Lions Game Day: End of the Road for Tired Moose and Tired Leos

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NEXT GAME

Friday

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Edmonton Elks (3-10) vs. BC Lions (4-9)

7:30 pm PT, BC Place Stadium . TV: TSN; Radio: AM 730

Line: Lions -5.5; Climate: 5ºC, roof closed

FIVE THINGS TO SEE

1. Find a focus

When it comes to the playoffs, this game doesn’t make sense. With both teams eliminated from the postseason, the only thing at stake for either of them is that the winner avoid the ignominy of being the last team in the West. But there is still one game to play.

“I think it has a lot of meaning,” said BC coach Rick Campbell. “We went the previous year without playing football, and this year we played a shorter season, so I think everyone appreciates the opportunity to be able to play another game.”

2. Exhausted moose

No CFL team has had to play three games in a week before. With their game rescheduled by COVID against the Toronto Argonauts on Tuesday, the Elks come into Friday’s game with BC with just two days off. The last CFL team to do that was Hamilton (Aug 25/28, 1993). The Elks haven’t even practiced this week to preserve their bodies. But they can dress five more players, just like the Lions, because of the situation.

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3. What about Walker?

Derel Walker accepted a $ 100K payment to return to Edmonton, where he was the most prominent rookie catching passes from Michael Reilly in 2015, after just one season in Toronto. But this season, the 30-year-old has just 44 catches on 88 attempts for 531 yards and no touchdowns; all are CFL professional minima. In Tuesday’s win over Toronto, he had 63 receiving yards on four receptions, but was attacked a whopping 13 times. Six other players caught passes in 14 attempts, and none more than four.

4. The rookie steps forward

Edmonton’s Taylor Cornelius scored some pretty modest numbers in Tuesday’s win over Toronto: 15 of 32 for 160 yards and three interceptions. Still, the rookie center now has more total yards (1,768) than all but one first-year QB in Edmonton over the past 50 years: Ricky Ray (2,991 yards, 2002).

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5. Wave of sacks

Better for all five of BC’s forwards to buckle up for a tough test. In weeks 4-8, Edmonton had only four sacks. In his last five games, he has 16, including five against Argos. Thomas Costigan leads the way with six for Edmonton.

The Lions’ pass protection has improved a lot since 2019, but he’s still surrounded 34 sacks, many of them on slow-developing deep plays.

KEY MATCH

Defense BC vs. James Wilder Jr.

The Lions give up more yards than any team other than Ottawa. They deliver more first downs overall, by rush or pass, than the rest of the CFL. And while there are three other teams that also give up an average of more than 100 yards per game, there have been times when they couldn’t stop the run.

In his first meeting this year, James Wilder Jr. had a season-high 127 yards on 22 carries. And when the game was on the line with 2:43 left and BC trailing by five, Wilder led it eight times in a row, ripping off runs of 29 and 14 yards to exhaust the clock and spice up the game.

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NOTES

The Elks haven’t exactly been racking up rushing totals, but they set a high water mark for the season as a team against Toronto. Wilder (56) and Walter Fletcher (55) helped Edmonton to 163 yards, the season’s best. … The Lions will finish the season with the fewest rushing yards in the CFL, their average of 69.1, 14 yards less than Calgary’s eighth-place and less than half of Montreal’s league-leading total (145.7). But James Butler has been in shape with 209 yards in his last three games, including a season-high 89 yards in the last game. His three-game total was more than the other seven games he played this year combined (179). … The West has been too wild for both teams in recent years. No team has finished better than fourth in the past three years, and this will be the Lions’ fourth straight season below third. The last time BC finished on top of the West was in 2012; 2015 for Edmonton.

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OUR TAKE: Both teams will be happy that 2021 is over. Edmonton has had a disastrous year in their inaugural season as the Elks with QB problems, training problems, problems almost everywhere. They did not win a single home game and were be labeled a “disaster” since August . The Lions slid down the garbage dump with seven straight losses in this one, though their playoff dreams were alive until last week. So … Lions 24, Moose 6 .

Statistics package

BC Elks

20.7 (7th) Points per game 18.6 (8th)

26.2 (7th) Points allowed per game 27.3 (8th)

282.9 (1st) Yards passing per game 264.7 (4th)

69.1 (9th) Rushing yards per game 98.5 (4th)

334.8 (6th) Net yards of offense per game 343.3 (4th)

370.9 (8th) Net yards allowed per game 326.7 (4th)

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