Grey Cup primer: Can Winnipeg avoid another upset?

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This is the Blue Bombers' fifth consecutive appearance in the Grey Cup — quite the reversal for a franchise that went 29 years without a championship before finally breaking through with back-to-back titles in 2019 and 2021 (the 2020 season was wiped out by the pandemic). No team has experienced a run like this since Edmonton reached six straight Grey Cups from 1977 to '82, winning the last five as future NFL star Warren Moon blossomed into the CFL's best player.

But the line between dynasty and laughingstock can be painfully thin (ask the '90s Buffalo Bills). Since going back-to-back, the Bombers have suffered two straight upset losses in the Grey Cup. The Argos beat them in 2022 as 4½-point underdogs before Montreal shocked them last year as an 8-point dog.

Winnipeg is a nine-point favourite to defeat Toronto this Sunday, implying the Bombers have around an 80 per cent chance of recapturing the Grey Cup. But if they don't, they'll become the first team in 68 years to lose three in a row.

Toronto is counting on a backup quarterback again.

Two years ago in Regina, Chad Kelly came off the bench in the fourth quarter of the Grey Cup to replace the Argos' injured starter and engineered the go-ahead touchdown drive in Toronto's 24-23 upset of Winnipeg. Turned out, Kelly was pretty good: he won the CFL's Most Outstanding Player award the next season as the Argos went 16-2 before face-planting in the East final against eventual champion Montreal.

After serving a nine-game suspension to start this season for violating the league's gender-based violence policy, Kelly appeared