Bombers, Als and Leos will all finish under .500, but one will get a shot at the Grey Cup

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 21/10/2015 (3971 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Go ahead and debate the issue until the veins in your forehead come close to popping. It’s a discussion, after all, that dates back to the days of G. Sydney Halter, Bud Grant and Ken Ploen.

And yes, it’s completely ridiculous, bordering on the stupid.

But it’s also part of what makes November so goofy in the Canadian Football League, and fans of the three-down game are going to be served up more of the same over the next few weeks as three teams that will finish with losing records — the B.C. Lions, Montreal Alouettes and, yes, the Winnipeg Blue Bombers — remain in the fight for the final playoff spot.

Hard to believe, isn’t it Jamaal Westerman?

“I can believe it, man,” said the Bombers defensive end after practice Tuesday. “I believe. There’s a lot of other guys still in the race, too. As long as we’re still in the hunt I’m happy. We have to keep going. We can’t look back at 5-11 because that doesn’t matter right now. What matters is this game coming up.”

The best the Bombers can finish this season is 7-11. They play host to the Ottawa Redblacks Saturday before a bye next week and a regular-season finale on the road against the Toronto Argonauts. The Leos and Als could both get to 8-10 if they win out, but the Bombers have won the season series with B.C., while Montreal would have to finish with more points than their West Division rivals to qualify as a crossover team.

In other words, the Bomb Squad isn’t dead just yet.

“I’m extremely aware of all the math,” said quarterback Matt Nichols. “We win this week and the other two lose their next two then the last week doesn’t even matter. We’re in the driver’s seat for this playoff spot and we just need to handle our business.

“It doesn’t seem odd to me. I’ve seen teams go 8-10 and do well in the playoffs. A lot of times it’s about the team that gets hot at the right time. We know if we get into the playoffs the team we’d be playing, either Calgary or Edmonton, we’ve played tight this year.

“We feel we’d have as good a chance as anyone if we get in.”

That seems like a big if, but here’s some more math, just for context, to explain how commonplace a team with a losing record qualifying for the CFL playoffs actually is:

— Dating back to 1958, 64 of the 346 teams who made it to the post-season, or 18.5 per cent, finished the regular season with losing records.

— In the last 57 years there have been only 10 seasons in which all the teams in the playoffs were .500 or better — 1970, 1986, 1988, 1992, 1998, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006 and 2014.

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“It’s been frustrating because we’ve really only needed a couple of wins to beat out the teams we’re trying to beat out,” said defensive lineman Bryant Turner Jr. “We want to put ourselves in the position where we do our part and then see what (B.C. and Montreal do). There’s three teams right now all thinking the same thing.

“It’s unfortunate, but we’ve been in this situation for three or four years. Our playoff times, where we have to win or we’re done, actually start four or five games before the season ends. I hate to say it, but it’s something we have experience with. Will we learn from it? Only time will tell.”

Maybe that, in part, explains the scene at practice Tuesday. Music blared from the loudspeakers throughout the session as head coach Mike O’Shea tried to keep his team loose. That’s a far cry from the Cal Murphy/Dave Ritchie approach — the Bombers would have been in pads and scrapping with each other all week — but if it works…

“Today we talked not necessarily on focusing on where we’ve come from, but what lies ahead for us,” said O’Shea. “We’ve still got a great opportunity. And come game time they need to realize that. I’m confident they will. As an entire organization we’ve got to believe that we’re going to make the playoffs.”

ed.tait@freepress.mb.ca Twitter: @WFPEdTait