The CFL is back, minus its Most Outstanding Player

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The 2024 Canadian Football League season kicks off on Thursday night as the Grey Cup champion Montreal Alouettes visit the Winnipeg Blue Bombers for a rematch of last year's title game. Here are some things to know for this CFL season:

The Bombers look like the team to beat again.

The story of the league over the past four seasons has been Winnipeg's transformation from a perennial also-ran to the CFL's dominant franchise. The Blue Bombers won back-to-back Grey Cups in 2019 and 2021 (the 2020 season was cancelled because of the pandemic) to end a nearly three-decade-long championship drought, and they've now played in four straight title games. Yes, they got upset in the last two — by Toronto in 2022 and Montreal last year — but the Bombers are 40-10 over the past three regular seasons, topping the West Division each time. They are the (blue and) gold standard.

Winnipeg is once again the betting favourite to win the Grey Cup, thanks largely to journeyman-turned-star quarterback Zach Collaros. After arriving in a late-season trade in 2019 — the second time that year he was dealt — Collaros took over the Bombers' starting job and promptly led the franchise to its first championship in 29 years, which is an eternity in a nine-team league. Beginning in 2021, he won two consecutive CFL Most Outstanding Player awards while adding another Grey Cup. Collaros did not become the first three-peat MOP since Doug Flutie, but he still threw for a career-high 4,252 yards last season while leading the league in passing TDs (33) for the third year in a row.

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