Article content continued

“No one really understands how difficult it is until you sit back there. It’s easy for me to watch film and say, ‘Oh, dang, I wish I would have done this’ or ‘I could have done that.’ It’s not that easy when you have 6-foot-8 guys in front of you and people trying to kill you. It’s a different game than what you see from the stands.”

The Redblacks’ wheels have been spinning. With a 3-8 record, they’ve won just once in their past nine games. A win in B.C. Place is mandatory, then the Redblacks will try to do it all over again against the Lions — who, with a 1-10 record obviously have struggles of their own — next week in Ottawa.

“It’s not late at all,'” said Jennings. “We’ve got seven games. Obviously it’s not going to be easy, we’ve made it tough on ourselves. But it’s been done before. We have the right guys, the right attitude, the right character and we have the right skillset. We have to find a way to stop shooting ourselves in the foot — it’s cliché, but we have to find a way to stop that.”

While plenty has gone wrong for the Lions this season, they do have Mike Reilly heaving the ball for them. The all-star quarterback clings to the hope, knowing very snap can make a difference.

“You see it in this league, teams start really poorly and they peak going into the post-season,” said Reilly. “Toronto was 9-9 when they won the Grey Cup, you’ve seen Ottawa get into the playoffs with a losing record and do well in the playoffs (they won the Grey Cup in 2016 with an 8-9-1 regular season) because they played great football toward the end of the season.