Bombers need help with basics

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 04/08/2012 (5038 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

WHAT do you tell some disgruntled Winnipeg Blue Bombers, who after falling to 1-5 on the season, will now have to wait close to two weeks before hitting the field again.

For head coach Paul La Police, it was simple words and a statistic for a man who’s clearly frustrated with his club.

“We have to play better to win football games,” LaPolice told reporters following a 36-26 loss to Montreal Friday night. “We have to come back focused and take it one day at a time. Six out of eight teams make it but you have to play better than we played tonight.”

But right now the Bombers sit in the last spot of that eight, one of two positions set not to make it to the post season come fall.

“We have to score more points,” said La Police. “I thought we ran the ball well but we didn’t throw the ball, we didn’t execute well.”

That lack of execution began with the opening kickoff, with the Bombers continuing their trend of slow starts.

Bombers quarterback Alex Brink finished the opening quarter 1-for-3 and six yards. By half, he recorded a miserable 66 yards in the air.

“I think I started off a little slow,” said Brink.

“I would have liked to be a little better early on. They did a few things differently then what we expected (and) it took us a little longer to adjust that we would have liked.”

The Bombers first points wouldn’t come until five minutes in to the second quarter when kicker Justin Palardy hit a 33-yard field goal. Brink would eventually find his composure in the pocket, ending the game 25-for-39 for 311 yards and two touchdowns.

But it was too little to late as the feeling of a lost opportunity at home hits close.

“We’re reeling a little bit from this one,” said Brink. “We had a lot of confidence coming off of last week. We felt comfortable coming back home. We thought we were going to come away with a better performance than we had.”

When asked why the offence couldn’t get it right until the second half, Bombers receiver Terence Edwards listed off a number of current problems.

“We got to stop doing what we’re doing,” said Edwards. “We got to stop everything. Not executing. Not catching, not throwing, not blocking. Not running. Football 101 we’re not doing so somehow, someway we got to figure out a way to do that.

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“We got to come back (after bye week) with a different mind frame. We got to come back and screw all the playfulness. We have to have attention to detail. This is professional football and we ain’t doing it right.”

Chad Simpson, who’s been the bright spot in a shifty Bombers offence, said the team’s troubles start with moving the ball up the field.

“We got to put together better drives,” said Simpson, who finished the game with 65 yards on seven carries. “We have to protect our quarterback and we have to make the big play when it’s there. We can all afford to be better right now.”

jeff.hamilton@freepress.mb.ca twitter: @jeffkhamilton

Jeff Hamilton
Multimedia producer

Jeff Hamilton is a sports and investigative reporter. Jeff joined the Free Press newsroom in April 2015, and has been covering the local sports scene since graduating from Carleton University’s journalism program in 2012. Read more about Jeff.

Every piece of reporting Jeff produces is reviewed by an editing team before it is posted online or published in print — part of the Free Press‘s tradition, since 1872, of producing reliable independent journalism. Read more about Free Press’s history and mandate, and learn how our newsroom operates.