3DownNation CFL best bets: Division Finals

Photo courtesy: Montreal Alouettes

We are down to the CFL’s version of the Final Four with the Division Finals this weekend.

We saw a couple of interesting games last weekend, and now the division winners get their say in Montreal and Edmonton. To paraphrase the cinematic masterpiece “The Waterboy,” it is playoff time, and these teams can’t hold anything back.

But that goes for us too. Our pals at Bet99 are boosting a same-game parlay for each of the division final matchups. Let’s go through each leg of those parlays, and I’ll explain why I made those selections this week.

Winnipeg Blue Bombers at Montreal Alouettes — Saturday, November 7 at 3:00 p.m. ET

The Winnipeg Blue Bombers survived the East Semi-Final against Toronto, setting up a date with the Montreal Alouettes. We have a three-leg same-game parlay for this one, with the focus on some Canadian content.

You can’t talk about this game, or any Alouettes game, without talking about Tyson Philpot. The former Calgary Dino was named the CFL’s Most Outstanding Canadian for the 2026 season after a record-breaking year.

He’ll be going up against a Bombers defence that finished with the fewest passing yards allowed this year. Generally, that would mean we are avoiding any kind of big play here, but Philpot didn’t care about that matchup, so we won’t either. Philpot averaged 187 yards in two meetings with Winnipeg this season. In Week 18, Philpot had his biggest performance of the year against the Bombers, going for 207 yards on 11 receptions.

Montreal has taken time to get everyone rested and ready to go, and I’d expect Philpot to go off in another big playoff game.

But Montreal isn’t the only team in this game with a high-level Canadian player. Brady Oliveira is a two-time winner of the M.O.C. honour, and he stepped up for the Bombers in the East Semi-Final last weekend.

Unlike Philpot, Oliveira has had mixed results in this matchup this year. In Week 13, the Bombers back went off for 16 carries and 106 yards, adding a TD for good measure. But in Week 18, Oliveira was held to just 44 yards on nine carries.

Last week in the East Semi-Final, Oliveira was back to his normal self, rushing for 95 yards on 20 carries, as he kept Winnipeg’s offence above water before their late-game comeback. I think we’ll see more of that Oliveira than the one that struggled late in the year.

With these two players featured, I believe there is going to be a lot of points put up in this game. Montreal was second in the CFL in points per game, with 13 of their 18 games this season finishing over 55 points.

The one hiccup with an overplay might be the Winnipeg offence that put up the third-fewest points this year. But their defence was in the bottom half of the league in points allowed per game, so Montreal could get us close to the total just on their own. To stick with the Canadian theme, we celebrate the final three games of the uniquely Canadian 55-yard line by using 54.5 as the total.

B.C. Lions at Edmonton Elks — Saturday, November 7 at 6:30 p.m. ET

The surprise of the season was easily the Edmonton Elks, who are back in the West Final for the first time since 2017. They take on the B.C. Lions who were the CFL’s hottest team to close the season out.

In the East Final, our focus was on the offence. But we all know that defence wins championships. For the West Final, we’re going to look at that side of the ball for our SGP.

Up first, we have Edmonton’s pass defence against Nathan Rourke. Going against one of the best QBs in the CFL is a tall task, but it is one that I think the Elks will be up for. Edmonton held QBs to under 270 yards in seven of their last nine games. One of those games was Week 21 against Winnipeg, who had everything to play for in that game, while Edmonton had already wrapped up the top spot in the West by that point.

In the one matchup that Rourke had against this defence, he did pretty well, throwing for 320 yards, a TD, and one interception. But this defence has gotten better as the year has gone on, so I feel they’ll be able to slow him down just enough in this game.

As for the Lions, they were the best defence against the run in the CFL this year, and one of their big moments came early. Justin Rankin was lighting up the CFL with three straight 100-yard performances. Then, in Week 5, he ran into the Lions (literally) and was completely shut down for 19 yards on seven carries. Rankin bounced back with 107 yards on just 14 touches against Ottawa the following week, before getting shut down again by the Lions to the tune of nine yards on seven carries. Those are easily his two worst games of the year from a yards-per-carry standpoint.

Now that we are into playoff time, I don’t see the Lions’ run defence slowing down.

Much like the East Final SGP, you can probably guess where we are going for the final leg. The offensive players in this game get a lot of the headlines, but the defences have stepped up all season long. No defence allowed fewer points than Edmonton’s this year, while B.C. had the second-best net defence in the CFL. The team they trailed, obviously, was Edmonton.

Commonwealth Stadium has been home to many playoff battles over the years. Now that the West Final is back in the Alberta capital, it is only fitting that we get another defensive slugfest to decide the final combatant in the Grey Cup.