Lions and Roughriders Kickoff on Friday Night

In Week 8, the BC Lions hope to break an 8-game losing streak against the Saskatchewan Roughriders in Friday night's CFL action.

Saskatchewan has dominated British Columbia in recent years, but this could be the best Lions team we’ve seen in a long time. The Lions are 4-1 and in second place, with just one loss, and that was against the mighty Blue Bombers.

Meanwhile, after a 4-1 start to the season, Saskatchewan has dropped two straight games and is now 4-3 and in danger of falling further behind in the tough West Division race. The Roughriders do have a valid excuse for their recent decline, given they were hit badly by COVID restrictions. The Riders should have pretty much everybody back for this week's matchup, including starting quarterback Cody Fajardo, who missed last week’s game.

Kickoff in Regina is at 8:00 pm MST.

Spreads.ca lists the Lions as 2-point favourites. The O/U is higher than normal, at 49.5.

Prediction (powered by Pointspreads.ca):

Neither team has performed well in recent games. In fact, they're a combined 0-4 against-the-spread the last two weeks.

One expects that both teams will be extra motivated, especially Saskatchewan at home, which hasn't lost back-to-back games in Regina in six seasons. We lean to the Riders +2 given several factors.

However, the wiser play could be the OVER in this game. The BC Lions have been an OVER machine, producing scores that eclipsed the total in 9 of their last 11 games. And with Saskatchewan back at full strength, we expect more points from the Riders' offense in this game, as well.

Let's call this one 28-27 either way.