A month into this CFL season, a meeting between the Winnipeg Blue Bombers and Edmonton could have been dubbed the Toilet Bowl. It would have been welcomed simply to ensure one of them got off the schneid. While the Bombers went 0-4, the Elks managed to lose their first seven. Flip the calendar to fall, and everything’s looking up. Saturday’s tilt in the Alberta capital features the two hottest teams in the loop: the 7-6 Bombers have won five straight, the Elks five of their past six to sit at 5-8.
“The way they started their season, they’re a way different team,” Winnipeg running back Brady Oliveira said. “And it’s the same thing with us, too. We’re a different team now. We’re really getting a hold of things and this thing is rolling. They’re in the same boat as us. It’s going to be a great western showdown.”
While they enjoy a similar trajectory, these teams are no mirror image. The Elks are the CFL’s highest-scoring team, the Bombers the lowest. On the other side the coin, nobody gives up more yards than Edmonton, nobody fewer than Winnipeg. It’s the former stat that Oliveira has designs on turning around.
An offence run by quarterback Zach Collaros with weapons like himself, Kenny Lawler, Nic Demski and rookie Ontaria Wilson shouldn’t be the league’s least explosive, the Winnipegger figures.
Given the Elks have been averaging some 35 points per game since they’ve turned their season around, this is as good a time as any for the Bombers attack to come through.
“We ain’t worried about them,” Lawler said. “We ain’t gotta match nothing. We look at it like everybody’s gotta match us.”
That hasn’t been difficult most games. Collaros and Co. have managed to score 30 or more only twice this season — 41 against Calgary back in July and 31 against Saskatchewan in the Labour Day Classic, which wouldn’t have happened without a special-teams touchdown.
“Obviously we’ve just got to win by one point,” Oliveira said. “But I am really waiting for us to put a full 60 minutes together of just a dominating offensive performance. And I don’t think we’ve had that, yet. There’s been glimpses of a great passing attack or a great running attack, but it would be nice to see everything just come to fruition and just really have a solid outing. A lot of us are waiting for that.”
Injuries, of course, have played a role. We’ve written ad nauseam about that, alluding to the loss of Dalton Schoen for the season and an extended absence for Lawler. It doesn’t help that veteran receiver Drew Wolitarsky is back on the six-game injured list with a recurrence of his rib injury. Rookie Canadian Kevens Clercius will fill in.
Oliveira, though, sees a new-found chemistry between his quarterback and the revamped receiving corps that hasn’t always been there. It showed in one practice this week, when Collaros was dropping deep dimes seemingly at will against that stingy Winnipeg defence.
“He’s just airing that thing out,” Oliveira said that day. “His demeanor in the huddle, the way he controls everything, if he needs to check a play at the line of scrimmage – he’s so smart to do that. And our receivers are also on that level. Hopefully this all comes to life under the lights.”
As for the ground game, Oliveira has his own additional motivation this week. With 66 yards he can regain the league’s rushing lead over an idle William Stanback of B.C.. With 106, he can reach 1,000 for a third straight season. But those numbers are mere icing. This offence still has to finish baking the cake.
“You’ve got to heat up at the right time,” Oliveira said. “So as long as we eventually get to that at the right time of the season, whether it’s going to be this week or next week… it’s just a matter of time.”
There’s not that much left, though.
“The time’s ticking,” he acknowledged. “But we still have five more opportunities before the playoffs.”
What the standings will look like come playoff time is still very much up in the air. With first place the goal, the Bombers can ill afford to stumble now. A 2-6 start has left no wiggle room in a division that’s as clogged as its been in years, five teams separated by just three wins.
“The West is crazy right now,” is how Demski put it. “It’s good for the league. It’s fun. Definitely a lot closer of a battle. It’s funny, at the start of the year I’m sure everybody has their expectations and the way they want to write out their season. But it doesn’t always work out. You roll with the punches.”
Saturday in Edmonton the two hottest teams will start swinging and won’t stop until after the rematch in Manitoba next Friday.
Will they remain, as Oliveira said, in the same boat? Or will one throw the other overboard?
“That’s a good little headline story going into this game,” Demski said. “It’ll be a fun little test to see who stops that momentum.”
