CFL 2024 Postseason: Review of the Eastern & Western Divisional Finals

       

Grey Cup/Coupe Grey

CFL Division Finals

The Grey Cup will be a rematch of the one we had two years ago. The Winnipeg Blue Bombers reached their fifth consecutive Grey Cup by sweeping aside the Saskatchewan Roughriders. Meanwhile, the Argos beat the Alouettes. 

Let's take a closer look: 

Eastern Division Final Review:

Toronto Argonauts 30, Montréal Alouettes 28

The Toronto Argonauts are going to the Grey Cup. They managed that by defeating the defending champion Alouettes in Montréal, exacting revenge on their own home loss to the Alouettes in last year's Eastern Division Final.

As it turns out, turnovers were numerous in the beginning of the game. Really, it seemed like this was going on right at the start. Montréal got an early interception after the defense was able to put quite a bit of pressure on Toronto. Yet they did not capitalize, and they had turnovers of their own soon enough. 

To be sure, if felt as if the Alouettes, who were the defending champions and raced out to an incredibly hot start this season, were losing momentum as the season wore on. That seemed particularly true against the Argos, which I pointed out in the preview. It seemed like Toronto clearly got the better of Montréal in the final two regular season meetings, and now the postseason game.

The Alouettes proved tough and opportunistic on defense at times, although they clearly also had some slips. In the end, they just did not have enough to get over the slight advantage that the Argos had seemingly throughout the game.

My pick: Inaccurate

CFL 2024 Recap: Toronto @ Montreal -  Eastern Final

Western Division Final Review:

Winnipeg Blue Bombers 38, Saskatchewan Roughriders 22

This one was not really as close as the final score suggests it was. If you look at the final score, it makes it seem like this was a decent shootout, with the Blue Bombers perhaps winning it in the end. 

In fact, Winnipeg had this game well in hand almost throughout. Indeed, they pretty well dominated this game almost from the first, and right to the end. 

Saskatchewan looked overwhelmed at times, and just had no answers for what the Blue Bombers were able to do, consistently, all game long. Really, this is one of those times where it felt like one team's superior experience was clearly in play and provided a pretty big advantage over the team with the clearly less valuable experience.

Winnipeg was able to produce plenty of points and looked like they were able to do pretty much what they wanted throughout. The Roughriders were able to get some points and make somewhat of a game of it. But they never actually were able to get back in the game once they fell behind. The Blue Bombers were bound for victory, and it was never really in much doubt.

So the Blue Bombers, incredibly, reach the Grey Cup for a fifth time, which puts them in truly elite category, historically speaking. Few teams have qualified for as many consecutive Grey Cups, with only one franchise (the Edmonton Eskimos, from 1977 to 1982) made it six straight times. They will get another crack at the Toronto Argonauts, the team that upset them two years ago.

My pick: Accurate

CFL 2024 Recap: Saskatchewan @ Winnipeg - Western Final