5 storylines as Bombers clash with Riders in Banjo Bowl

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 11/09/2015 (3844 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

1 AND NICHOLS MAKES FOUR…

An interesting scene from the Winnipeg Blue Bombers walk-through practice Friday morning: Drew Willy gingerly walking across the turf at Investors Group Field while Matt Nichols was playing pitch and catch with receivers on the eve of his first start with the Blue and Gold.

Willy, FYI, looks nowhere near ready to return.

So it’s Nichols, 5-2 as a starter with the Edmonton Eskimos this year, who replaces Brian Brohm, who replaced Robert Marve who was first out of the bullpen for Willy. A 28-year-old vet out of Eastern Washington with five years’ CFL experience in Edmonton, Nichols is also scheduled to become a free agent this winter.

That makes this game not only mammoth for the Bombers, but pretty damn huge for a guy trying to endear himself to his current employers and make himself marketable if he makes it to free agency.

“It’s a huge opportunity but, at the same time, I don’t even think about that till somebody asks me about it or brings it up,” said Nichols. “It was a breath of fresh air for me coming here. I’ve had the most fun playing football this last week than I’ve had in the last few years. It’s fun to me right now. I’m just excited to go out there and do everything I can to help this team win.

“Long term, that’s not even on my mind right now. I love it here and in my mind I would love to be here.”

Fun? A team that has lost four straight? Really?

“It’s just been up and down for me in the last few years,” Nichols explained. “It was starting to feel more like a job in the last couple of years. Coming here this week it was just a fresh start. I had been in the same place for 51/2 years and I just came here excited. I’ve been having a lot of fun at practice and I’m looking forward to getting out there tomorrow.

“I just look back to college when I was playing my best football… I was out there with the buddies just having a good time playing football. I’m happy to get back to that and am looking forward to getting out there and competing with these guys.”

Some numbers to munch on: the Bombers are 0-3 in games in which Marve and Brohm started and have combined to throw just one TD against eight interceptions.

2 A SPECIAL CHANGE

The Bombers had Pat Tracey, their special-teams co-ordinator, walk the plank this week in a move that felt like serving up a sacrifice to the angry masses. Head coach Mike O’Shea takes over a unit that has surrendered three of the seven punt-return touchdowns in the CFL this year.

A couple of weeks ago O’Shea asked for more “speed and violence” from his foot soldiers on specials. Now he’s imploring them to be difference-makers, not the reason a team with such a teeny-tiny margin for error loses.

“I want them to always be a reason why we win games,” said O’Shea. “I want them to play hard, obviously, that’s inherent in playing special teams. But I want them to make the decisions that allow us to be, as a group, a big part of why we win.”

Five CFL teams have punt-return scores this year: three by Hamilton’s Brandon Banks with one each by A.J. Jefferson of Toronto, the Riders’ Nic Demski, Edmonton’s Kendall Lawrence and Stefan Logan of Montreal. The Bombers last punt-return score came in the 2014 Labour Day Classic when Troy Stoudermire returned a kick 64 yards in a 35-30 loss.

3 SOME O MOJO?

Criticism comes with the territory, and every offensive co-ordinator is fully aware there are a million armchair quarterbacks out there. But here’s why the Bombers’ O boss, Marcel Bellefeuille, must be tempted to leaf through the witness protection program pamphlets: Winnipeg ranks dead last in offensive points scored per game (16.4) and last in net offence (285.6). Granted, much of that is simply a byproduct of being without Willy.

But the Bombers’ longest play from scrimmage last week was just 18 yards, and in the week previous, a loss to Calgary, it was only 15 yards. Brohm didn’t really attempt to go vertical and when Marve did previously, it was rarely delivered to the same time zone as his receivers.

So the Banjo Bowl, in effect, is a bit of a referendum on Bellefeuille’s playbook/play-calling. If a vet like Nichols can take his shots downfield and be successful, he might get a bit of a reprieve.

“(Nichols) made that known early, that he’ll put the ball pretty much anywhere he wants, and as a receiver you can’t help but love that,” said Bombers slotback Nick Moore. “You have to try to go deep. I feel I live by that motto. I joke around and I tell the quarterbacks, ‘Just put it anywhere around me and I’ll catch it.’ I say that it in a joking sense, but in some sense you need to put it into your playmakers’ hands and let them make plays.

“I don’t feel like your going to win the game taking five-yard passes all the time. When those chances do come you’ve got to take ’em and take advantage of them.”

4 CH-CH-CH-CHANGES

The Bombers shook up their trenches this week by sending mainstay Chris Greaves to Edmonton in a trade. That means the starting crew of Stanley Bryant-Sam Longo-Dominic Picard-Sukh Chung-Patrick Neufeld will be the sixth different O-line combination in 11 games this year.

“We’re a really tight unit, and everything we do, we do together,” said Neufeld. “We all have to rely on each other and make sure we’re all on the same page because it’s such an important aspect of our game.

“Whoever is coming in, in this case it’s Sam this week, we’re doing everything we can to get him up to date as quick as possible, whether it’s calls or what Dom’s thinking or the right side is thinking. We’ve spent a lot of time in the film room getting that right. He’s played a lot of football after university and has caught on really quickly.

“For us as an offence, we have to start fast, we want to get our crowd into it as quick as possible and get on top of these guys really quickly. We want to get our crowd rockin’ early.”

The Bombers have also reworked their defensive depth chart this week. Bryant Turner, Jr. returns from injury to play defensive tackle while the injury to Chris Randle (knee) means Maurice Leggett moves from safety to linebacker, with Lin-J Shell stepping in to anchor the secondary. That’s three massive changes to the one unit of the Bombers that has been steady over the last month.

“Every game the defence has to be a difference-maker,” said Shell. “With Chris being out it’s a tough loss but, at the same time, one guy doesn’t make a team. He’s still with us on the sidelines showing us stuff, talking about things he might have seen. Unfortunately he can’t touch the field, but he’s still going to be in the game.”

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5 TICK, TICK, TICK

Do the math: the Bombers have eight games left, have lost four straight and six of their last seven. And yet, at 3-7 they very much remain in the playoff picture — trailing the B.C. Lions, who placed QB Travis Lulay on the six-game injured list Friday, and the Montreal Alouettes (a potential crossover team) by two points.

The Bombers have forever spit out the “it’s a big game because it’s the next game” cliché, but the calendar — and their woeful record — screams out win now, or else. Yes, for the games in October to matter, they have to take care of business right bleepin’ now.

“It’s an important game for us,” said O’Shea. “For this team to get where we want to go, we need to win this game. We won’t be happy just making the playoffs. We need to start this process right now.”

ed.tait@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @WFPEdTait