After weeks of ifs, ands or buts, there is just one unknown left regarding the CFL playoffs.
Who’s going to finish first in the West Division, the Calgary Stampeders or the Saskatchewan Roughriders?
That question will be answered Saturday, when the Stampeders visit the B.C. Lions in the final game of the 2018 regular season.
If the Stampeders win or tie, they’ll finish atop the division. They would play host to the Western Final on Nov. 18 and the Roughriders would entertain the Winnipeg Blue Bombers in the Western Semi-Final on Nov. 11.
If the Lions beat Calgary, the Roughriders and Stampeders will finish in a tie for first at 12-6-0, but Saskatchewan will place first based on its victory over Calgary in the teams’ season series.
In that scenario, the Stampeders would entertain the Bombers in the Western Semi-Final on Nov. 11, with the winner to visit the Roughriders on Nov. 18.
“There’s nothing better than playing at home in front of this crowd…”
“I feel like we’re in a very good position right now,” Saskatchewan defensive back Ed Gainey said after Saturday’s 35-16 victory over the visiting Lions. “The football gods are on our side.
“I’m just going to kick back and watch (the Stampeders-Lions game) and if we get (first place), we get it. If we don’t, then we don’t. At the end of the day, we’ve still got to produce and be the best team on the football field.”
Three weeks ago, there were 54 possible playoff permutations in the West Division. Now there are just two.
We know now that the Edmonton Eskimos will finish fifth in the West and will miss the playoffs. They were eliminated when the Bombers beat the Stampeders 29-21 on Friday.
The Lions will finish fourth in the West, no matter what they do against the Stampeders on Saturday.
Because B.C. will have a better record than the third-place finisher in the East Division, the Lions will cross over and will face the Hamilton Tiger-Cats in the Eastern Semi-Final on Nov. 11.
Hamilton’s second-place finish in the East was guaranteed when it lost 30-13 to the Ottawa Redblacks on Saturday. Ottawa will finish first in that division and will stage the Eastern Final on Nov. 18.
The Bombers are locked in as the third-place team in the West, regardless of what they do in their regular-season finale against the Eskimos on Saturday.
Winnipeg clinched third in the West with its victory over Calgary on Friday and the Lions’ loss to the Roughriders on Saturday. The Bombers will be the visiting team in the Western Semi-Final on Nov. 11.
All that’s left to decide is which team — Calgary or Saskatchewan — will play host to the Bombers in that game.
The Roughriders have a bye in the final week of the regular season, but they secured a home playoff game Saturday with their victory over B.C. It’s the first time since 2013 that Saskatchewan will stage a home playoff game.
“There’s nothing better than playing at home in front of this crowd,” Gainey said. “We’ve got one of the biggest fan bases in the league, so it’s always fun giving them what they want.”
Saskatchewan fans wouldn’t mind a Grey Cup title, either. If the Lions beat Calgary on Saturday, the Roughriders will be in the Western Final — meaning they would be just one win away from an appearance in the Grey Cup game Nov. 25 in Edmonton.
“If we are, we are,” said Saskatchewan head coach-GM Chris Jones, whose team lost to the Toronto Argonauts in the Eastern Final in 2017. “We were there last year in the finals. We’ve got to go finish.
“Whatever game we play in — whether it’s the (division) semifinal or the final — we don’t have a whole lot of control over that right now. Whichever game it is, we’ve got to show up and play four quarters of football.”
