CFL 2024 Postseason: Eastern & Western Divisional Finals Preview

      

Grey Cup/Coupe Grey

CFL Division Finals

The Montréal Alouettes and Winnipeg Blue Bombers met last year in the Grey Cup.

This year, they will both host the Eastern and Western Division Finals, respectively. The road to the Grey Cup out West goes through Winnipeg, while in the East, it goes through Montréal, the home of the defending champions.

Let's take a look at the CFL Division Finals games to be played later today:

Eastern Division Final Preview:

Toronto Argonauts at Montréal Alouettes

Have to do this quickly, since I forgot to post any kind of a preview until now. I am writing this with a couple of hours and change to go before the first Division Final, which will take place in Montréal.

The Alouettes are the defending champions, and they have home field advantage for this one. However, Toronto looked pretty solid last weekend, scoring an avalanche of points that buried the Renegades, and any hopes that they had.

Now, I do not believe that the Argos will score as many points. However, they are capable of pulling off an upset. It seemed to me that they played the Alouettes particularly well in the meetings this season, taking the last two of the three meetings. They know that they can beat the champs if they play at their best.

However, the Alouettes should be well rested, and home field advantage should help. Their defense will challenge Toronto far more than Ottawa managed to do last weekend.

Ultimately, this game feels like it could go either way. I will give the nod narrowly to the hometown team and defending champs, although this one is such a close call, that it feels as if this really could go either way.

My pick: Montréal

Western Division Final:

Saskatchewan Roughriders at Winnipeg Blue Bombers

This will be a battle between arguably the two hottest teams in the league right now. At least they seemed to be in the second half of the season.

Saskatchewan is probably riding high, having just earned a playoff win last week over British Columbia. In fact, that makes five wins in a row overall for the Roughriders.

Indeed, you have to go all the way back to early September for the last time that Saskatchewan tasted defeat. But they lost two in a row on consecutive weekends to...you guessed it, the Winnipeg Blue Bombers.

If there is one team hotter than Saskatchewan, it would be this Winnipeg squad. They have won nine of their last ten games overall. True, the Roughriders won an early season meeting between these two teams, but that was before the Blue Bombers had recovered from the disastrous start to this season and had their late season resurgence.

Probably it would seem a bit too safe to pick the Blue Bombers in this one. They are, after all, the team that has reached four straight Grey Cups, and are knocking on the door of reaching even more elite territory with a fifth straight berth should they win this one. They have far more experience than does Saskatchewan, have home field advantage, and a ton of momentum. All of that figure to work in their favor, and that makes it very difficult to pick against them.

My pick: Winnipeg