With a few minutes left in the first half, they played the theme from Deliverance over the loudspeakers at Canad Inns Stadium.It was 26-7 Riders at the time. The Winnipeg Blue Bombers had just surrendered three straight turnovers and 18 unanswered points en route to franchise-tarnishing 55-10 loss.

The murmurs were getting louder.

Hence the fitting music from the iconic, squirm-inducing movie.

The Bombers were in a canoe, in their own wilderness, and you could hear the rustling in the bushes. That ominous banjo pickin'.

"Dah-dah-dee-dah-dee-dah-dee-dah-dah..."

And to think just over an hour before, there was sunshine and optimism aplenty. A gorgeous, late summer day ruined by a football game.

You can point to no end of reasons for the Bombers demise before a sellout crowd Sunday; a moribund offence, a rifle-armed quarterback who throws more interceptions than touchdowns, all culminating with the erosion of a defence worn each game to a nub.

Yeah, about that no first dow.... er, no-huddle offence.

Apparently, it doesn't matter how the calls are relayed to the players. They're not working. Anybody got any carrier pigeons? Better yet, use boo-birds. There were more than enough of them in the stands.

But enough about the offensive dysfunction. This team is making a ton of mistakes.

Fumbles. Missed blocks. Screwed up assignments. Missed tackles. Poor execution. Eight turnovers, in all.

Seriously, just look at the precision of many of the Riders' biggest offensive plays Sunday. Routes run to perfection, culminating with a pass falling from the sky in mid-stride. Protecting the ball. Did Riders quarterback Darian Durant even take a solid hit in the pocket?

The point? I'm sick and tired of hearing how all the sideshows that have haunted the Bombers from Day 1 of the 2009 season have had absolutely no affect on their performance. That's a load of crap.

Think of your own job. What if your boss is acting all goofy and your company is becoming a punchline? Some of your co-workers, maybe long-time friends, are quitting on the spot. There are media reports every single day challenging why your company has become so woefully unsuccessful.

And that's not going to be a distraction? Are you freaking kidding me?

Meanwhile, the Bombers work in a competitive environment where attention to detail is critical. It just takes one player to make one misstep to turn a touchdown into a turnover. That's how fine a line there is, especially in the CFL.

So if you've spent the entire week in preparation distracted by the circus tent outside, go figure that will take its toll in performance come Sunday. Or next week. Or the next.

It's inevitable. To suggest that distractions, especially endless ones, don't affect how you perform any task -- driving a car, wielding a chain saw, learning a game plan -- is patently absurd. It defies logic -- which has been a rare commodity in Bomberville these days.

It's not unlike the start of the season, when observers wondered out loud if starting the year with three unproven quarterbacks might not be the most prudent decision, especially given the enormous turnover in personnel. Don't worry, said Mike Kelly, we've got it covered. It'll be okay.

Now here we are 10 games into a season with no clear, effective starting quarterback -- and this after the emergency signing of Michael Bishop -- and no foreseeable heir to the pocket.

That's the kind of prudent coaching and management that has put the entire Bombers' season at risk. It's only September, but it already appears the Bombers are going to have to find an image of the Virgin Mary in their grilled cheese. Yes, a miracle.

The Bombers are now 3-7, tied for dead last in the East, and their next opponent is the 8-2 Montreal Alouettes. All that optimistic talk about six games at home in the second half? You want five more helpings of that?

So this is it, folks. The tipping point has arrived. The Bombers, who play the Alouettes three more times, must go 5-3 down the stretch just to match the mediocrity of a 2008 season that got the last head coach canned.

If this all begins to unravel for real -- because, trust us, everything up to now is child's play compared to a football team that implodes in the locker-room -- then we're all going to find out what it sounds like, as the Hillbillies say in Deliverance, to squeal like a pig.

"Dah-dah-dee-dah-dee-dah-dee-dah-dah..." And here are the Bombers, up a creek with no paddle in sight.

This team is as much a mess on the field right now as they've been off of it all season.

Forget those white boards. When do the white flags start coming out?

Because the red flags have been going up for months.

randy.turner@freepress.mb.ca

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition September 14, 2009 C3