HAMILTON \u2014 The Edmonton Elks head east to face the Hamilton Tiger-Cats to close out Week 16.<\/p>\n
Edmonton has won five of its last seven games to get back into the playoff picture.<\/p>\n
Hamilton holds a four-point lead in the East Division race.<\/p>\n
Here\u2019s three keys to victory for both teams ahead of Saturday\u2019s 7:00 p.m. ET kickoff, which can be watched on TSN and RDS2 in Canada, and on CFL+ in the U.S. and internationally.<\/p>\n
RELATED EDMONTON ELKS<\/p>\n 1. PICK ME<\/p>\n The Elks\u2019 secondary has five interceptions over their past two games and will try to build on their recent strong play against a good offence. Defensive backs Tyrell Ford<\/a>, Kordell Jackson and Kenneth Logan Jr. now aim to tame Ticats\u2019 quarterback Bo Levi Mitchell<\/a>, who\u2019s been okay but is averaging an uncharacteristic 210.5 passing yards over the last two weeks.<\/p>\n 2. STAY AGGRESSIVE OFFENSIVELY<\/p>\n Toronto\u2019s defence held Edmonton quarterback Cody Fajardo<\/a> to 229 yards through the air and running back Justin Rankin to 27 on the ground a week ago. One blip shouldn\u2019t deter head coach Mark Kilam from trusting his best weapons, but it\u2019s up to them to perform.<\/p>\n 3. OPTIONS AT RECEIVER<\/p>\n Fajardo should be helped along by the options he has to his right and left. Along with the usual Kurleigh Gittens Jr.<\/a> being a playmaker, Kaion Julien-Grant<\/a>, OJ Hiliare<\/a> and Arkell Smith have stepped up.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n HAMILTON TIGER-CATS<\/p>\n 1. GREG BELL TAKING THE BALL<\/p>\n The Hamilton offence, one that was already known for its elite pass game, is now getting plenty of production out of running back Greg Bell<\/a>, with 137 and 156 yards on the ground over his last two games. It will be a tough matchup this week, going up against an Elks\u2019 front allowing 91.2 yards per game \u2014 the third-best mark in the CFL after 15 weeks.<\/p>\n 2. LOOKING FOR KENNY LAWLER<\/p>\n Receiver Kenny Lawler will try to lead the team in receiving yards for a third straight game as Mitchell tries to put up big numbers. The Elks\u2019 secondary got the upper hand on Lawler the last time these two teams met, a 28-24 Ticats win in Week 9, holding him to four catches and 28 yards.<\/p>\n 3. EVERY POINT MATTERS<\/p>\n Even when the Elks haven\u2019t won, they\u2019ve done a good job of staying in the game, which could make the leg of Marc Liegghio<\/a> important. Fortunately for Hamilton, he\u2019s made a league-leading 94.4 per cent of his field goals heading into Week 15.<\/p>\n NEED TO KNOW:<\/p>\n This is the final meeting of the regular season between Edmonton and Hamilton.
\u00bb Depth Charts: EDM<\/a> | HAM<\/a>
\u00bb Game Notes: Elks at Tiger-Cats<\/a>
\u00bb\u00a0Tickets: Edmonton at Hamilton<\/a>
\u00bb\u00a0Injury Reports: Stay up to date<\/a>
\u00bb\u00a0Who\u2019s gonna win? Play CFL Pick \u2018Em presented by Old Dutch now!<\/a>
\u00bb\u00a0Sign up and watch CFL games on CFL+ in the U.S. and Internationally<\/a><\/p>\n
\nFor the Elks, Canadian safety Royce Metchie<\/a> and starting middle linebacker Nick Anderson<\/a> have both been ruled out. Metchie has been moved to the six-game injured list with an Achilles injury.
\nFor the Ticats, Isaiah Wooden Sr.<\/a> , who leads the CFL in both average punt return (16.8) and average kick return (31.1), returns to the lineup after a four-game absence.
\nEdmonton is 4-3 against East Division teams this year.
\nKickoff from Hamilton Stadium is scheduled for 7:00 p.m. ET, and can be watched on TSN and RDS2 in Canada, and on CFL+ in the U.S. and internationally.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"HAMILTON \u2014 The Edmonton Elks head east to face the Hamilton Tiger-Cats to close out Week 16. Edmonton…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":155476,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[437],"tags":[49,48,521,522,520,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-155475","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cfl","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-canadian-football-league","11":"tag-canadianfootballleague","12":"tag-cfl","13":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/155475","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=155475"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/155475\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/155476"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=155475"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=155475"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=155475"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}