Smith to 1-Game IL: Bombers Promote Novak, Start Griffin at SAM
Winnipeg made exactly one change to its starting lineup for Friday's trip to Edmonton, and it's a ratio move as much as a football one. Canadian strong-side linebacker Jaylen Smith goes to the one-game injured list with a hip injury after failing to practice all week; he was listed as questionable o
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Smith's hip injury masks a SAM linebacker platoon, not a downgrade
Jaylen Smith's move to the one-game injured list after a hip injury ends a seven-start run at strong-side linebacker, where he recorded 46 total tackles. But Michael Griffin II isn't a replacement-level fill-in: he already has nine starts at SAM this season, with 39 defensive tackles, one sack, and one forced fumble. The Bombers are swapping a rookie second-round pick for a veteran with 51 career CFL games and 139 defensive tackles, so the real story is a pre-existing rotation, not a sudden hole.
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Winnipeg's Linebacker Carousel Is a Ticking Time Bomb
Michael Griffin II has started nine games at strong-side linebacker this year. Jaylen Smith has started seven. Thursday, Smith hit the one-game injured list with a hip, and Griffin — a 51-game CFL veteran — got the job back by default. Again. Here's what nobody's saying out loud: Griffin has been benched and un-benched more times this season than some guys see the field. Thirty-nine defensive tackles, a sack, a forced fumble — and he's spent half the year watching a 24-year-old second-round pick out of North Texas eat his reps. That's not a rotation. That's a message, and the message is "we're not sold on either of you." Meanwhile Lane Novak gets pulled off the practice roster to backfill — a fifth-rounder from Balgonie, Sask. with four career special-teams tackles. That's the depth chart