It’s hard to believe but the final week of the CFL regular season is here and there’s still plenty of questions to be answered, including where will the Riders finish and who will they play in the playoffs?
It’s pretty simple for the Green and White: next week they’ll be in Winnipeg or somewhere in Ontario. While neither route will be easy, it begs the question, which path is the better one for the Riders? The answer is staying in the West Division.
Why? Well I could just state the obvious and say that a Western team has never made the Grey Cup out of the crossover. It’s true and odds are that it’s bound to happen at some point (unless the CFL expands to 10 teams in the very near future and the rule is done away with), the math still suggests your best bet of winning is staying closer to home. There’s good reasons for this too, Practicing all week in Regina, travelling to Toronto or Ottawa. If you win, doing it all again is a lot to ask. If you’re saying to yourself, “well the Riders already beat Ottawa and Toronto in back-to-back weeks on the road,” well, yes they did. They had the luxury of staying in Ottawa before heading down the 401 to Toronto. That’s a lot less taxing then going back and forth from Regina. At this point, it would be a logistical nightmare to book accommodations, meeting space and practice space for around 100 players, coaches and staff. So, staying out East if they happened to win the East semifinal is basically out of the question.
Joining the East Division for the playoff isn’t as appealing as it once looked either. In recent weeks, both Ottawa and Toronto have started to look like better teams compared to earlier in the year. It’s all in how you finish and not how you start, and both teams will be a challenge against anyone.
Their western opponents suddenly look beatable as well. Winnipeg is dealing with a rash of injuries to important players, including their two most important players in Matt Nichols and Andrew Harris. There’s little doubt in my mind that both will play in two weeks, but how will any injuries affect them? Then there’s Calgary, the Riders have already proven they can win there and while they have the league’s top record, they rarely looked like the juggernaut they were last season. Something has been a little off in different areas at times.
The Riders are holding out a number of important players this week, but they all have history of injury this season. So, I don’t think anyone is thinking about throwing the game to head East. Nor should they. It’s not only against a professional athletes nature, staying in the division is their best shot at playing three more games after this week.
No game in the playoffs is easy, but there’s no point in making it any harder than it needs to be.
