On the road again.
The Edmonton Eskimos kick off their four-game October road trip.
A win against the Bombers Friday night would not only mean an important win against a division rival, but also as a tiebreaker in the season series.
During Winnipeg’s recent seven-game win streak, the Bombers built an identity as a team with a ball-hawking defence that’s more than capable of winning the turnovers battle.
Winnipeg leads the league in interceptions and forced fumbles. On the other side of the ball, former Eskimos quarterback Matt Nichols has protected the ball well, surrendering his first interception in eight starts during last week’s loss in Calgary.
That’s why the players and coaches are terming this contest a ball security battle and are more than aware of the stakes.
“We can compete with any team in this league and that (last week’s win over B.C.) was an amazing step,” said receiver Adarius Bowman, a CFL Player of the Month for September. “In terms of this week, Winnipeg is a great team. They’ve been on a great run.
“Their strength is their defence. Having the weapons we have on offence, it’s going to be a great game. If you look at their games, it was all takeaways. Their defence does a good job. If you make mistakes, they capitalize. The key to the game is our offence. Stay on the field and don’t give them the ball.”
Winnipeg started their win streak with a Week 6 road win over the Eskimos. Now, quarterback Mike Reilly and company would like to return the favour.
“They’ve been playing really good football the last two months,” said Reilly. “They’re opportunistic. If you make a mistake, they force a lot of turnovers. They give their offence a short field to work with. They try to flip the momentum of the game and they do a nice job of it. The way you counteract that is you’re smart with the football. You don’t give them those chances. If you’re able to eliminate it, that makes it much more difficult for them.
“It’s a big game for both teams.”
Head coach Jason Maas can forsee this game being more of a defensive struggle as his defence is coming off a solid performance.
“They started out a bit slower than they imagined, but they’ve caught fire,” said Maas. “They’ve caught fire for a reason. They play well together. They’ve created a massive amount of turnovers..
“You don’t create as many turnovers as they have without quality players and good schemes. They’ve been playing well together.”
No question, turnovers are expected to be one of the keys to watch.
“Bottom-line is we want to protect the ball and we’ve thought about it all week,” said Maas. “This is going to come down to a ball-security game for sure. We’ve got to come out on the positive end of it. I’d like to see us create more turnovers, for sure, than we give up to see a positive end against them because they have had a lot of great fortune with that being on their side.
“Matt doesn’t turn the ball over very much, so we can’t expect a lot of them. When he does throw one to us, we’ve got to be ready to get it. Same as with anybody carrying the ball. We’ve got to be ready to strip, rip and get the ball. On our side, we have to do a great job with ball security.”
Defensively, the Eskimos are primed to match Winnipeg’s production. Take care of this game and the season will take care of itself.
“We have to go out and play Eskimos football,” said defensive lineman Odell Willis. “We don’t have to do anything different. We want to win the game regardless of what’s on the line. At the end of the week, we want to be 1-0. We don’t care about the season series, rivalry or anything else and the rest will take care of itself.”