Landry: Week 9 could be season-defining for some teams

Don Landry

CFL.ca

@CFLLandry

Week 9 of the CFL season is an intriguing one. Kind of a simmering gumbo of all kinds of ingredients.

The main ingredient is mid-season football, its pivotal properties forming the base of a nice, hearty stock. Add a little despair, some resolution, a pinch of second-guessing offset by hopefulness and maybe even a dash of prayer.

Week 9 has some spice to it.

Three games that have teams – to varying degrees – with some doubt around them from either within or without. These matchups are sure to tell us a little more about the direction each is heading.

Travis Lulay and the Lions will look to defeat the Edmonton Eskimos this weekend (CFL.ca)

Nowhere are the questions louder, the doubts larger, than in Saturday night’s game in Ottawa, where the REDBLACKS and Montreal Alouettes each try to put their calamitous, Week 8 disasters behind them. The evening previous, the Hamilton Ticats and Winnipeg Blue Bombers each try to prove that they are made of stern enough stuff, after strutting it against sub-par opposition in the lead up to this game. Thursday night, in Vancouver, the BC Lions attempt to holster the guns that have been guilty of targeting their own feet, while the Edmonton Eskimos – perhaps the team with the least on the line in Week 9 – try to find a consistent 60 minutes.

All in all, this is one fascinating trio of games, of particular, crucial importance to at least five and perhaps all six of the combatants.

“Gotta clean it up,” was the succinct summation of Lions’ quarterback Travis Lulay, earlier this week, as his team prepped to host the Eskimos on Thursday night. “You can live with it when a team just beats you, right? If you play whole game and they out execute you, so be it. But when you have opportunities… when you mess up, when you have penalties, little missed assignment things… obviously you can cut that stuff out.”

With a record of 2-4 the Lions need – really need – this one. With Lulay back from injury and finding his groove and with an offensive line that is starting to get notice from around the league for all the right reasons, the time is ripe for the Leos to come up with a signature win, one that shows them to be crisp, complete, and always in a forward gear.

Last week, they hung with the league’s cream, the Calgary Stampeders, until a failed gamble on third-and-goal, and an objectionable conduct penalty that kept a Calgary touchdown drive alive, helped do them in.

The Eskimos have their own tribulations, even if they have won three in a row to secure second place in the West with a record of 5-2. Ask quarterback Mike Reilly and he’ll tell you; his team is feeling good, but not THAT good.

“It’s positive for sure but it’s also not content. We now we got a long way to go. We know that there’s been mistakes in all three of those games,” he told a media scrum after practice.

Penalties have been a problem for the Eskimos for most of the season, although they did take steps towards cleaning up their act against Saskatchewan last week. Another sore spot for the Eskies has been a series of slow starts for the offence, a first quarter sputtering that they’d like to stop experiencing, Reilly most of all.

“It’s more about just tryin’ to make sure my wideouts don’t get frustrated,” Reilly said, umm, wryly.

The Bombers and Ticats meet for the second and final time on Friday night (Adam Gagnon/CFL.ca)

The Winnipeg Blue Bombers play host to Hamilton on Friday night, in a game that sees a couple of teams looking to prove that their recent turnarounds were not merely fueled by wins over extremely beatable opponents.

For the Bombers, that means taking two consecutive victories over the Toronto Argonauts – and we’re talking about the pre-comeback Argos here, a team that had been struggling mightily and put up little resistance – and parlaying it into something more impressive; a win over the team that spanked them good during Week 3, the Hamilton Ticats.

“I still notice a good football team,” said Winnipeg Coach Mike O’Shea, when asked about a Ticats’ club that had gone on to lose three in a row after the Week 3 win, before routing the Alouettes last week. “I don’t really take a look on that other side and say ‘hey they’re not the same.’ They got a lot of talent across the board and they added some from the last time we played ‘em.”

So, it’ll be a challenge for O’Shea’s side, especially if the ‘Cats now more closely resemble the early season edition and not the more recent one; the one that seemed increasingly incapable of scoring touchdowns until they played the basement-dwelling Als a week ago.

And therein lies the important question for the Ticats in this game.

Just who are they? Against what would seem a much tougher opponent than Montreal, an impressive showing by Hamilton on Friday would say a lot, perhaps signalling a return to contending status.

“Winnipeg’s not the same team we beat (in Week 3),” said Hamilton Head Coach June Jones, leery of a Bombers team that is pretty well at fully healthy status. “They’re better, their quarterback is back (Chris Streveler was Winnipeg’s pivot during the early season loss, and Matt Nichols is back at the helm now).

Can Trevor Harris lead the REDBLACKS to a win over the Alouettes? (The Canadian Press)

Which brings us to Saturday night’s affair in Ottawa, between two teams that must really be questioning their competitive abilities, needing a turnaround, pronto. The two teams that suffered blisteringly awful losses during Week 8, the REDBLACKS and Alouettes.

Both of them fell uncontrollably, excruciatingly, into their darkest timelines, and both are desperate to re-emerge into the light.

“Very disappointing,” said Ottawa Head Coach Rick Campbell, of Toronto’s incredible comeback to beat the REDBLACKS, 42-41, after trailing by a score of 38-14, with less than five minutes left in the third quarter. “Tough one to get over.”

But get over it they must. Can they?

What seemed, for most of the night, like a surefire Ottawa win, would have placed the East firmly in control of the REDBLACKS, who had been looking like they were maybe, just maybe, coalescing into the team to beat in the division.

They’ll take on a Montreal team that was humiliated at home by Hamilton, by a score of 50-11, after falling behind by three majors before the first quarter was barely half complete.

For the Alouettes, and their quarterback Johnny Manziel, there really is nowhere to go but up, right? A good showing in Ottawa is imperative, as another disaster would only cement the feelings left over from the first. For the REDBLACKS, you have to think that failure is not an option, as a loss to the Als on the heels of the Toronto wreckage would have probable devastating effects on the team’s psyche for weeks to come.

This game, more than any other, adds the salt to our mid-season CFL gumbo.

Six teams. Varying degrees of having something to prove, on a scale of”concerned” to “desperate.”

The lid is dancing on the pot. It’s ready. Week 9 is gonna be a tasty one.

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