The Blue Bombers had a host of mistakes in their 23-18 loss to Edmonton earlier this season
EDMONTON — The Winnipeg Blue Bombers will be the first to step into the confessional booth and acknowledge their share of sins as a football team through the halfway mark of the Canadian Football League season.
And a 5-4 record — all four losses at home and three of them by double digits — has certainly led to some blasphemous commentary in and outside of the clubhouse.
Yet, as the team prepares to start the second chunk of their schedule here in the Alberta capital Friday night against the Edmonton Elks there’s also this admission/confession:
If this team could just get out of its own way in critical moments it can be right back to being considered a serious contender. That, of course, constitutes a size large ‘If’ but the Blue Bombers to a man believe all the pieces are there on the roster.
The fix, then, is all up to them.
“That’s accurate. It’s really about us limiting mistakes,” veteran right tackle Jarell Broxton told bluebombers.com this week. “You look at the tape, and we’ve shot ourselves in the foot a lot and then that can backfire when it comes to the fourth quarter and were trying to crawl out of the hole that we put ourselves in. We want to start off hot and keep that flow going and build off that.
“I mean, look at the last time we played this team (Edmonton) — we lost by five despite all the turnovers we had.”
There’s so much truth in that the 23-18 loss to the Elks back on June 25th really was a snapshot of the Blue Bombers entire first half of the season. Winnipeg held an 18-17 lead in the fourth quarter but gave up a touchdown with 53 seconds remaining and was left seriously wanting afterward in lamenting their SIX fumbles, three of them lost, three sacks allowed and two missed field goals before a possible game-winning drive ended on the Elks’ 11-yard line as time expired.
Again, if this bunch could simply get out of its own way sometimes…
“We’ve all got confidence in each other,” said cornerback Jonathan Moxey. “We know we work hard; we practice hard, we put in the extra time in the film room.
“We’re in this together. And nobody’s pointing fingers.”
BLUE BOMBERS (5-4) at ELKS (7-3)
Kickoff: Friday, 8:30 p.m. CDT; Commonwealth Stadium, Edmonton
TV/Streaming: TSN; CBS SportsNetwork; CFL+
Radio: 680 CJOB; Play-by-play: Derek Taylor | Analyst: Doug Brown; pre-game starts at 6 p.m. CDT
Streaks: Wpg.: 1W; Edm.: 1W
Interestingly, as we pointed out in this week’s 48 Hour Primer, the Elks at 7-3 are playing with the very same confidence — dare we say, swagger — that the Blue Bombers have made their own trademark for the past several years.
“Oh, we still have swagger. We still have grit,” reasoned defensive end Willie Jefferson told me on Wednesday. “We still want to be considered a tough team to play against in all three phases. It’s on us to find that consistency.”
Given the schedule ahead, finding that consistency couldn’t come soon enough. There’s a ton of belief still in the Blue Bombers locker room, but it needs to be fuelled, not extinguished, in the weeks ahead and beginning here on Friday.
“We believe we have a very high ceiling,” Broxton insisted. “We’ve just got to find ways to execute in the game. Last week it was going in the right direction with that. We can build bricks off that. If we execute, we can compete with anyone.
“I feel like we have swagger, too. We know that when we put our jersey on with that big ‘W’ on it our expectation is to win. From the outside looking in it might not look like that right now but inside this locker room we know. We know.”
PROTECTING ZACH’S BACK
The Blue Bombers welcomed QB1 Zach Collaros back from injury a week ago in the win over Ottawa — his first appearance after a six-game absence — and the veteran poise and leadership was on display in critical moments.
That said, the veteran pivot also took a pounding, including a jaw-rattling hit that knocked him from the game for a few plays before his return.
Winnipeg gave up four sacks to the RedBlacks and, while Collaros is always first to take his share of the blame for some of those takedowns, protecting his back will be absolutely massive going forward.
“It’s always a team thing, it’s never one guy,” offensive coordinator Tommy Condell told me earlier this week. “Zach’s always going to take accountability like any leader should.
“The biggest thing — it’s not from the naked eye and seeing pressure, it’s not just the offensive line — it’s the receivers getting separation, it’s the tailbacks making sure we’re on the same page, it’s the quarterback understanding where the weaknesses in the defensive structure are, and the protection areas.
“It’s not just one guy,” Condell added. “You might just see the outcome, but there’s a lot of things that go into it, where maybe the receiver didn’t get to his depth, or we didn’t have the right call up front, or it was an individual mistake.”
The Elks, FYI, are tied with the Blue Bombers and Saskatchewan with 18 sacks so far this season — third most in the CFL — with end Malik Carney being a wrecking ball against Winnipeg in the past.
THE NEW ELKS
The Elks turnaround this season — they haven’t posted a winning campaign since going 12-6 in 2017 — has been a steady build under GM Ed Hervey and second-year head coach Mark Killam.
“They’ve got a good team, a bunch of good players, good coaching staff. Killer’s got them playing hard and they’re all in. It’s good. It’s good for our league,” said Blue Bombers head coach Mike O’Shea.
“(Killam’s) got a lot of energy, a lot of emotion and the players play like that. It’s good. It’s been fun to watch. He’s been in the league a long time and we’ve coached against each other in various capacities for a long time so it’s fun to see him get it going.”
O’Shea was then asked by Taylor Allen of the Free Press about watching the decline of the Edmonton franchise over the years and the boss stepped out of his uber-competitor suit to offer a big picture take on the Elks resurgence.
“(It was) troublesome, honestly,” he said of the decline of the CFL brand in Edmonton. “We’d play there and it just didn’t feel like it should. It’s been turned around and it’s good for our league. I can separate the two. I can know what we want to do on game day, but I also can appreciate that they’ve worked their asses off to turn it around there. And I can be happy for a fellow coach who I’ve been around and been to a ton of meetings with and hung around and had beers with… I can be happy for him, too.
“It doesn’t mean we don’t want to beat them; I just understand the value and the importance of the health of franchises and to the health of the league. It’s pretty apparent we need every team to be going.”
MUST LOVE BRADY BALL
It’s no coincidence the Blue Bombers found some offensive mojo again last week while feeding Brady Oliveira the ball consistently, especially in the first half, in the win.
Winnipeg’s attack managed just 305 net offensive yards, but Oliveira was responsible for over half of it with 74 rushing yards and a touchdown on 11 carries and 80 receiving yards on eight catches. That’s 8.1 yards per touch and, worth noting, is 68 of his 80 yards came after contact.
There’s also this: eight of Oliveira’s 19 touches came in the second half and the RedBlacks did an effective job of limiting his production as he finished with just 13 yards on five carries and caught two passes for 13 yards.
That said, while the Blue Bombers still need to continue to lean on Oliveira — that 19 touch total given his production seems especially low — they also must be able to pivot to their other weapons if defences continue to stack the box or pay extra attention to him as a receiver. Both Tim White (8 catches, 85 yards) and Nik Demski (six-79) had solid nights against Ottawa, but Pokey Wilson, Gavin Cobb and Tommy Nield combined for just one catchfor five yards on seven targets.
THE LINEUP: The Blue Bombers have made just one change to the roster for Friday’s game with the Elks from last week’s win over Ottawa, substituting DB Ethan Ball for LB Lane Novak. Ball, it was confirmed on Wednesday, is done for the season with an Achilles injury.
Ball is now on the six-game injured list along with safety Cam Allen, DT De’Shaan Dixon, defensive backs Redha Kramdi and Michael Griffin II and linebacker Jovan Santos-Knox.
