, they don’t give up. Cody’s kind of settled some things down with his veteran leadership and with some of the things he’s good at that maybe Tre Ford wasn’t,” said defensive co-ordinator Jordan Younger.

“They’re a different football team. They’re dangerous.”

They’re also desperate. With a loss, Edmonton’s already slim playoff hopes will nearly evaporate.

“You can expect everybody’s best,” said Hogan.

“Now there’s no tomorrow for a lot of teams, so you got to crank it up just a notch.”

taylor.allen@freepress.mb.ca