Kevin Sousa/CFL.ca
Boil it down, if you’d like, to its most basic form and Saturday night’s must-see football between the visiting Winnipeg Blue Bombers and the BC Lions becomes a game centred around answering this question: Who wins the battle between the touchdown-makers and the touchdown-breakers?
The league’s gluttons versus the league’s misers. The Lions’ offence has scored 17 touchdowns in three games, while the Winnipeg defence has given up just three majors in four games.
Let’s toss those two into a cage and see what happens.
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It’s been fireworks all season so far for Nathan Rourke and the BC Lions’ offence. They get a stiff test this week from Winnipeg (Trevor Hagan/CFL.ca)
The Lions’ offence has been pretty well unstoppable in 2022, and Winnipeg’s defence? Actually, it has left a lot to be desired in a number of categories used to measure the level of stoutness of a team’s D. On the other hand, it has performed as well as any in ‘chips-are-down’ situations, again and again this season. So, even if this is not a case of the irresistible force versus the immovable object, it is a case of the irresistible force versus the immovable-when-it-really-counts object.
The BC offence has piled up 511.3 yards of net offence per game so far this season, scoring an unimaginable 45.7 points per game in three wins. They’re averaging 359 yards per game passing and 161.3 yards rushing. They’ve suffered the embarrassment of the two-and-out only six times so far this season. In all of those categories they rank at the very top of the list. And there’s the case of those league-leading 17 touchdowns.
Along with leading the CFL in touchdown denial, the Blue Bombers’ defence has 15 pass knockdowns to its credit, ranking it No. 1 in that category as well. In forcing 11 turnovers in 2022, Winnipeg stands second only to the Saskatchewan defence and its 15 takeaways. They make big plays. And, ultimately, they do not give up points. So far, just an average of 15.8 per game, best in the league.
So, who has the bigger challenge here anyway? You might say “C’mon, it’s the kid versus the champs. Easy.”
Well, maybe.
On one hand you have a young quarterback, Nathan Rourke, about to face what is surely his toughest test of the season. His appearance on the stage as a number one quarterback has been a dazzling one, with lights and music and pyrotechnics and him shouting “TA-DA!” as the smoke began clearing in front of him. But the defences of Edmonton and Toronto provided him with very little challenge. Last week, the Ottawa defence gave him at least a little taste of some pushback. But I’m not sure it reached the level of what Rourke is bound to experience on Saturday night.
Or did it?
The Bombers defence is bending more than we’re used to so far this season, but it hasn’t broken yet, as the team stands at 4-0 going into BC (The Canadian Press)
That’s the wildcard here, I think. That Winnipeg defence and the mood fluctuations it has exhibited so far in 2022. “At times we’ve shown what we’re capable of but at times we’ve kinda been all over the place,” said defensive coordinator Richie Hall, this week.
A look at the Blue Bombers’ defensive numbers will confirm what your eyes have seen and what Hall is saying. That despite the unit’s habit of making explosive plays, this Bombers’ defence has been penetrable over almost all of the field, backing up continually, but then usually turning the tide when faced with the pressure of defending in the red zone or in late-game, precarious lead situations.
Winnipeg is third-worst in the CFL in net yardage given up (370.3) with only Toronto and Edmonton having worse numbers. In pass defence, the Bombers are at the very bottom of the list, surrendering 315.5 yards a game through the air. In giving up eight big plays through the air (30 or more yards), the Winnipeg defence finds itself tied with Hamilton’s for worst in the league in that category.
The run defence has been pretty decent, really, standing third (74.8 yards per game) but it suffered through a battering ram game from Andrew Harris on Monday night, with the former Bomber rushing for 111 yards on 22 carries. Winnipeg’s opponents in the early going — Toronto aside — weren’t running a ton against them, though and for good reason; why drive when you can fly?
Consider, too, that those defensive numbers have come against teams that you would not see as offensive powerhouses at the present time; two games against an Ottawa crew filled with new faces and trying to find a groove you don’t usually get until you climb the steep learning curve of familiarity. One against the stuck-in-the-mud Hamilton Ticats. And then the Argos, whose offence somehow went from easy pickings to difficult conundrum within two quarters, on Monday night.
So there’s the rub, I think. An offensive juggernaut that hasn’t faced an awful lot of resistance will meet a proven defence that has flashed the leather on occasion, but one that also hasn’t really provided drought conditions (yardage-wise, that is) against struggling offences, never mind a grooving one.
Can the Bombers’ defence shrug off early season fluctuations against an explosive crew that seems to be able to move the ball whenever it damn well pleases? Or will it allow Nathan Rourke to dine out all the way down the field, only to turn touchdown drives into field goal attempts or turnovers? Can the Lions’ offence continue to tear it up against a talented, veteran crew that is bound and determined to show that they are the real kings of the jungle?
In the end, maybe we see what we’d expect to, based on the statistics we see. Maybe Rourke and the Lions move the ball with the smooth confidence we’ve seen so far and maybe the Bombers allow it.
The real intrigue comes in those moments where these two clash where they are each most prosperous. And we see whether we get touchdown-making or touchdown-breaking.
