The 111th Grey Cup in Vancouver will cap the Canadian Football League season as the Winnipeg Blue Bombers take on the Toronto Argonauts on Sunday.
For CFL fans, it’s the biggest day of the year. For bettors and prognosticators, it gives us one game to really examine and break down.
We’re 7-3 for the playoffs, so let’s end on a high note.
Sunday, Nov. 11: Toronto Argonauts vs. Winnipeg Blue Bombers — 6:00 p.m. EST
The Blue Bombers are looking to earn dynasty status on Sunday as they face a Toronto team hoping to put a halt to that for the second time in three years.
The biggest story of this game is under centre for the Argonauts as Nick Arbuckle has gotten the nod after Chad Kelly’s leg injury in the East Final. Aside from a meaningless game at the end of the year, Arbuckle hasn’t given us much to work with, only throwing 14 or more passes in three other games, one of which came against Winnipeg.
Arbuckle threw for 118 yards in Toronto’s low-scoring overtime win over the Blue Bombers in Week 8, which seems less than ideal for the team’s chances. Overall, he threw for 386 yards, 2 touchdowns, and 2 interceptions in the three games in which he took a significant number of snaps.
As you can imagine, averaging 128 yards per game impacted the production of Toronto’s big three receivers. Makai Polk, the team’s nominee for Most Outstanding Rookie, had nine receptions on 13 targets for 129 yards and a score in essentially two-and-a-quarter games with Arbuckle. DaVaris Daniels was targetted nine times and caught five of them for 164 yards and a score, while Damonte Coxie was held to just two receptions for 27 yards.
While not awful, none of them had over 50 yards with Arbuckle in at quarterback in a game that mattered. It’s clear that Arbuckle needs to have the best day of his season if the Argos are going to do anything in this Grey Cup. Against arguably the league’s best secondary, that could be tough to overcome on Sunday.
Winnipeg’s defence was the best in the CFL against the pass during the regular season, allowing almost 600 yards less than the next closest team. They haven’t allowed a passer to get 290-plus yards through the air since Labour Day and the job they did last week against the Riders was absolutely phenomenal.
On the other side of the ball, I don’t think the stats tell the full story for Toronto’s defence, specifically against the run. The Argos had the second-best run defence in terms of yards against, but they also faced the second-fewest runs of the season. They simply saw relatively few carries from opposing teams.
Toronto is actually middle of the pack when you look at yards per carry. In the East Final last weekend against Montreal, Walter Fletcher was averaging 8.6 yards per carry, aided by a 23 yard longest run, but head coach Jason Maas only gave him the rock eight times.
That won’t happen against Winnipeg. If Brady Oliveira averages anywhere near 8.6 yards per carry, he’ll get over 20 touches.
Winnipeg played maybe the most complete game of any team this season in the West Final, so there’s certainly some recency bias in this, but anywhere I looked for an edge Toronto may have, the Blue Bombers have a strong counter for it.
We all want a competitive Grey Cup to end the season on a dramatic note. However, we may have to wait until next year to get that. Winnipeg has the potential to dominate on both sides of the ball Sunday night in Vancouver, as reflected with the following picks.
