At a crucial moment, Bombers go back to the basics

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 12/11/2019 (2125 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The Winnipeg Football Club couldn’t have picked a better time to return to the characteristics and fundamentals that made it successful over the past few seasons.

In the statement win over the Calgary Stampeders on Sunday — in a place where Blue Bomber teams have most frequently gone to die — this team got back in touch with its identity, and the key elements that used to be automatic indications for its success.

There used to be few things more consistent on this team than the fact that they would win the turnover battle. In their last four losses of the year, they were minus three, or they turned the ball over three more times than they took it away.

The number of times this team has won games where they’ve coughed up the football more than they’ve robbed it are few and far between. For multiple years, this squad was renowned for how frequently they stole the football, and how well they protected it. In the semifinal playoff, they didn’t turn the ball over a single time and took it away four times. That was what this team used to pride itself on, and made an absolute priority. The last four losses of the year, this team had been intercepted seven times.

Going hand in hand with winning the turnover battle used to be the play of the secondary. They used to be ball hawks. They gave up a lot of yards, but they capitalized on errant throws, and stepped up and made clutch grabs, and disruptive plays, in pivotal moments. On Sunday, against arguably the best quarterback in the league, not only did they intercept Bo Levi Mitchell three times, they held him to 116 yards, and a 42 per cent completion rate. In the previous four losses of the season, they had three interceptions total. Sunday’s game might be the worst game we have ever seen Mitchell play, and that is a testament to the work and scheme this defence executed.

Further to these points, when this football team utilizes a pocket passer (Matt Nichols, or Zach Collaros), in conjunction with their running quarterback — Chris Streveler — they are 8-2 on the year.

Nichols was 7-2 working with Streveler, and now Collaros won his first playoff game using that same multiple quarterback approach. The most impressive aspect of this approach is how obvious it is, yet still unstoppable. When Collaros was in the game, he threw it 21 times, and didn’t run it at all.

When Streveler was in the game, he ran it 13 times and didn’t throw it at all. So while Calgary had run pass keys in this game that told them with 100 per cent certainty what Winnipeg was going to be doing, they still couldn’t do much of anything about it, as the Bombers had nearly 400 yards of offence on the day.

The final, and most consistent trait of winning football for this team, though, will always be how well they are pounding the ball. Against Calgary Sunday, they rushed for 195 yards total. In their previous four losses this year, they averaged about sixty yards less with 134 yards on the ground. When a defence gives up 200 yards to the ground game, that is as about as humiliating a film session you can be exposed to, essentially because it’s the most primal of concepts. When football is stripped down to its barest parts, and at its most basic concepts, it’s about whether I can move you out of the way, run where you used to be, and gain positive yards without having to risk putting the football in the air.

And when this team gashes a defence for 200 yards—which in this latest game came primarily from three different ball carriers — it is nothing short of demoralizing for a defence, and makes everything easier offensively.

If these rediscovered traits that showed up in spades in Calgary continue to carry over into Regina, this football team should be getting the opportunity it hasn’t seen since 2011.

Doug Brown, once a hard-hitting defensive lineman and frequently a hard-hitting columnist, appears weekly in the Free Press. Twitter: @DougBrown97