Next test of character awaits Blue Bombers

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This article was published 19/07/2015 (4034 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

We’ve been hearing for months from Winnipeg Blue Bombers head coach Mike O’Shea about how much “character” he believes this 2015 Bombers team has in their dressing room.

Well, we’re about to find out if O’Shea is right.

The best test of character on a football team is how they respond to precisely the kind of disappointment and adversity that springs from what was by any measure a terrible 26-25 loss to the Calgary Stampeders at McMahon Stadium Saturday night.

There were more goats than a petting zoo in the Bombers locker-room after this debacle and it will be very easy for the finger pointing to begin on a Bombers team that flew home Sunday wondering how on earth they let a game they led 16-0 slip through their fingers.

The universal consensus in the locker-room Saturday night — and in the homes of Bombers Nation from coast to coast — was that this was a game the Bombers lost more than Calgary won.

The question now is whether this team spends the coming week taking a long, hard, collective look at the gap this loss revealed between who they are and who they want to be or instead take the easy way out and start playing the blame game.

The latter would certainly be the easier route on a night QB Drew Willy threw an interception and took a ridiculous time-count penalty in the final few minutes of the game; kicker Lirim Hajrullahu missed two field goals and a convert; and returner Troy Stoudermire had a costly fumble that changed the course of the game and generally spent his night running in circles instead of north-south.

And you can also O’Shea to the list of finger-pointing targets — at least according to O’Shea. The Bombers field boss insisted Saturday night the time-count violation was his fault because he didn’t call a time out when it became clear Willy wasn’t going to snap the ball in time.

That seems debatable — if head coaches called time outs every time their quarterback got down to one second on the clock they would be out of time outs on the first couple of plays of the game.

But however you regard O’Shea’s role in this, there was clearly lots of blame to go around in the locker-room for this one.

Now, to a man, the players were all saying the right things in the locker-room after the game, insisting that what happened in Calgary will ultimately bring them closer together instead of driving them further apart.

“It’s not going to break us — it’s going to make us,” said cornerback Matt Bucknor. “We’ve got a resilient group in here. Even when we gave up that 16-0 lead, the guys were still fighting, there were no heads down.”

Receiver Nick Moore interjected himself into an interview Stoudermire was doing with the media, calling out across the locker-room that the young returner was not to blame for what had just occurred.

“That was a team effort,” Moore later explained. “We came out strong, they got a little momentum and then we started to give it away. We’ve got to get better at that — 16-0, we have to find a way to bury them.”

O’Shea said his team will learn from the game film and then put this loss behind them and move forward. “In that regard, I’m not worried about this team,” said O’Shea.

If true, O’Shea is one cool customer. Because if this loss festers, the Bombers have a very rude welcome in store when they arrive in Edmonton later this week to play the Eskimos at Commonwealth Stadium next Saturday.

The Eskimos have nothing less than the best defence in the CFL and they will pound this Bombers team into submission next weekend at the first sign of any weakness or division.

The Bombers blew a golden chance on Saturday night to improve to 3-1 and take over sole possession of first place in the West Division, not to mention the chance to send a message to a division rival that has owned them for years now.

Instead, the Bombers now find themselves at 2-2 and mired in a three-way tie for second place with a couple of teams in B.C. and Edmonton who have played one less game than Winnipeg has.

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And Calgary? Well, they’ve now won 10 of the last 11 meetings between these two teams.

It’s still very early in the 2015 CFL season, but you cannot help get the feeling that what happens to this Bombers team over the course of this next week will be critical in determining what they do over the course of the rest of the season.

You wanted a character test? You got one.

paul.wiecek@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @PaulWiecek