Bombers 'must win' again

VANCOUVER -- Doug Brown was smiling when he said it, but there's always a kernel of truth in the best ribbing.

Brown was standing in the lobby of the Blue Bombers' downtown Vancouver hotel when he spotted the club's equipment manager, Brad Fotty, and fired this dart at himself and his teammates.

"AC/DC kicked us out of our locker-room. They're moving in there," said Brown, referring to the Aussie rockers who play Canad Inns Stadium on Saturday night. "We had to pack up our lockers and take all of our stuff out. Maybe they did it on purpose. If we play bad enough, with the bye coming up, they can say, 'Well, your locker is already cleaned out. You might as well not come back.'"

The Canadian defensive tackle is perhaps the one member of the Winnpeg Blue Bombers who has no worries in this department, but as he and his teammates head into tonight's game with the B.C. Lions, the talk is about survival. From a personal and team perspective.

The 2-5 Bombers have been a dysfunctional lot this season and the prospect of a third straight loss would put the team into an air of resignation where some of their jobs are concerned. Linebacker Barrin Simpson has been calling for urgency all week and he says the Bombers must take a simple approach to tonight's action.

"In my mind, every game is a must-win. I like to win," stated Simpson, turned out in a black suit that he said was his "business attire for a business trip, because I mean business. It's a game we definitely need. No doubt about it, we need to go out there and play well and get a W. It's really very simple. When it's your turn to make a play, make the play. We need to execute and make plays."

Urgency and desperation, or whatever you want to call it, is certainly required at this point, but it can't be allowed to overwhelm the players.

"We can't be uptight. It's a game, and you have to have fun to play well. You have to enjoy the ride," said Simpson, who leads the CFL with 54 tackles. "When we go out and have fun, we play our best games. When we get to pressing and do more things instead of letting them happen, we don't do as well."

Simpson says the results-driven culture of pro football is close to showing its ugly side.

"That's something that's not left up to me. Our coaches and front-office people are capable of making those decisions. If our staff thinks we need to make changes, they will," he said. "This isn't Show Friends, it's Show Biz. We're entertainers and we're paid to win, not play."

The embattled coach, Mike Kelly, is doing his best to sell a positive outlook.

"It would be nice to get the win and go into the bye week (the Blue Bombers are off next week) at 3-5, knowing what our schedule is after the break and that we have so many home games to go," said Kelly, who put the Bombers through a quick workout in Winnipeg on Thursday morning before flying to Vancouver. The team arrived at their hotel late in the afternoon and immediately headed into meetings.

"We're a pretty resilient group and a loss would make our challenges certainly more difficult," Kelly said. "But we've handled things well in our building and kept the hysteria to the outside. I think the minority is louder than the majority. The people that I know that understand football think we're on the right track and we're going to stay on that track. We're not going to deviate."

While the Bombers have slid the last two weeks, the Lions have roared and heading into this game, the story is of two clubs headed in opposite directions.

"We're still thinking about finishing in first place," said Lions DB Ryan Phillip, who stole a pair of passes from Bombers QB Michael Bishop when they met in last year's playoffs, with Bishop throwing up three picks against the Lions as the starter for the Saskatchewan Roughriders. "We're starting to feel good about ourselves. We know we have talent here and now we're using it."

The Lions, 3-4 and in the arc of a rebound after a slow start to the season, are looking for a third straight win.

"If we win on Friday, I'll take some satisfaction that we were able to win three straight heading into the bye," said head coach Wally Buono, who with a victory on Friday would tie Don Matthews at 231 for the all-time lead in career coaching wins. "We needed to win these to get back in the hunt. At 3-4, we're still in the hunt and 4-4 would be better."

gary.lawless@freepress.mb.ca

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition August 21, 2009 C1