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In the midst of a 3-12 season (the team was 11-7 in 2018 before losing to Calgary in the Grey Cup), the Redblacks have fallen far below expectations.

“You always want to be as optimistic as you can be,” said Sinopoli. “It’s football, things happen. If you play long enough, you experience ups and downs. This year is just a down. Sometimes it’s close. Over the past few years, there are games we can look back on where we won by a point or won in the last minute and our record wasn’t the greatest and it could easily have gone the other way. This year, it hasn’t gone our way. That’s how it goes in professional football. If you don’t bring your best every game, you’re going to lose.”

As the season winds down, Sinopoli (and other veterans) sometimes get “off days” in practice.

“I feel good,” he said. “As things progress, there’s wear and tear. There’s always stuff you’re dealing with. The goal isn’t to be your best on Day 1 or 2 of practice, the goal is to be at your best on game day.”

SECOND AND LONG

A win over the Redblacks Saturday by Hamilton, which has clinched first place in the East Division with a 12-3 record, would give the team its first-ever 13-win regular season. “Whenever you do something that’s never been done before, that’s legendary,” Ticats linebacker Simoni Lawrence told CFL.ca’s Chris O’Leary. “Everybody’s going to do great stuff, make great plays, but when you do something that nobody’s ever done, that’s when you’re a legend. That’s all we’re trying to aspire to be, is the best ever.” … Asked how he’s feeling about his team at this point of the season, Redblacks coach Rick Campbellsaid: “I’m obviously very disappointed in how things have gone, but these guys are working hard and have a lot of pride and we’re going to do whatever we can to compete and win these last three games. You learn a ton. When things don’t go right, you definitely want to find out why that is and there are always many factors that go into that. Someone told me, ‘When you lose, don’t lose the lesson in it.’ So lots has been learned and there’ll be lots to talk about coming up in these next couple of months.”