Blue blow 9 crucial seconds

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This article was published 08/08/2010 (5850 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

HAMILTON — Oh to have those last nine seconds to do over again…

In the aftermath of Saturday’s 29-22 loss to the Hamilton Tiger-Cats in front of 23,653 at Ivor Wynne Stadium, the Winnipeg Blue Bombers were kicking themselves for two wasted chances to tie the game inside the final two minutes.

But what is going to sting the most is how the Bombers bungled the last nine seconds of the game with the ball on the Ticat three-yard line. Bad clock management — it’s possible to get two plays off in that time — and an iffy play call killed any chances of last-play heroics.

Instead, Steven Jyles was sacked for a seven-yard loss by Garrett McIntyre as the clock went to zeroes.

“That last play was a naked (bootleg), where we tried get Steven around the edge and the end made a play on it,” head coach Paul LaPolice said. “That’s on me. I told the players I gotta get them a better call and give them more options.”

The Bombers had rallied from a 17-7 halftime deficit with a superb third quarter in which they outscored the Ticats 15-3.

But they were shut out in the final 15 minutes, even though they were inside the Ticat 30-yard line twice on their last two possessions.
In the game’s dying moments, Jyles hit Brock Ralph for a 49-yard gain to the Ticat three, but the Bombers had no time outs remaining after using theirs earlier to get the right defensive personnel on the field.

Still, the opportunity was there for the taking…

“It was a keeper, designed for me to keep it,” Jyles said of the final-play call. “They played it well. When I turn around, usually you don’t get a guy there. But he was there, he stayed home and I tried to keep my balance on him and I couldn’t. He made a play and that’s the end of the game.”

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McIntyre was a force, not only making the game-ending play but also stripping Jyles of the ball earlier in the quarter to set up the go-ahead score.

“It was one of those plays where it kind of just happens and all of a sudden the play is over and you don’t even realize what happened,” McIntyre said.

“It was a bootleg and we had what we call our shuffle technique and I saw the tackle going down, so I did my job and shuffled and I could kind of tell he was trying to hide the ball like he was going to boot, and he did and I just went out there and was in the right place at the right time.

“It was kind of like… I didn’t think the game was over. I thought we had one more play and then I realized the game was over. So then I knew I was good.”