When you've just gone back-to-back, home-and-home with the Calgary Stampeders and Saskatchewan Roughriders it's tough to tell yourself, tough to sell yourself, that this is the really big one.
Especially when you're playing Mike Kelly's slapstick comedy kings.
OK. That's unfair.
Mike Kelly is the slapstick comedy king. His Bombers are just a bad football team.
But either way, how do you get dialed up for a game against these guys?
Kelly has turned the whole season in Winnipeg into such a silly sideshow that it's become almost impossible to take his football team seriously.
That's the danger here. Look at them as Kelly's Zeros and you'll give them a chance to turn into the Dirty Dozen.
That's Richie Hall's job between now and game time. And that's Ricky Ray's job after the opening kickoff.
"You see all the stuff happening in Winnipeg and there's a danger of thinking 'Oh, we should win that game,' " said quarterback Ray a few minutes before he caught the flight to the keystone province yesterday. "You have to focus on the fact this is a big game and go out there and play a big game."
Somebody has to take this game seriously because, even if it's against a bunch of guys wearing big, floppy clown shoes, which it isn't, it's a game to virtually guarantee the Edmonton Eskimos no worse than a second straight season as the crossover team in the Eastern Conference semifinal.
If the Eskimos can kick the Blue Bombers when they're down, then Winnipeg will be a worry to only the B.C. Lions, and not likely for long.
But give the Bombers life in this one and suddenly they'll have won back-to-back games and have hope they can do what they did last year when they turned a 2-8 season around by winning six of their last eight to finish second in the East.
The Bombers already have eight losses this season. The Toronto Argos already have nine. Three of the Eskimos' final six games are against these two teams.
With the Eskimos having the three games remaining against the Leasts From The East, if Richie and Ricky's guys can pick themselves up off the mat and get it together enough to be able to beat Kelly's manufactured mess, putting the boots to the Bombers should provide the playoff spot.
Remember the way it works with the crossover rule. The fourth place team in the West (it never works the other way) must have more points in the standings than the third place team in the East to cross over and play in the Eastern Semi-final like the Eskimos did last year, becoming the first team ever to win a crossover game.
An Eskimo win tonight and they'd be 7-6 in the West while the Bombers would drop to 4-9 in the East.
The Eskimos have home and away games left with both 3-9 Toronto and 5-6 B.C. with one last rodeo against the Stampeders in Calgary, as well.
The Bombers have home-and-home games with both 10-2 Montreal and 6-6 Hamilton remaining, as well as a home game against B.C.
Win this one and the Eskimos can at least be secure in the idea that they'll be playing somewhere in the playoffs.
"It's a playoff game," said head coach Hall. "That's how important I think this game is."
Oh, the Eskimos need a win for themselves and their own mental health -- with their sudden poor physical health -- maybe more than they need it for the standings.
With three losses in the last four games and a defence forced to deal with so much change due to injuries after having already dealt with the change eight new starters brings, perhaps they don't need the big game to provide perspective.
But while they headed to Winnipeg yesterday with their tails between their legs and licking their wounds, they left behind 46,212 and 62,517 fans who paid to see them lose their last two games in Commonwealth Stadium. Those fans are not going to offer them a lot of sympathy should they stumble and lose this one.
"We don't have any reason to look down on anybody. We're 6-6, not 12-0," said Hall.
With all the injuries on defence and the changes, there are excuses built in here, too.
"There are no excuses," counters the coach. "We expect to play well regardless of injuries and changes. That's part of football."
In its way, this game is far more frightening than the four much more high-profile games that preceded it.
TERRY.JONES@SUNMEDIA.CA
