Sure, college football and the NFL are in full swing, but let's not forget about the CFL, whose regular season is nearing its end, with playoff intrigue aplenty. Plus, with handle (Vegas-speak for money and amount of bets) so much greater on college football and the NFL, and therefore more of the bookmakers resources and research going to setting the right lines for those games, maybe there's a betting spot or two we can exploit.
First, a word about the CFL playoff format for the uninitiated. In all, there are nine CFL teams — five in the Western Division, four in the Eastern Division.
The champions of each division get a bye to the division final (think NFL conference championship games). The two runners-up in each division play a semifinal round to face the division champ in the division semifinal (think NFL divisional round games).
But! The third place team in either division (more likely in the East, because there are only four teams, and also they've been cyclically the worst division the last few years) might really suck! Thus, to try to prevent a team with a record of, say, 4-14 making the playoffs on the basis of beating out a 2-16 team, the CFL has a longstanding rule in place which states that if the fourth-best team in either division has a better record (has to be outright better — no tiebreakers) than the other division's third-best team, then that fourth-place team gets in the playoffs instead.
They call this the "crossover" rule because it means a team is "crossing over" to the other division for the playoffs. They are automatically the road team in the divisional semifinal, even if they have a better record than the second place, non-crossover host.
Got that? Good, because it's very much in play this year.
Friday, 7:30 EDT: Saskatchewan (6-9, 4th place West) at Hamilton (4-10, 3rd place East)
Here we have a literal case of the would-be crossover team visiting the team that they would cross over and replace in the playoffs if the season ended today. So, this game is hugely important for both teams. Hamilton will climb within half a game of Saskatchewan if they win, and they hold that same-record tiebreaker I mentioned, whereas Saskatchewan can take a 2.5-game lead over Hamilton with three weeks left with a win — in other words, pretty much lock it up.
Both of these teams are slumping. Saskatchewan is 2-8 in their last 10, which is worst in the CFL. Hamilton has lost four of their last five (strangely, their only win in that span was a 17-point victory over Winnipeg, the consensus best team in the CFL).
Two slumping teams playing each other is harder to predict than two surging teams playing each other, which is hard in its own right. But I do believe in the general better-ness of Saskatchewan, and in particular, at the quarterback spot. Cody Fajardo, who led the CFL in passing the last full season it was played (2019), is better than the Hamilton offering (Dane Evans). Hamilton is a 2-point favorite, but I'll be taking the Roughriders on the moneyline (+130 at Bovada).
Saturday, 2 EDT: British Columbia (10-4, 2nd place West) at Toronto (8-6, 1st place East)
The BC Lions' success this year has been largely thanks to quarterback Nathan Rourke. This was his first full year as a starter. In Week 2, he set a CFL record for most passing yards by a Canadian-born signal caller in a game with 436 yards. In Week 10, he broke his own record by throwing for 477 yards (he went 34-for-37 on the game for a 91.9% completion percentage, which is also a single-game CFL record, Canadian or not). The next week, he broke his own yardage record again — 488 yards against the Calgary Stampeders.
In other words: Rourke is an absolute breakout superstar, and a Canadian to boot, and it's no exaggeration to say he may wind up as one of the most important players in CFL history if the NFL ignores him.
A pity, then, that he suffered a serious foot injury in Week 12 and has not yet returned. The Lions are 2-3 in his absence.
Their replacement QB is Vernon Adams, Jr., who you might remember from his Oregon Duck days. He's spent the last few years as Montreal's starting QB. In that capacity, he ended a Alouette playoff drought, but was inconsistent and lost his job earlier this year.
The sportsbooks never seem to pick up on his inconsistency, however, and they give BC more credit than they should following a good Adams game, as they have done this week, installing them as just 1-point underdogs after he played well in beating Ottawa last week.
Adams' inconsistency, more specifically, runs hot/cold from week to week, and it's hard to see him breaking that streak on the road against a team that is trying to hold off Montreal for the division lead. Toronto -1 is my favorite bet of the week.
Saturday, 5 EDT: Edmonton (4-11, 5th place West) at Winnipeg (13-2, 1st place West)
Edmonton technically isn't eliminated from playoff consideration, but they pretty much are. Winnipeg hasn't technically sewn up the Western Division, but they pretty much have. Not a lot to play for in this game.
Edmonton's not playing too terribly. Two weeks ago they won at Saskatchewan, and they were poised to beat Montreal last week before they were sunk by a pick-six deep in Montreal territory (one of several blown opportunities in a game they lost by 7). Winnipeg's two losses were outta nowhere: Montreal at home and by 17 to Hamilton, mentioned earlier. Neither of those teams have winning records. I think -13 for Winnipeg is a touch too high, I'll be taking Edmonton against that line.
Monday, 1 EDT: Ottawa (3-12, 4th place East) at Montreal (7-7, 2nd place East)
What? A Monday day game? That's right! It's a holiday up North — Canadian Thanksgiving.
Ottawa just fired their coach, and that always makes handicapping their first game afterwards hard. Do the players feel distraught, or emancipated? One might say Montreal is the pick being the ostensibly better team, at home, trying to clinch a playoff berth and keep pace with Toronto for the division, but I'm a Montreal fan, and I can tell you the Alouettes can and often do lay down a clunker when no one's expecting it. Already this season, they've lost at home to Ottawa (just about a month ago) and to Edmonton, the two worst teams, record-wise, in the CFL.
So I'd actually be inclined to back the REDBLACKS (yes, that's Ottawa's nickname; yes, it's supposed to be all-caps; yes, that's stupid) in this spot at +7, but Montreal has William Stanback coming back from an injury he suffered in Week 1. Stanback is the reigning CFL rushing leader and was last year's East Most Outstanding Player. So I'm just going to stay away from this one.
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