{"id":754837,"date":"2026-06-23T02:01:11","date_gmt":"2026-06-23T02:01:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/754837\/"},"modified":"2026-06-23T02:01:11","modified_gmt":"2026-06-23T02:01:11","slug":"winnipeg-blue-bombers-see-justin-rankin-as-one-of-the-best-players-in-the-cfl","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/754837\/","title":{"rendered":"Winnipeg Blue Bombers see Justin Rankin as ‘one of the best players in the CFL’"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\"Justin\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tPhoto: Gord Weber\/3DownNation. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n

The Winnipeg Blue Bombers will face a tough test when the Edmonton Elks come to town later this week, as the team is 2-0 for the first time since 2019.<\/p>\n

The biggest reason for Edmonton\u2019s success is the play of star running back Justin Rankin, whose hot start could help him reach his goal of becoming the first CFL player ever to reach 1,000 yards rushing and receiving in the same season<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cRankin is one of the best players in the CFL. I don\u2019t know what his yards per play is, but it\u2019s extremely high right now. Whether he\u2019s running the ball or catching the ball out of the backfield, he\u2019s making a lot of people miss. When he does that, he\u2019s got enough speed to run by guys, and he\u2019s got enough shift that he\u2019s very hard to bring down,\u201d head coach Mike O\u2019Shea told the media on Sunday<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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\u201c(The Elks are) good. They\u2019re dialled in, they\u2019ve got a couple wins. I\u2019m sure they\u2019re feeling confident, and they should.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rankin was dominant in Edmonton\u2019s win over the Ottawa Redblacks in Week 1, rushing 13 times for 109 yards, catching five passes for 94 yards, and scoring one touchdown. He was even better against the Montreal Alouettes in Week 3, rushing for 179 yards, making five receptions for 51 yards, and notching two major scores.<\/p>\n

The 29-year-old is not only the CFL\u2019s leading rusher, but also his team\u2019s leading receiver.<\/p>\n

\u201cMontreal and Ottawa, their first two (opponents), both defences played very hard, they played very physical,\u201d said defensive coordinator Jordan Younger. \u201cYou have to be precise \u2014 if you\u2019ve got a gap, sometimes you just gotta hold your gap and trust your teammates to do their job. Sometimes what happens is somebody will get antsy, get out of their gap, and then he\u2019ll take advantage of it because of his skill set and his ability to make people miss.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Blue Bombers struggled on defence in their most recent game, missing several tackles as Larry Rountree III rushed 23 times for 124 yards to help the Hamilton Tiger-Cats win 37-27 at Princess Auto Stadium. It was only Winnipeg\u2019s eighth home loss since 2021.<\/p>\n

Three of Rountree\u2019s carries went for 10 or more yards, including a 23-yard scamper. Younger doesn\u2019t seem to mind giving up some yardage along the ground, provided it\u2019s not in large increments.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor me, it\u2019s more about how those yards come,\u201d he said. \u201cI don\u2019t like the explosive runs. The anticipated runs, when we know we need to stop them, we anticipate what they\u2019ve done, we practiced against it, and for whatever reason, we don\u2019t see the information that will help us, or we don\u2019t make the tackle right there to help us get off the field \u2014 that\u2019s the part I think I get a little more frustrated with, more so than the number (of rushing yards).\u201d<\/p>\n

Winnipeg\u2019s defence has been far from dominant so far this season, ranking seventh in net yards allowed per game (422.0) and ninth in rushing yards allowed per game (171.0). The unit has also forced only one takeaway.<\/p>\n

After spending Week 3 on bye, it seems the Blue Bombers are hopeful they\u2019ve corrected the mistakes necessary to ensure they\u2019re not repeated against the Elks.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey understand the mistakes that were made and the plays that were missed, and they also understand the plays that we made and the good things, too,\u201d said O\u2019Shea. \u201cI think they are always highly dialled into what winning football looks like, and then when it doesn\u2019t work out, the reasons why it\u2019s more important to understand the truth than to have an emotional response.\u201d<\/p>\n

As for how the Blue Bombers plan to defend against Rankin, O\u2019Shea posed an out-of-the-box solution.<\/p>\n

\u201cPlay 13 guys,\u201d he joked. \u201cHopefully, they don\u2019t notice.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Winnipeg Blue Bombers (1-1) will host the Edmonton Elks (2-0) at Princess Auto Stadium on Thursday, June 25 with kickoff scheduled for 8:30 p.m. EDT. The Elks are coming off an overtime win over the Montreal Alouettes, while the Blue Bombers were on bye.<\/p>\n

The weather forecast in Winnipeg calls for a high of 25 degrees and sun. The game will be broadcast on TSN in Canada and CFL+ internationally. Radio listeners can tune in on 880 CHED in Edmonton or 680 CJOB in Winnipeg.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Photo: Gord Weber\/3DownNation. All rights reserved. The Winnipeg Blue Bombers will face a tough test when the Edmonton…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":754838,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[437],"tags":[166835,166836,22070,22936,49,48,7028,521,522,520,24803,23752,77213,527,269477,241380,170990,82,22073],"class_list":["post-754837","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cfl","tag-3down","tag-3downnation","tag-blue-bombers","tag-bombers","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-canadian","tag-canadian-football-league","tag-canadianfootballleague","tag-cfl","tag-defence","tag-edmonton","tag-elks","tag-football","tag-jordan-younger","tag-justin-rankin","tag-mike-oshea","tag-sports","tag-winnipeg"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/754837","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=754837"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/754837\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/754838"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=754837"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=754837"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=754837"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}