OT: y - Winnipeg Blue Bombers 2024 Season Thread (11-7) - West Final awaits. Banjo pickers coming to town in post-season. - Next vs Sask Nov 9 530pm

[snowkiddin]

^ reffing has also been rusty

It’s Proulx calling an Als game. It’s par for the course

 

[Eyeseeing]

 

[DerekDevils30]

Will learn a lot about this team next week. Hope to see significant improvement on offence and special teams. Embarrassing opener.

 

[Whileee]

Yikes. The O line has been really porous, and most Bombers weren't ready to play.

The Bombers kind of seemed to come into the season with a bit more bravado than was warranted.

They have enough talent to turn it around, but they need to start playing a bit more like they need to earn their wins.

 

[LadyJet26]

Absolutely pathetic showing by the offence. O only got 3 points because of the D.

 

[Holden Caulfield]

Reffing sucked but Bombers O failed to show up completely. Pathetic performance. Montreal remains the team with the horseshoe lodged firmly in their rectum.

 

[snowkiddin]

Some backbreaking calls really hurt us but the Bombers never felt in this game. Most of the vets looked rusty.

Last year we looked like shit in that game against BC and still had a good season, I think this game will be similar.

But the Bombers aren’t gonna beat teams just by sheer talent anymore.

 

[Hank Chinaski]

Yikes. The O line has been really porous, and most Bombers weren't ready to play.

The Bombers kind of seemed to come into the season with a bit more bravado than was warranted.

They have enough talent to turn it around, but they need to start playing a bit more like they need to earn their wins.

Agree except I actually don’t think their O Line has been that bad.

Collaros has just flat out missed open throws or played pattycake with the ball.

 

[bustamente]

It's one game and upon reflection maybe ZC should of gotten some reps in preseason but tonight he looked cooked.

 

[snowkiddin]

On the bright side, the defence was solid today (granted against a team who isn’t expected to have a good offence, but still).

On the down side, Mitchell looked terrible as a returner. Limited burst and very poor cuts/decisions

 

[Hank Chinaski]

Ya, there have to be literally dozens of street free agents better than this Mitchell guy as a returner. He stinks.

 

[RetroWinnipeg]

Garbage time

 

[Hank Chinaski]

Collaros with the Drew Willy special. Just cooking in garbage time.

 

[RetroWinnipeg]

A good interview, but the kicking is sus.

 

[Hank Chinaski]

We brought Liegghio back??

Yuck.

 

[blues10]

Ya, there have to be literally dozens of street free agents better than this Mitchell guy as a returner. He stinks.

He’s got arms and legs going everywhere. I have not seen anything from him.
Bombers obviously have.

If we only had a good place kicker.

 

[gojetsgo]

only bright spot of the game was that dumbass getting some instant karma after trying to injure strev

 

[blueandgoldguy]

Second poorly coached game by O'Shea in a row. Last year's Grey Cup he played a couple injured guys who had no business playing the game and likely played a role in us losing to the Als...all out of sense of loyalty. He goes into this game giving the vets, including Collaros, no pre-season playing time, and they look like total shit.

He also put the rookies in the pre-season, particularly on the offense, in a no-win situation giving them little chance to make the team as they played with terrible qbs and backup o-line man so they couldn't really show their stuff. Almost like it was pre-ordained - they wouldn't seriously compete for spots and O'Shea would stick with some of his older guys.

I'm really worried we may end up in a Dave Ritchie-type situation from 2004, where he stuck with too many older, declining guys from the previous 3-4 seasons and the team declined noticeably. Same thing with 2008, when they stuck with too many older players from 2006-07 and the team was lucky to barely make the playoffs.

 

[Heldig]

Wow, hard to remember a game where the team was this bad. Bleh.

 

[snowkiddin]

Wow, hard to remember a game where the team was this bad. Bleh.

Last year early in the season against BC comes to mind.

 

[WPGChief]

Well, offence sucked. Maybe Collaros should've gotten some pre-season reps in, and maybe Pierce should've schemed a better game that wasn't running Oliveira up the middle on 1st and have Collaros throw 10+ air yards on 2nd if he isn't getting time from his OL and no separation from his receivers. There's too many dynamic players that I don't doubt they well eventually gel, but now it's a question of when - and Lawler's injury looked pretty bad too. (Pierce can't scheme a good 1st quarter opening drive to save his life, either.)

My only question for those who have watched (as I haven't): any early thoughts on Jordan Younger calling a game? Are we still sitting 10-15yds off of the line of scrimmage on 2nd-and-5's, continuing the "bend-don't-break" tradition of Richie Hall days?

Otherwise, I would say this is probably going to be the first season in a while where the Bombers likely aren't going to look dominant right out of the gate. The offence still has its obvious all-stars, but without much pre-season reps and practice, it'll probably take them a while to gel and get to form (especially with an OL that has now lost a key starter in consecutive off-seasons (Couture, now Hardrick)). The defence was always going to be the biggest question mark: I expect Willie Jefferson to be great as always, but without Jeffcoat and a rotation of an aging Thomas, Haba, Lawson, and Fox... the rest of the defence can't get "bent" anymore.

Defence played better than the offence but... you can take defence away from Richie Hall, but you can't take Richie Hall away from the defence. They wanted to protect their young corners with those massive cushions and Maas/Cavillo/Fajardo picked up on it in the 2nd half, and just got the ball into the hands of their speediest players to rack up the YAC. The flea flicker play exposed my other concern about this defence: Jefferson and Haba look great on the edges, but that interior DL with a rotation of Thomas, Fox, Woods, and Schmekel were just there to occupy space and got no pressure at all, and Fajardo had all day to step up in that pocket to make that throw to Philpot.

Maybe I'm spoiled given the last 4-6 years of success, but Als thoroughly took the Bombers hubris to the cleaners. Their defence is legit.

 

[snowkiddin]

Well, offence sucked. Maybe Collaros should've gotten some pre-season reps in, and maybe Pierce should've schemed a better game that wasn't running Oliveira up the middle on 1st and have Collaros throw 10+ air yards on 2nd if he isn't getting time from his OL and no separation from his receivers. There's too many dynamic players that I don't doubt they well eventually gel, but now it's a question of when - and Lawler's injury looked pretty bad too. (Pierce can't scheme a good 1st quarter opening drive to save his life, either.)

Defence played better than the offence but... you can take defence away from Richie Hall, but you can't take Richie Hall away from the defence. They wanted to protect their young corners with those massive cushions and Maas/Cavillo/Fajardo picked up on it in the 2nd half, and just got the ball into the hands of their speediest players to rack up the YAC. The flea flicker play exposed my other concern about this defence: Jefferson and Haba look great on the edges, but that interior DL with a rotation of Thomas, Fox, Woods, and Schmekel were just there to occupy space and got no pressure at all, and Fajardo had all day to step up in that pocket to make that throw to Philpot.

Maybe I'm spoiled given the last 4-6 years of success, but Als thoroughly took the Bombers hubris to the cleaners. Their defence is legit.

I thought the defence played very well. Hard to tell a lot after one week especially against an offence like Montreal’s, but they played well considering the offence didn’t help them at all.

 

[snowkiddin]

Second poorly coached game by O'Shea in a row. Last year's Grey Cup he played a couple injured guys who had no business playing the game and likely played a role in us losing to the Als...all out of sense of loyalty. He goes into this game giving the vets, including Collaros, no pre-season playing time, and they look like total shit.

He also put the rookies in the pre-season, particularly on the offense, in a no-win situation giving them little chance to make the team as they played with terrible qbs and backup o-line man so they couldn't really show their stuff. Almost like it was pre-ordained - they wouldn't seriously compete for spots and O'Shea would stick with some of his older guys.

I'm really worried we may end up in a Dave Ritchie-type situation from 2004, where he stuck with too many older, declining guys from the previous 3-4 seasons and the team declined noticeably. Same thing with 2008, when they stuck with too many older players from 2006-07 and the team was lucky to barely make the playoffs.

I agree with much of this. I understand the idea of resting all your starters in the pre-season, and, hey, it worked last season, but the team looked completely unprepared and rusty.

Too early to tell if this team is going to be full of washed up guys. I think there’s still a lot of guys playing at a high level, but some guys are clearly declining and I’m not sure we’ve brought in enough young talent to compensate or not.

 

[ThinIce61]

It’s Proulx calling an Als game. It’s par for the course

Andre Proulx is the Angel Hernandez of the CFL.

 

[Holden Caulfield]

No post game thoughts from me this game. It sucked. But overall I think this is a blip not a pattern. I'm not worried yet. If they lay another egg next week we'll have to re-evaluate.