Sportsinteraction

Posted at 10:00 AM EST. Odds are subject to change.

Montreal -8½ -110 over Winnipeg

3:00 PM EST. A Grey Cup berth on the line, and the best team in the Canadian Football League is rested, healthy and playing at home, where it has not lost all season. Montreal went 14 and 4, took the bye week that first place buys, and now gets a 9 and 9 crossover team that had to survive a street fight in Toronto just to get on the plane. The Alouettes were perfect at Molson Stadium this year, nine up and nine down, and they do not win squeakers in that building. They averaged 39.2 points a game at home and ran visitors out of the place by wide double digit margins all autumn. This is what the whole season was building toward, and Winnipeg is the toll booth.

The offence is a machine and it starts with the league's best player. Davis Alexander, the Most Outstanding Player, finished with a 122.7 quarterback rating, the third best single season mark in CFL history, and he has already taken this exact defence apart in this exact building: 440 yards and four touchdowns in the October meeting at Molson, part of 697 yards with five scores and not one interception against Winnipeg this season. Beside him is Tyson Philpot, the Most Outstanding Canadian, who hung 11 catches and 207 yards on the Bombers that day. Zoom out and the numbers stay silly. Montreal leads the league at 34.7 points a game and 420.9 net yards, owns the most big plays in the CFL, the best second down conversion rate, the highest touchdown drive percentage, and the fewest turnovers of anyone. They protect the ball, they finish drives, and they do it behind a line that allowed the fewest sacks in the league, 19 all season, so Alexander will be standing back there dealing like a man with all day.

Now look at what Winnipeg is bringing to the toughest road game in the country. The Bombers do not know who their quarterback is. Zach Collaros is questionable with busted ribs, he missed the semifinal, he did not practice on Thursday, and the decision is being dragged to game day. If it is Dru Brown again, it is a backup who threw two interceptions last week while his team turned the ball over four times and still only escaped Toronto by three. Whoever takes the snaps works behind an offensive line that surrendered a league high 42 sacks this season, and waiting for them is the heaviest blitz in the CFL. Montreal sends extra rushers on 44.7 percent of snaps, nobody else is close, and the last time these teams met at Molson the Als got pressure on half of Winnipeg's plays. Brady Oliveira, the league's rushing leader, is questionable too, limited all week on a bad ankle, and the Bombers' own playoff history says the quiet part out loud: when Oliveira does not get to 20 carries, Winnipeg does not win these games. Montreal's plus 21 turnover margin against Winnipeg's minus 2 is the last word. Short fields, extra possessions, a home crowd smelling a Grey Cup trip

Sportsinteraction

Play: