On Friday October 28 the Winnipeg Blue Bombers host the BC Lions in a game that is mostly inconsequential. The Bombers have locked up first place with 14 wins and the Lions have locked up second place with 12 wins heading into this final game of the regular season.
So what are these teams actually playing for?
BC Lions
Unless you have been living under a rock you know that Nathan Rourke is back and will be starting at quarterback for the BC Lions.
Before his injury Nathan Rourke was torching the league throwing for 3,281 yards and 25 touchdowns – all of that accumulated over 9 games! If you believe he could have kept that pace up he would have ended the season with 6,562 yards and 50 touchdowns!
That would have put Nathan Rourke only behind Doug Flutie’s 1991 season where Flutie threw for 6,619 yards! Yes, Nathan Rourke would have been the second on the list for yards in a single season in the whole CFL history. Projected less than 100 yards behind Flutie it is even possible that Rourke would have taken first spot for yards in a single season.
In fact, Rourke was on pace to beat Flutie’s touchdown record in a single season. In 1994 Flutie threw for 48 touchdowns.
Here are the other touchdown leaders that Rourke was on pace to beat:
48 – Doug Flutie (1994)
47 – Doug Flutie (1997)
46 – Khari Jones (2002)
44 – Doug Flutie (1993)
43 – Anthony Calvillo (2008)
43 – Henry Burris (2012)
39 – Henry Burris (2008)
38 – Tobin Rote (1960)
While Rourke will not catch any of those record this year, he certainly needs the playing time heading into the playoffs. But how much playing time? If I am the coach of the BC Lions I am not going to predetermine that. I am going to say that Rourke gets as much playing time as he needs to get it going, and no more.
The last thing the BC Lions want is for Rourke to re-aggravate his injury heading into the Western Semi-Finals. The second last thing that BC wants is for Rourke to head into the playoffs rusty.
"We had a lot of guys went down who provide valuable minutes for us and a lot of guys stepped up, so that was really good to see."#BCLions getting healthy at the right time as final regular season test looms in WPG 🦁
As for the rest of the BC Lions’ team it will be interesting to see who plays and how much they play. They have the Wester Semi-Finals next week, so no time for those that may get injured this game to heal.
The nagging question all season – that fans hope remains a question – is this, “If Zach Collaros gets injured, can Winnipeg win?”
Some will look to last week’s game and conclude that if Collaros is out, the Bombers are done. I see things a little differently. Yes, Dru Brown threw 2 interceptions that were returned for touchdowns…but Leigghio had an uncharacteristically bad game. He missed three field goals that would have been enough give the Bombers the win. I will not go through all those details again. If you are interested in my comments on that situation, you can find them here:
So in my mind the question is still not answered, and I hope I never have to find out.
The Bombers will once again have to handle the task of the rest vs rust scenario and so it will be interesting to see how much playing time each player recieves.
