3rd and 1: Fade the Elks, Buy Low on Ticats

Welcome to the first edition of 3rd and 1! 

Each week of the CFL season, we’ll take a deep dive into both the betting lines and player fantasy salaries as we share our four favourite plays of the week. We’ll provide a mixture of bets to consider and players to keep in mind when setting your CFL Fantasy roster, and some weeks we’ll even make a few honourable mentions that you should consider. 

The season's opening week featured a little bit of everything and certainly didn’t let us down. Now it’s time for Week 2, and the slate of games gives us every reason to believe we’re in store for another good one.

THREE BETS TO CONSIDER

ROUGHRIDERS -7.5

I liked the Saskatchewan Roughriders at the start of the week when they opened as 6.5-point favourites against the Elks, and I still like them even though the line has moved to 7.5 at FanDuel Canada. Last week the Riders were in a special teams battle with Hamilton until the fourth quarter when they finally found the end zone, but that’s not going to be the case this week. I’m not expecting the Riders to put up 59 on the Elks like the BC Lions did, but if they put up 30 on the Ticats there’s a good chance they put up 30+ against Edmonton this week. The Elks are also dealing with a tougher defence, so they might struggle to keep up with a high-powered Saskatchewan offence. 

TICATS -1.5

This is another line that has moved as the week has gone on, and like the Riders, I like the Ticats just as much now than at the start of the week. We didn’t get anything out of Hamilton’s offence last week, but let’s not forget they were the visitors in one of the toughest buildings to play in, and this week they’re back in The Hammer for their home opener. Hamilton has won its last two home games