OT: Winnipeg Blue Bombers 2023 Season - Another terrible disappointment. NEXT: Tough Decisions on How to Rebuild.

[Whileee]

Kinda strange response. Bombers lose a couple of stinkers (equivalent to about 9 losses in an NHL season) and nobody questions the lack of leadership, etc.

The Bombers were completely lackadaisical today, and even worse vs. BC. They have a lot more talent than the rest of the CFL, but the effort and intensity is really lacking.

Interesting that O'Shea isn't losing his composure publicly, as the Jets' coach did. My guess is that O'Shea isn't nearly as placid with his team in the locker room.

 

[AlphaLackey]

NCAA College teams always do this. It's better to know if you need a TD or just a field goal to keep it going

Win rates say otherwise.

I remember walking out to the car once, decades ago, when the Bombers were down 14 or 17 or something with 2 minutes left and hearing one huge roaring cheer ... then, a minute later, another one ... never made that mistake again.

I was at the Flames / Jets game where people were leaving early, and the Jets scored with 1.4 seconds left. I was screaming at the usher "DO NOT LET THESE PEOPLE BACK IN!" and she laughed, but of course she let them back in, so of course I called out to everyone that sheepishly came back to their seats.

Would that a referee didn't decide to make up penalties he was not legally allowed to call, we'd have won that game.

 

[Atoyot]

CJOB post game show AGAIN, for like the fifth time, using actual statistical analytics in their post-game show. They may be muckrakers, but god bless 'em for being somewhere at or near the vanguard.



I'm glad for the Ottawa fans *who stayed*, yeah The ones that left early to beat the traffic? f*** 'em. May their shame haunt them forever.

Hey man, they were just playing the odds.

But honestly, this is what makes sports exciting. 99/100 times those fans were justified in leaving, the 1/100 though is why we watch.

 

[nobody imp0rtant]

Hey man, they were just playing the odds.

But honestly, this is what makes sports exciting. 99/100 times those fans were justified in leaving, the 1/100 though is why we watch.

I remember a game many years ago, back when they still had local blackouts. My buddy had SkyCable based out of Brandon which didn't get blacked out so we would watch the home games at his place. This particular game against the Stamps he was off in Vancouver visiting his brother, so I was alone at his place watching the game.

In the 4th quarter, the Stamps were up so much that Suitor was already gleefully giving them the points on the standings. Then the game changed, and the Bombers started scoring and scoring. At one point, Suitor took his telestrator and started erasing the points in the standings, saying he might have been premature. The end result was a Bomber win and showed again what real CFL fans know: if you think a lead is safe, you are probably wrong.

And my poor buddy, who was a much more diehard Bomber fan than I ever was, missed the game because his brother (a Lions fan) didn't give a shit about the game so they were off doing something else.

 

[Potential]

I don't comment on the Bombers much, but, well, doesn't look like we're going to be doing anything else in free agency for the time being so why not?

I follow the Bombers loosely, and from what I can see there are three major issues that need addressing:

1) The interior o-line is not playing well - Gray, Neufeld routinely get straight up beaten, and occasionally Hardrick misses his blocks. We are not consistently giving Collaros the protection he needs. We're not getting enough time to allow plays to develop, and worse, Zach is getting knocked around. A good way to end our season is for Zach to get injured, and if we keep playing this way it's only a matter of time.​

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2) The Interior d-line is not getting enough pressure - we have been a little better at this the past 2 games, but we are still very inconsistent up the middle and often give opposing quarterbacks way too much time, which then puts way too much pressure on our secondary to cover too much field. Really miss Stove as he was such a wrecking ball in the middle.​

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3) Tackling. I feel like we need to seriously brush up on some tackling. This has been the most noticeable decline for me - so many plays were extended from sloppy tackling.​

We're being pressured constantly up the middle, runs there are being stuffed, and our possession is over before it begins.

We need to do some dink and dunk when teams do that to us, especially when we have the lead. Much like pounding Oliveira up the gut, it eats up time, and we could have done that to finish the game when it was established that Ottawa was blitzing and plugging up the middle and keying in on stopping the run. Instead we continued to try to run it up the middle over and over, which just was not there as Ottawa's d-line was in our kitchen on almost every play. It was so frustrating to watch.

 

[gojetsgo]

wow. what a miracle in saskatchewan

 

[Ducky10]

Meh, rather be playing like this in July than October. Everyone knows the real season starts in September. They’ll be fine, good dose of reality to get to work.

 

[Edgar Halliwax]

Bombers offense in the 2nd half was shit. I don’t think 83 is going to sleep tonight. He makes that easy catch the and game is out of hand. f*** me.

 

[Holden Caulfield]

I don't want to talk much tonight, but this was a classic letting off the gas situation. Whenever you do that, it is almost always impossible to turn it back on if needed. And thats not all on the players, the coaching staff called the game that way, letting Ottawa up off the mat.

CFL seasons are marathons not sprints though. Everyone remember Bombers punting that against Montreal in August last year (Liegghio I know, but rest of team were mediocre as well). Sure combine it with BC loss, it's not the first 1/3 of season Bombers and us envisioned. But 4-2, plenty of road left. I have no panic, and I doubt the Bombers do either.

 

[FonRiesen]

I had to miss the 2nd half (singing at the Concert Hall), WTF happened? Ottawa looked pretty bad in the first half (1st first down came with 4 minutes left)... Bizarre.

Edit: I think there were 2 times we punted instead of kicking 52 yard FG's - I still feel that if you don't want to risk kicking from there, you need to at least get singles from there. It adds up, every point matters. Especially with our bend not break defense

 

[BobTheSolarsystem]

I had to miss the 2nd half (singing at the Concert Hall), WTF happened? Ottawa looked pretty bad in the first half (1st first down came with 4 minutes left)... Bizarre.

Edit: I think there were 2 times we punted instead of kicking 52 yard FG's - I still feel that if you don't want to risk kicking from there, you need to at least get singles from there. It adds up, every point matters. Especially with our bend not break defense

Richie Hall played prevent for the entire second half... Ottawa STILL couldn't score - and then Collaros threw a sloppy interception, momentum swung and never came back...

That and Oshea/Hall put Jess Briggs out as our WIL in overtime...

 

[gojetsgo]

I had to miss the 2nd half (singing at the Concert Hall), WTF happened? Ottawa looked pretty bad in the first half (1st first down came with 4 minutes left)... Bizarre.

Edit: I think there were 2 times we punted instead of kicking 52 yard FG's - I still feel that if you don't want to risk kicking from there, you need to at least get singles from there. It adds up, every point matters. Especially with our bend not break defense

our offense couldn't move the ball in the second half and turned the ball over twice once leading to a pick six, our defense was playing great but having to go back on the field 30 seconds after you stop them with all the 2 and ours/turnovers we had wore them down.. some people are trying to blame hall/defense for this but it was way more on the offensive play calling and 2 turnovers then anything

 

[VictoriaJetsFan]

in the off season, loading up on receivers said to me the Bombers were going to win through outscoring all of/any other problems.

This won't happen with the performance of the offensive line.

They could have jerry Rice, Milt Stegal and Allen Pitts and it won't matter if Collaros doesn't get time to throw.

I think the defense for the most part has been good, but if i am O'Shea he really has to hone in on his offensive line.

 

[Heldig]

Kinda strange response. Bombers lose a couple of stinkers (equivalent to about 9 losses in an NHL season) and nobody questions the lack of leadership, etc.

The Bombers were completely lackadaisical today, and even worse vs. BC. They have a lot more talent than the rest of the CFL, but the effort and intensity is really lacking.

Interesting that O'Shea isn't losing his composure publicly, as the Jets' coach did. My guess is that O'Shea isn't nearly as placid with his team in the locker

AWFUL performance. Over confident. Lacking intensity. Terrible execution.

Bombers better be looking for some new offensive linemen if they want Collaros to last the season.

 

[WPGChief]

I'm probably the biggest Richie Hall non-fan but a lot of that loss in the 4th quarter wasn't on his playcalling (other than a few nitpicks, like somehow leaving the middle of the field open when Redblacks only sent out 4 receivers with 2 RBs in the backfield to protect) - instead, it was the players just being poor in positioning, worse on their angles, and awful in their tackling. Crum, meanwhile, had like 3 perfect passes where only his receiver could make a play on it in some pretty good protection, and another 2 runs where Bighill first and Alexander second just took the wrong angle and got beat cleanly.

Similarily, didn't have much issue with the offence for most of the game other than Pierce trying a few too many times trying to get Oliveira running up the middle while the interior offensive line was struggling all game. Then the 4th quarter happened: a dropped ball that should've been a TD by Schoen, fumble by Oliveira, and then Wolitarsky making the adjustment into soft coverage one second too late as Collaros was making his throw that turned into the pick-six was just... disappointing, mostly.

That's the CFL though, where simple but big mistakes like that can turn a 25-9 game with 3 minutes to go into a loss. For a team that prides itself in its continuity in comparison to the rest of the league though, this is a huge deal, IMO.

I think it starts at the line of scrimmage: that interior oline of Gray-Kolankowski-Neufeld has been baaaaaaaaad, and same with defensive tackles in Thomas/Lawson-Walker - they're mostly there to just try and contain the run and aren't nearly good enough in any of their other responsibilities.

 

[snowkiddin]

Interior o-line absolutely killing us, among other things.

Better now than November, I guess.

Kinda strange response. Bombers lose a couple of stinkers (equivalent to about 9 losses in an NHL season) and nobody questions the lack of leadership, etc.

The Bombers were completely lackadaisical today, and even worse vs. BC. They have a lot more talent than the rest of the CFL, but the effort and intensity is really lacking.

Interesting that O'Shea isn't losing his composure publicly, as the Jets' coach did. My guess is that O'Shea isn't nearly as placid with his team in the locker room.

The Bombers leadership have built up MUCH more good will than the Jets have, if that’s what you’re getting at.

 

[Flair Hay]

Bombers being dominant in the trenches has been our calling card and driver of team success. We seem average at best there this year. If it doesn't get fixed there will be no 3rd in 4 years.

 

[Teppo Numenor]

I was cheering for Ottawa by the end of the game.

 

[Gabe Kupari]

OL interior has sucked since the BC game. Zach also making dumb decisions at times because of it, dude has taken some hits this year... I think Eli and Dobson can replace Neufeld and Kolo like immediately and be an upgrade but the Bombers are an old boys club it appears where the vet needs to rupture an Achilles or break a leg b4 osh takes him out.

The D I thought played good enough to win. The pick 6 really hurt us. Also kicking fgs instead of getting TDs and never going for 2 EVER

 

[FonRiesen]

OL interior has sucked since the BC game. Zach also making dumb decisions at times because of it, dude has taken some hits this year... I think Eli and Dobson can replace Neufeld and Kolo like immediately and be an upgrade but the Bombers are an old boys club it appears where the vet needs to rupture an Achilles or break a leg b4 osh takes him out.

The D I thought played good enough to win. The pick 6 really hurt us. Also kicking fgs instead of getting TDs and never going for 2 EVER

@AlphaLackey - do you know what the odds of getting the 2 point convert vs single are? If the 2 has a 50%+ success rate, you're ahead just always going for 2 unless it's a last second TD and you only need one (singles must be ~95-98% successful?).

 

[BobTheSolarsystem]

I'm probably the biggest Richie Hall non-fan but a lot of that loss in the 4th quarter wasn't on his playcalling (other than a few nitpicks, like somehow leaving the middle of the field open when Redblacks only sent out 4 receivers with 2 RBs in the backfield to protect) - instead, it was the players just being poor in positioning, worse on their angles, and awful in their tackling. Crum, meanwhile, had like 3 perfect passes where only his receiver could make a play on it in some pretty good protection, and another 2 runs where Bighill first and Alexander second just took the wrong angle and got beat cleanly.

Similarily, didn't have much issue with the offence for most of the game other than Pierce trying a few too many times trying to get Oliveira running up the middle while the interior offensive line was struggling all game. Then the 4th quarter happened: a dropped ball that should've been a TD by Schoen, fumble by Oliveira, and then Wolitarsky making the adjustment into soft coverage one second too late as Collaros was making his throw that turned into the pick-six was just... disappointing, mostly.

That's the CFL though, where simple but big mistakes like that can turn a 25-9 game with 3 minutes to go into a loss. For a team that prides itself in its continuity in comparison to the rest of the league though, this is a huge deal, IMO.

I think it starts at the line of scrimmage: that interior oline of Gray-Kolankowski-Neufeld has been baaaaaaaaad, and same with defensive tackles in Thomas/Lawson-Walker - they're mostly there to just try and contain the run and aren't nearly good enough in any of their other responsibilities.

Hall's play calling is what let Crum back in the game... and I'm not necessarily against his strategy. But that was A LOT of Prevent/very soft zone. Players get tired after a while... and yes its just one play - but Crum was running a fair bit by the end of the game, you just can't have Jesse Briggs out there with no closing speed.

Interior DL I thought had a decent game - they were getting a nice push and I liked Lawson's game tbh. Crum only started getting running yards after our DL started getting tired from almost sacking him every play for 3 quarters.

Basically, Ottawa shifted to max protect and that wore our guys down.

I like Briggs, Gauthier and Maruo and cheer for them - but for Osh not to have someone who can really spell off Bighill or use one of our many vets as our Designated National(?) and get someone young and fast backing up WIL - I'm not getting it - maybe Im missing something

 

[BobTheSolarsystem]

Bombers ad just popped up on my feed... seems to suggest Lawler is back this week...

 

[bustamente]

Lawler back and plans on playing against the Elks

 

[snowkiddin]

Tough pill to swallow for the rest of the league for sure. Great news for us!

 

[sipowicz]

Bombers ad just popped up on my feed... seems to suggest Lawler is back this week...

if he is sober, not a fan of anyone caught drinking and driving period!