Bombers have opportunity to prove their fortitude in upcoming games

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This article was published 28/09/2015 (3994 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Whoever said, “It’s not how many times you get knocked down, it’s how many times you get back up,” might have reconsidered their inspirational sentiments had they watched the Winnipeg Blue Bombers lose in every excruciating and conceivable manner this season.

After all, there are limitations to the reach and scope of even the most effective proverbs.

After being knocked down nine times in 13 tries — the latest loss courtesy of a phantom “no end” call — it leads one to wonder in how many more instances this team will be able to dust itself off, crawl up off of the floor and maintain a positive mindset.

If you simply look at the stat sheet, it screams at you that the Bombers had no business being in this football game. Calgary had more first downs, more passing yards, more rushing yards and more net yards. The Stampeders also had fewer team losses, a better completion percentage, more sacks, more return yardage, fewer penalties and they had possession of the ball for almost an entire quarter more than Winnipeg. Yet because of a bend but don’t break defence and a supercharged fourth quarter sparked by a much-maligned returner, they found themselves driving for the go-ahead score, until — as you should know by now — they were taken down by officiating incompetency.

Enough has already been said about how the rug was pulled out from underneath this team due to the most egregious of flubbed flags, but we should perhaps be more concerned with how the locker room responds to a loss like this.

It is one thing to be blown out, or hamstrung by gross failures on special teams, or a spectacular inability to field a productive and competent offence — it is another level of injustice and blow to the psyche altogether to be taken down by the officiating system.

Despite scoring the fewest points in the CFL this season, and giving up more yards than everybody — save for the Saskatchewan Roughriders — this squad somehow managed to overcome its shortcomings and compete with Calgary for four quarters, or at least three.

In the eight games the Bombers had lost prior to Friday’s defeat, they had been on the wrong side of the ledger by an average of 20 points. Yet in spite of the overwhelming facts and figures of their on-field deficiencies, they somehow convinced themselves they could hang with the defending champions of the CFL, the team with the overall best record, the team that has scored the second-most points in the league.

Everything that has happened in 2015 told you the Bombers were outmanned, outclassed, and outgunned, and yet there they were, driving for the winning — or at least tying — score as time ran out in the fourth; a bad spot and a ridiculous flag away from potentially winning the game. Say what you will about this 4-9 football team, but they certainly don’t wear their record and failures on their sleeves. And now they will be asked to somehow do it again.

With Edmonton coming to town on Saturday, this team now has to cope with and overcome the frustration and demoralizing reality that even when they have played well enough to win, they still lost.

Edmonton is only one win behind the Stampeders, and while their offence is almost as productive, their defence is on another level. To compete against this team that already took the Blue and Gold to the woodshed with a 29-point margin of victory in the first game, the Bombers will once again have to block out all the noise that will tell them that they simply aren’t good enough, and it’s not meant to be.

There may not be enough time left to make these remaining games interesting. But this team does have the opportunity to show their fan base, once again, that they have the fortitude to move away and play above and beyond what many of us thought they were capable of.

 

Doug Brown, once a hard-hitting defensive lineman and frequently a hard-hitting columnist, appears Tuesdays in the Free Press.

Twitter: @DougBrown97