TORONTO — It’s rare that a bye week can pass and the team sitting out sees their probability of success go up.
Simulate all you want, Saskatchewan is going to win it all.
Love the confidence!
Too bad Toronto is gonna beat them in BC 
Monty Python…
Please forgive this non-football related post. Your user name triggered pleasant
memories of monty python’s flying circus. Now that was damn funny stuff. The
stuffy old bosses at the BBC hated how irreverent , close-to-the-edge borderline
getting censored the python guys humour was. But the fans ( me included ) loved
it. They took shots at anything and everything. Cutting edge. There is still nothing
that good all these years later. I was crushed when John Cleese’s Fawlty Towers
series ended. Insanely funny stuff.
OK , back to football. My Roughriders will be hoping that Montreal rebounds
from that butt-kicking out in Vancouver…and beat the bombers. Because that
would leave the door open for the Riders to finish in first…if they beat calgary.
Fingers crossed.
Ok, I’ll give ya one thumb up and one thumb down. 
Dibs…I wouldn’t expect a bombers fan like yourself to agree with what my
conjectures for the desired Mtl / Win game result would be. So be it. You know
that us Rider fans are stubborn.
A clear-eyed view from 101 ft. over sea level (or is Winnipeg under sea level?)
If the Bombers can’t pluck at least a point (tie) out of Montreal (in Mt. Royal) this weekend, I don’t like their chances. In fact, I’d say a loss to a group of mostly back-ups and guys trying to avoid injuries would be an embarrassment of epic proportions to the Winnipeg organization - and their legions of fans, all across the Prairies.
Lose to Montreal - Wpg. plays host to Western semi-final vs. BC in Wpg. Just look at how badly BC (with Vernon Adams back in tow) mauled the Als. Game didn’t matter for either but Lions chose to use it to get Adams back to game speed and put Rourke on the bench as #1 backup.
BC won’t murder the Bombers 45-0 but it might not even be a tight game. Winnipeg fans would be devasted if the Bombers went 3 & OUT - 2 regular season losses, then get punted by BC.
Winnipeg has a far better chance if they can somehow right the current losing ship vs. Montreal to secure 1st place, no matter what Sask. does w/ Calgary.
At that point BC visits Sask’n for a trip to Winnipeg in the WF.
That game (BC vs. SK) is a toss-up imho. Home advantage favours the Riders, Vernon Adams favours the Lions. Could be a classic slobbernokker.
Bombers in the WF vs. either SK or BC will have the Bombers as slight betting favorites (2.5 will be the line, maybe 3.5) but the reality of the situation finds Bombers in tough vs either BC or SK. SK can beat the Bombers with RBs and Trev Harris’s precision passing. BC can beat the Bombers with Vernon’s skillful combo of long bombs and out-running the Bomber pursuit.
WF Predictions:
Bombers 18 Sask’n 28
Bombers 22 BC 27
SK would fare best against Montreal or prolly Toronto in Grey Cup. Both BC & Wpg. would be squash victims.
Bombers and Alouettes will have very hard time to make it to finals for sure.
Pressure free SSK and Toronto are favorite I suppose.
SSK vs Toronto or
SSK vs Montreal are the case.
Bombers have to win the next game to be no 1 in the west. Not sure still Montreal can play a full force game may favor Bombers.
Lyle, Lyle. Winnipeg “must somehow right the losing ship?”
They are arguably the hottest team in the league, having won 8 of their last 9 and barely losing the other one to a top team and allowing only 14 points. They also beat both Saskatchewan and BC the last two times they played them. BC quite handily.
Of course anything can happen and there is no guarantee they will win any given game, but I’ll take the CFL simulator predictions over yours. I am assuming that the simulator doesn’t have a pessimism button.
FYI Jonny Football - every simulator has a pessimism button. Just that mine is bigger - and rings louder.
Bombers have had 2 off outings in last 2 games. They came from behind to win one - then they got squashed by one of the 2 potential eastern Grey Cup teams.
My pessimism meter will drop at least 33% if Bombers can pull off a clean W vs. nothing in it for us Montreal.
I think you would agree that a Bomber loss to the Als B or B+ squad will not bode will.
A loss says they’ll go 3 and out with the West semi being their final kick at the cat.
A win secures home berth advantage for WF. The odds-makers would still make them a 5.5 pt fave over BC, but basically a toss-up vs. Sask.
Nothing guaranteed. But trust the process. O’Shea still the best coach in CFL. Olivera the best player, Lawler the best WR. Lots of real good defensive players.
Collaros will need an A- to A game for Bombers to advance to Grey Cup. I don’t quite think he’ll be up to it, given his last couple of playoff/Grey Cup fails.
Hope I’m wrong - 5 Grey Cups in a row - that be ZAK-TASTIK.
Montreal, having lost recent games will want to end the season on a winning note and will want to tune-up the players they’ve been sitting out. So don’t be surprised if they play their A team from the start of the game. And even if Fajardo doesn’t play the whole game, their backup QB is good enough to start for any other team and will be playing to put that into the minds of CFL Gms.
Agree with what you say except for the Alexander starting part. In reviewing the starting QB’s in the league I can’t see Alexander starting for any other team at present except perhaps Calgary. BC has two QB’s he couldn’t beat out so there are currently 9 starters ahead of him on the league wide depth chart. If you are correct then surely he will be lost to Montreal in free agency in the off season as he will be Dru Browned out of there. Alexander has looked good in limited action, but then so have too many QB’s to name who never made it as a starter. Time will tell.
Simulate are for dreamers. Why doesn’t anyone ever realistically factor in weather conditions? October 22/24, Accuweather for regina says it’s currently snowing and very chilly in that little prairie hamlet. Nobody for sure knows what the future holds in that regard when it comes to inclement weather moving forward during the CFL Playoffs. Trust me, it’s a major factor for some of the Sally Boys who play the game and can’t suck it up.
The weather is the same for players on both teams. When you say sally boys do you mean you are a homophobe.
Sally Boy is a Mama’s boy that would rather be inside the house playing Nintendo games as Sally Boy couldn’t be bothered to play a game outside in a cold 
weather climate. EdRider homophobe, seriously never heard that phrase in my entire life, did you just make that up?
If he did it was many years ago. Anyone who reads newspapers has seen it numerous times.
What happens with Davis Alexander really depends on what goes down in this year’s playoffs. TKO’ing Winnipeg and forcing them to win 2 straight games against solid opponents (BC + SK) might alleviate the problem of facing an O’Shea coached team in the Grey Cup - but it could backfire as either Sask or BC, particularly SK at this point could provide far more resistance than the Bombers.
The strength of my argument is thus - if the Bombers can’t knock off a Montreal prep squad this weekend, how will they fare vs. BC, then Sask in back to back encounters?
Did the simulation take into account how unhappy Maas was after last weeks effort in BC?
Mass will want his team on top of their game and to go into the bye week before the playoffs winning…I’d bet…
Coaches always say they’re gonna go ALL-IN on nothing games. The reality is most often quite different. The reality for the Bombers is going up against a prep squad loaded up on false rhetoric. If the Bombers can’t slither by a diminished Als squad they really don’t deserve 1st place - although I’m sure they’ll all be in the Glee Club, cheering on the Stamps to knock off the Riders in the later game - - - thus allowing a sheepish Bomber team to back into the West final.
One other note: Bomber nominees pretty much as expected. Olivera for MOP and top canuck, Ty Ford for rookie, Mr. Bryant for top lineman. Only possible dud nominee is Boomer Castillo, the Bombers long-distance FG kicker who’s only succeeding 80.4% of the time. Thats kinda an all-time low in the current era (2000-2024). Sergio has to go 4/5 in the Als game (80%) to avoid drooping under 80%. He’s also muffed a few converts. But you’re not gonna nominate the long-snapper or the holder, are you? Or the sideline short punter?
That’s a special skillset you have there. Not many people can type on a keyboard all the while staring straight into a mirror.