There’s no easy place to begin with the autopsy on the Winnipeg Blue Bombers loss in Ottawa on Saturday because the maladies are many in what was an epic collapse.
Let’s salute the RedBlacks off the top, because it’s the right thing to do before we get on with reviewing everything that went wrong for the Blue Bombers in a 31-28 overtime setback which has again fuelled so much concern about where the club is at the one-third mark of the Canadian Football League season.
The RedBlacks made plays when it mattered, rallied behind quarterback Dustin Crum – who was sensational in helping author a 19-point comeback – and have breathed new life into their season after losing veteran pivot Jeremiah Masoli just a week earlier.
And for the Blue Bombers… well, their 30-6 home loss to the B.C. Lions last month could have been framed as a one-off for the three-time defending West Division title holders, who have made three straight Grey Cup appearances and won two.
That’s a tougher sell now given what happened in Ottawa.
What was so out of character on Saturday wasn’t just how the RedBlacks mounted a second half charge after the Blue Bombers had built an 18-3 lead at the intermission while taking a 25-6 advantage into the fourth quarter. It was the several missed opportunities to deliver a knockout punch – the dropped potential touchdown passes by Greg McCrae and Dalton Schoen, a Pick-6 that went the other way, the missed tackles on defence and a special-teams unit that did not help flip the field in the war for field position.
And then late in the RedBlacks incredible comeback there were also a handful of chances for someone, anyone, to step up and stop the bleeding and help preserve what could have been a flawed but still important road win.
It’s what Willie Jefferson alluded to in our recap and was repeated by many of the voices we heard while working our way through the locker room after the game.
“Give a lot of credit to them – they stuck with it, they’re fans stuck with them, and they beat us, straight up,” said receiver Rasheed Bailey. “At the end of the day we’ve just got to be better. I’ll speak for our side of the ball – we need to finish. We’ve all got to look ourselves in the mirror and ask what we need to do to get better.
“I had a couple of mistakes out there in the first half. Each of us had something like that. There isn’t one guy who should own this because we all had a part.”
Critical now for the Blue Bombers is their response. The West Division race changed on the weekend with the B.C. Lions, who had a bye, remaining on top at 4-1, with Winnipeg stumbling, with the Saskatchewan Roughriders falling to 3-2 and losing starting QB Trevor Harris and with the Calgary Stampeders scratching out a win in Regina to get to 2-3.
The Blue Bombers now host the winless Edmonton Elks on Thursday in a short turnaround but should hardly be looking behind their division rivals – especially after what happened in Ottawa.
“These losses can bring us together,” Bailey said. “We will be better. It’s just going to take some time. We’ve got a short week, but we’ve got to have a short memory and be better.
“The lesson for us here is we’ve got to get better, plain, and simple. We’ve done some great things and some good things, but we haven’t done them consistently enough. They got us. They hung in there and hung in there and ultimately, we made more mistakes than they did.
“We have to look at this as something we can grow from and get better.”
More on the Blue Bombers OT loss in this week’s UPON FURTHER REVIEW…
THREE NUMBERS THAT JUMP OUT…
Winnipeg ran only 17 offensive plays in the second half after 32 in the first 30 minutes. After having just three first downs in the first half – and hearing a Bronx cheer when they got their first, not until the second quarter – Ottawa finished with 20 first downs in the second half and 23 in total to the Blue Bombers four in the second half and 17 total.
Winnipeg’s gassed defence, which also looked to be down a couple of bodies in the second half including Malik Clements, was on the field for an incredible 21 minutes and 59 seconds in the final 30.
“I don’t think our guys got complacent,” said head coach Mike O’Shea when asked about the first half vs. second half differences. “In the fourth quarter when we missed some tackles, I think sometimes they’re just tired. We didn’t stay on the field, and we didn’t get off the field and that just amounts to that kind of stuff happening. I thought we had guys wrapped up a few times that they ran out of the tackles which is certainly not pleasing.”
A topic of discussion for the Blue Bombers heading into the game was to be more efficient on first downs. Winnipeg averaged an impressive 7.4 yards on first downs but was all over the map in second-down conversions. Overall, the attack was 5-of-10 on second down conversions but inside that number was a poor 2-for-9 conversion rate on second and medium (4-6 yards).
Zach Collaros passed for 354 yards on Saturday – a number that would obviously have been significantly higher without the missed opportunities mentioned above – but the Blue Bombers managed just 26 yards on 14 rushing attempts.
ONE MORE ON THAT RUSHING TOTAL…
The 26 yards rushing is significant because it’s the lowest total since the club rushed nine times for 19 yards in a 27-20 loss to Ottawa on October 24, 2015. And for a team that prides itself on dominating up front, it is concerning.
“We just couldn’t get it going,” said O’Shea. “We didn’t move them off the ball like we should be able to do and have been able to do in the past. We just didn’t get the movement that we needed.”
The Blue Bombers did use a ‘big’ offensive set in the game, especially after a change of possession and with Greg McCrae handling the kick return chores. Winnipeg opened with a seven-man front, featuring Tui Eli and Liam Dobson along with the starting five, and yet did not find much traction along the ground.
“We’ve just got to be better at executing the plays and knowing all our assignments,” said Collaros. “It’s all of the things that lead to winning football.”
AND FINALLY… it came in a losing cause, the Blue Bombers did bring some pressure to Crum, especially in the first half. In the process Willie Jefferson — who had two tackles, a sack and a knockdown – joined an exclusive club of one. He is now the only player in CFL history, at least since sacks and knockdowns have been tracked, to have at least sixty of each (Credit to TSN’s Jon Perlberg for the number).
