One team is looking to improve on last season. Another aims for redemption and to reaffirm its Canadian Football League supremacy. In both cases, Week 1 beckons to get their respective campaigns started on the right foot.

The CFL odds have the host Blue Bombers as -5.0 favourites to kick off the year with a win. The total is currently set at 47.0.

CFL Odds and Betting

Hamilton and Winnipeg crossed paths only twice in 2022. Of note, despite the Blue Bombers being a league-best 15-3, one of those three defeats came at the claws of the Ti-Cats in Hamilton. The game wasn’t even that close, finishing 48-31 for the hosts.

2023 hopes to be a season of renewed energy and ambition for Hamilton. They finished the previous campaign 8-10. While that is good enough for a playoff spot in the lowly East Division, it does not suggest that the Tiger-Cats were all that good. Moreover, they earned the final postseason seed despite conceding almost 50 more total points than what they scored. Efforts against the spread weren’t terrific either, as they went 7-11.

Winnipeg had the best home record in the CFL in 2022 at 8-1. IG Field is a fortress and visitors cannot escape the bombardment. The club also sported the best point differential in the CFL with an impressive +168 (Calgary was second with +165). As for the spread, the Blue Bombers finished the year 11-7.

Hamilton Tiger-Cats

When one plays in the East, there’s always a chance. That much Hamilton can hang on to.

Orlondo Steinauer leads a group that needs to find consistency. It’s tempting to think they may have found it at the tail end of 2022 when they went on a four-game win streak to secure third place in the East, but none of that momentum carried into Montreal for the semi-final. Furthermore, big changes occurred in the offseason. For one, they don’t have Dane Evans under centre anymore. He finished fourth in yards passing. It’s now the Bo Levi Mitchell show. His Calgary career was very good and now we’ll see if his talent and success carry over into another franchise.

He’ll be boosted by the services of WR Tim White, who caught the fourth-most yards in 2022. However, The running back rotation looks a little thin, with only former Lion James Butler and Ryth-Jean Giraud lining up to carry the rock.

Winnipeg Blue Bombers

If it isn’t broken, then don’t fix it. After winning it all in 2021 and coming close to doing so again in 2022, there was no reason to blow anything up during the offseason. If anything, the Blue Bombers heading into 2023 look a lot like last year’s, which doesn’t bode well for the rest of the CFL.

One needs to only glance at who was on the leaderboard in 2022 and notice that almost all the pieces have returned to get revenge on the other eight franchises. Zach Collaros continues to lead the charge in the quarterback position. Dalton Schoen, who led the league in receiving yards and receiving touchdowns, looks to be a deep threat yet again. 1,000-yard rusher Brady Oliveira also comes back to lighten the load on Collaros. Even the team’s sack leader, Willie Jefferson, will be sporting their colours this season. Basically, whoever was really good at their job last year was kept – keeping in mind that the club went 15-3.

Who Will Win Tiger-Cats vs. Blue Bombers?