The Edmonton Eskimos (0-3) will visit the Winnipeg Blue Bombers (1-2) tonight at 6:30PM EST. The Eskimos are still looking for their first win of the season and they won’t have a much better shot at getting the win then they do tonight. The Blue Bombers have been struggling a bit as well this season and they’ll also be missing starting QB Buck Pierce.

If Edmonton loses again tonight and go 0-4, it’d be the first time that they’ve had such a bad starting record since 1965. The past two weeks the Eskimos have come close to winning, but they’ve blown two 4th quarter leads the past two weeks. Last week they blew a 7-point lead in the 4th quarter and ended up losing to the Roughriders 24-20. The previous week the Eskimos blew a 5-point lead heading into the 4th quarter and lost by 10 to the Alouettes.

In order for Edmonton to have a chance at winning tonight they need to have a good game from their QB Ricky Ray. Ricky has not had a great start to the season and has only thrown for 1 TD and 2 INT’s on the year. A lot of the problems for Ray have been the fact that his receivers haven’t been hanging onto the ball. The one bright spot on the Edmonton offence is the fact that they are ranked third right now in passing yards.

The Blue Bombers started the season with a win over Hamilton, but have since lost two games in a row against the Argonauts and Tiger-Cats. If they want to get back on track then they’ll need to do it this week with back-up QB Steven Jyles. Pierce went down with a knee injury last week and he won’t be ready to play this week. Jyles has already seen minimal action this season and did alright by going 9-13 for 86 yards and 1 TD.

CFL Betting Lines (From Sportsbook.com)

Edmonton Eskimos vs. Winnipeg Blue Bombers (No Spread)
Edmonton Eskimos vs. Winnipeg Blue Bombers O/U 54 Points

Predictions

If you take a look at the stats you would think that the Blue Bombers would be slight favourites this week. They lead most of the match-up stats including points scored per game and yards gained per game. The only reason why Winnipeg isn’t favoured this week is because they’ll be playing with back-up QB Jyles. Pierce has been playing great all season and it still didn’t help them win their games. The Blue Bombers defence has been costing them a bit thus far, as they’ve given up more points (93) then any other team up to this point in the season.

With the Blue Bombers giving up more points then any other team this season the over definitely looks good. Winnipeg has also scored 90 points in three weeks, which is really good considering they only scored 7 points last week. Edmonton has only scored 53 points all season, but that’s mainly due to the fact they haven’t scored in the 4th quarter at all this season. The Eskimos will need to put up some points in the 4th quarter this week in order to secure a victory in my opinion. In the last six Winnipeg games they’ve gone over the total 5 times, but if you look at the last six meetings between these two teams then the under is 5-1. With a back-up QB in for the Blue Bombers and the Eskimos having trouble scoring this season, I’m going to go with the under.

My Pick – Edmonton Eskimos & Under 54 Points