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At the start of the year it looked like this Week 21 match-up had the potential to be a showdown for first in the West. Instead it will be an anti-climactic glorified preseason game. The Elks don’t care and will be resting Fajardo and likely a few other key guys. We kinda care but kinda don’t.
I think the team would prefer to win and stay West. But we are going on the road either way and there is no “easy” path to the Grey Cup. So in a season where we almost ran out of Canadians becauee we had so many injuries, ensuring players are rested and healthy takes precedence over winning. That said, I think we can all agree that after that dreadful performance against the Als we can’t just rest everyone and hope to magically turn it on come playoffs.
I would treat this like a preseason
game give the starters a quarter or more as they need all the reps they can
get. Then get anyone important out of there and let the back-ups handle the
back half. If I were handling things I would give Harris a quarter, Coan the 2nd
and 3rd and then let Schager play to close out. Give Tommy the night off. The team is erring on the side of caution and just resting Harris. I think that is the safe decision as any remote chance of a playoff run rests on him but I still think this offense needs some more reps.
Defensively I am very excited that Oladipo is back at practice. He won’t magically cure all that’s wrong with the D but despite playing just 6 games he is 2nd on the team in INTs and 5th in sacks. He makes plays and we are desperately short on that this season. Much like the offense needs reps, our secondary needs time together. They just never appear to all be on the same page, unless that page is leave people wide open. He’s a leader so I doubt he rests but Thurman is a guy I’d look to rest on D.
In a game featuring back-ups anything
can happen. So hard to predict a winner. But given that our starters could not
handle Montreal’s back-ups last week, I
am going to make the crazy inference that our back-ups may struggle in this one.
I think Powell is a good QB.
For the hell of it I’ll say we once again get Blanchard-ed. We will play well but lose in the end on another stupid long FG
2 comments:
I'm looking @ Coan. Trevor will play till no one wants him. He has publicly stated for years he'd like to play till he's 45. Well...........outside of Damon Allen who had a career high 5,000 yd season @ 42 after 3 declining seasons, no QB's to my knowledge had success beyond 40. Calvillo had two 5,000 yr seasons @ 39 & 40 before dropping off the map the next year. I expect they will bring Trevor back one more time. Or maybe Zach comes over. He's already stated he intends to play in '27... but behind that OL??? Other than Broxton, there's nobody there.
So....Coan. He's been here 3 years. According to my brother in Edmonton, an Elk fan, expect to see the D w/o Ross, Ford, Franklin, Dublanko & Anderson. They've only played 1 game all season with their starting 5 OL & they're sitting Beard, O'Donnell & Murray. Fajardo, Mack, Leake & Rankin are also out, so I'm told.
This IMO is a trial run for Coan to see if there is any reason to invest more time in him or get someone else in training shoes for when Harris retires. I believe '27 will be Harris' last year.
I should think the Riders will win this one & stay in the West.
SK/Edm - If it's Coan vs Powell, I'll take Powell.
Other games
Mtl/Tor - Argos sit 15 players. Als win.
Wpg/BC -Pretty much whole offence on BC sideline. Bombers back into playoffs.
Ott/Ham - Why not Ottawa? REDBLACKS go streaking.
Honestly, let's get the formalities out of the way. IMO, Wpg or Calgary?? Likely one more game.
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