Another week, another divisional battle. The 2-1-0 BC Lions are back home to lock horns with the 0-3-0 Edmonton Elks on Thursday in another big early-season opportunity to set a tone in the standings (7:00 pm/TSN/CFL+/980 CKNW/Sher-E-Punjab Radio AM 600).
And for the sake of not burying the lead, we will address the biggest lineup question that lingered over the last 48 hours: quarterback Vernon Adams Jr. is good to go after missing Tuesday’s practice with an abdominal strain. The CFL’s passing leader who boasts an undefeated record against Edmonton as a Lion was happy to have any doubts erased about his status.
“I feel good,” confirmed the starting quarterback following Wednesday’s light walkthrough in Surrey.
“I just woke up with this strain in my lower area here, abdominal here. But I woke up today and feel better. Ready to go for tomorrow.”
Adams maintains there was no single incident in practice or game action that caused him to miss a day of activity and it’s a credit to the athletic therapy staff for keeping him upright on another short week of preparation.
Now that the mid-week drama is over, focus now lies squarely on keeping Edmonton in at least a share of the West Division basement. The week four affair almost presents a carbon copy of last game’s script as the Lions tangle with a winless opponent who has shown signs of life in each of their defeats.
The Elks have lost their three contests by a combined score of 14 points and took a solid Toronto team right down to the wire in last week’s entertaining 39-36 result. Pete Robertson and company know that like last week in Winnipeg, it will be a desperate opponent on the other side.
“It’s a challenge. They’ve got good receivers, a veteran quarterback and a very good running back,” explained the defensive end.
“The biggest thing we need to do is get after McLeod Bethel-Thompson, make him very uncomfortable in the pocket. Slowing down the run will also be a key and like we’ve been saying, all of their games have been really close. It’s not like they haven’t performed. We know we can’t take them lightly.”
Robertson and the defence can certainly be satisfied on some elements of their game but there is always room for improvement. They have watched leads of 13 points disappear in both their week one battle in Toronto and the 26-24 triumph in Winnipeg which featured no less than four lead changes in the final 15 minutes. Getting back to winning the turnover battle will be a big factor in their improvement as they prevailed over the Bombers despite being negative one in that department.
“It’s just the consistency we need to keep building on,” said Robertson.
“We’ve planned every game to have a physical mentality. That’s shown a little bit in the film study. It’s on all of us as a defence to continue doing what we do.”
You can brush the standings aside. Every man inside the locker room knows what it will take to come out with another victory.
“We’re a confident bunch right now but we know we have a tough task to handle tomorrow and we just have to bring our A game against a good Edmonton team,” said Adams.
The Quarterbacks
# 3 Vernon Adams Jr.- entered this week as the CFL’s leader with 1,038 passing yards. As you saw last week, he becomes even more dangerous with extra time in the pocket. As a member of the Lions, Adams has won all three of his starts against Edmonton.
# 10 McLeod Bethel Thompson– looks to have shown little rust after not suiting up in 2023. The 2022 Grey Cup champion with Toronto is right behind Adams with 978 yards through the air while he had four touchdown tosses in the losing effort against his old squad last week.
3 Lions To Watch
WR # 83 Stanley Berryhill III– the Arizona product was a key contributor in his debut at Winnipeg, hauling in 43 yards on four receptions for a 10.3-yard average. Berryhill provides yet another downfield option for this offence.
DL # 40 Pete Robertson– Texas Pete has come as advertised on this revamped defensive line. The onus will be on them to make life harder for Bethel-Thompson and limit the situations that can enable them to be second and short as often as the Blue Bombers were last Friday.
DB # 1 Garry Peters– with the Elks’ attack boasting the likes of Eugene Lewis, Dillon Mitchell and Kurleigh Gittens Jr., Peters and the secondary will have some matchup games to contend with. It could be a fun shootout night in downtown Vancouver.
Extra Yards
The Lions are riding a seven-game win streak against the Elks dating back to 2021 with the last defeat coming in week three of that season. The quarterback matchup on August 19 of that year was Michael Reilly against Trevor Harris as Edmonton prevailed 21-16 in what was Amar Doman’s first game as owner and the Lions’ first home game of any kind in nearly two years.
With Ben Hladik (thumb) headed to the six-game injured list, Bo Lokombo will earn a start at WILL linebacker. Newcomers Ronald Kent Jr. and Ace Eley both return from one week stints on the practice squad while Jevon Cottoy is back at wide receiver after missing a game with his hamstring injury. Defensive back Jordan Perryman moves to the practice squad as a result. Refer to the depth chart above for the entire shuffling on defence.
Alexander Hollins’ 215 receiving yards last week was the 13th-highest total in Lion franchise history. He entered this week as the CFL’s leader with 402 yards and 23 receptions while also on top in the important category of second down conversions (11).
Big play depth: Adams and the Lions lead the entire CFL with 29 pass attempts and 14 completions of plays 20 yards or more. Five of the Lions’ six majors this season have come on those big plays.
Stout Stanback: the Lions’ veteran in the backfield has improved his rushing total in each week thus far going for 35, 69 and 83 yards on the ground.
The weekly Whytey hat tip: Not only is he perfect (8/8) on the season and 43 points shy of 2,000 for his career, Sean Whyte has also become the CFL’s all-time leader in field goal percentage. He is 476/541 all-time (87.99) which is a shade above Ottawa’s Lewis Ward (87.97) and Calgary’s Rene Paredes (87.64).