Watch the Stampeders and Lions LIVE Saturday at 5:30 p.m. ET\/ 2:30 p.m. PT across the TSN Network, the TSN App, and TSN.ca. <\/a><\/p>\nThere\u2019s only one place to start, and that\u2019s with the quarterbacks. It\u2019s no secret that the home team in this one, the Lions, chose Nathan Rourke over Vernon Adams Jr. this offseason, shipping the 32-year-old off to Alberta for a couple of picks. <\/p>\n
Since then, Adams has helped lead Calgary back to the playoffs after their 18 straight consecutive postseason run was snapped in 2024, finishing with an 11-7 record. Those 11 wins matched the Stamps\u2019 win total from the past two seasons combined, and it\u2019s not a coincidence that this happened when Adams showed up. <\/p>\n
As for the Lions and Rourke, they have been just fine without him. <\/p>\n
The team is riding a whopping six-game win streak coming into this one (Calgary is riding a three-game win streak), while the Victoria, BC native Rourke put together a phenomenal regular season. <\/p>\n
The 27-year-old\u2019s 330.6 passing yards per game led the CFL by far, and despite throwing 16 interceptions, he also led in efficiency rate (112.2), while his 31 touchdowns were good enough for second best. Not to mention his 564 rushing yards, which was a top 10 mark and led all quarterbacks, while his 9.2 yards per carry tops everyone. <\/p>\n
All of that was good enough for Rourke to be named a finalist for the Most Outstanding Player and Most Outstanding Canadian awards, while leading BC\u2019s offence to the best yards per play (8.04) in CFL history. <\/p>\n
It\u2019s not shocking that BC\u2019s offence has been so prolific, as Rourke is joined by elite talent all around him, including West All-CFLers in wideouts Keon Hatcher Sr. and Justin McInnis, as well as left tackle Jarell Broxton. <\/p>\n
Hatcher has been especially elite, as he led the league in receiving yards by a mile with 1,688. That also happens to be the best mark in nearly a decade, coming close to Adarius Bowman\u2019s 1,761-yard mark for the then Edmonton Eskimos in 2016. Not to mention James Butler, who bounced back with a fantastic year along the ground to the tune of 1,213 yards (third), and 11 touchdowns (first). <\/p>\n
It will be a big test for Calgary\u2019s defence that\u2019s been largely one of the best in the league, as they bend but don\u2019t break. The Stampeders allowed the third most yards per game (366.4) throughout the regular season but only allowed the second most points (23.1) and forced the second most turnovers (42). <\/p>\n
They are, however, susceptible to big plays, which is something BC could exploit. Calgary allowed the second most big plays in the league (49), while with all of BC\u2019s firepower, they finished the season with the most big plays by far (63). <\/p>\n
And with injuries on the back end, and frankly all over the roster for Calgary, it won\u2019t be easy for this defence to get stops. West All-CFL safety Damon Webb hasn\u2019t played since Week 18 and has been ruled out with a pectoral injury, though Sheldon Arnold (hand) and Anthony Johnson (shoulder) are both available and will presumably take back their starting roles at boundary halfback and boundary corner after missing multiple weeks with injuries, respectively. <\/p>\n
It all starts up front for Calgary\u2019s defence, however, as the defensive line has caused havoc for opposing teams all year. <\/p>\n
West All-CFLers in edge Clarence Hicks and tackle Jaylon Hutchings are at the forefront, as the pair combined for 20 sacks, 67 tackles, eight tackles for loss, and three forced fumbles. They also feature trade deadline acquisition and former Most Outstanding Player Lorenzo Mauldin IV coming off the other edge. <\/p>\n
The Lions\u2019 offensive line could be built to deal with them, however, featuring Broxton at left tackle and a virtually healthy offensive line that allowed the least number of sacks all season (20). The only question comes in the form of Dejon Allen at right tackle. The 2023 Most Outstanding Lineman has only played five games in 2025, but did compete in BC\u2019s final two contests. He is listed as questionable with an arm injury. <\/p>\n
Injuries up front plague the Stamps as well, as arguably their best lineman Jalen Coker has been ruled out with a knee injury, while backup interior lineman Tomas Jack-Kurdyla and Kyle Saxelid are listed as doubtful and questionable respectively, all while tackle Preston Nichols, who has been a solid contributor, is also questionable. <\/p>\n
A banged-up unit is not something you want to have, especially when you\u2019re going up against Mathieu Betts. The Most Outstanding Defensive Player finalist led the CFL in sacks (15) and was second in tackles amongst linemen (42), nearly matching his output from his record-breaking 2023 campaign. <\/p>\n
With other potential game wreckers like Jonah Tavai and Dewayne Hendrix up the middle and midseason acquisitions Levi Bell and Bradlee Anae holding down the other edge, it\u2019s a unit that can cause issues. <\/p>\n
They\u2019ll have to stop the run, however, as the CFL\u2019s rushing leader Dedrick Mills has been making dudes miss while running over plenty of others all season. <\/p>\n
The 28-year-old led the league in rushing yards (1,409), and touchdowns (11), while sitting in the top two in both forced tackles missed and yards after contact. Calgary\u2019s offensive line has been better in the run game than in the pass, but with some injuries, who knows how they\u2019re going to perform. <\/p>\n
Especially when they\u2019re going up against a BC defence that has turned it up over the second half of the season, allowing only 23.5 points per game during their current six-game win streak. <\/p>\n
Special teams wise, there isn\u2019t many teams better than BC. Sean Whyte\u2019s 95.1 field goal percentage mark tops the CFL (though he\u2019s only attempted one field goal of 50-plus yards) and Seven McGhee has made plays out of the return game. <\/p>\n
History also favours the Lions in this matchup, as BC claimed back-to-back Western semi-final wins against Calgary in 2022 and 2023, with both victories coming at home. The Lions have also prevailed in both regular season meetings this season, outscoring Calgary 90-47 combined, while Rourke threw for 745 yards and six touchdowns, while adding three more majors along the ground in the contests. <\/p>\n
Adams in those matchups against his former team, however, struggled, only completing 59.3 per cent of his passes for 428 yards, five interceptions, and three touchdowns. <\/p>\n
Overall, this has potential to be an explosive game with big plays, but if it does, that would favour BC. If Calgary can push through the injuries and grind the Lions down using the ground game as they have to opponents all year, they could be in good shape. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Well, here we are. November is right around the corner, which means it\u2019s time for some CFL playoff…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":247825,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[437],"tags":[712,87800,49,84068,48,521,522,520,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-252261","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cfl","8":"tag-apple-news","9":"tag-bc-lions-sports-football-team-team-genius-sports-93775","10":"tag-ca","11":"tag-calgary-stampeders-sports-football-team-team-genius-sports-112939","12":"tag-canada","13":"tag-canadian-football-league","14":"tag-canadianfootballleague","15":"tag-cfl","16":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/252261","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=252261"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/252261\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/247825"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=252261"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=252261"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=252261"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}