Stop talking, start doing, Blue Bombers

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This article was published 02/10/2015 (3733 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

All season long, Winnipeg Blue Bombers head coach Mike O’Shea has regaled the media with how much he likes the “character” he sees in his team’s locker-room.

While O’Shea reports seeing lots of it in the locker-room, that character he speaks so highly of in his team has mostly been absent on the field in a season in which this Bombers team has routinely capitulated at the first sign of adversity.

And isn’t that the truest test of character — how do you respond when confronted with adversity?

If that’s the baseline, Saturday’s game against the Edmonton Eskimos at Investors Group Field would be an ideal time for this Bombers team — and its head coach, for that matter — to stop telling us about how much character they have and start actually showing some.

Because this Winnipeg team is drowning in adversity right now, having dug itself a 4-9 hole in the standings the oddsmakers think is only going to get one more loss deeper when the Bombers face the Eskimos today.

Vegas says the Bombers are six point underdogs at home and that spread, if anything, actually flatters Winnipeg.

Consider: Winnipeg was destroyed 32-3 when they faced Edmonton earlier this season and the Bombers have now been held to single digits in scoring against the Eskimos in each of their last three meetings.

Winnipeg has been outscored — hang on to your breakfast — 99-15 in their last three meetings with the Esks.

What’s more, the numbers suggest Winnipeg doesn’t match up against Edmonton any better right now than they did in those previous meetings.

The Eskimos come into IGF today leading or second in 15 of 24 defensive categories tracked by the CFL, while the Bombers are either last or second last in 11 of 24 offensive categories.

So, taking the Eskimos at minus six points today looks, on paper at least, to be a no-brainer.

But before you go betting the mortgage, there is one caveat: the Bombers were also big underdogs at home last week against the Calgary Stampeders and they came within a blown illegal procedure call in the final minute of the game of beating the Stamps — or at least sending that game to overtime.

Down 11 points with less than four minutes to play, the Bombers put together a gritty little comeback in the dying minutes against Calgary that finally hinted at some of that character O’Shea insists he sees in this team.

While the final result was yet another Bombers loss — 25-23 — the effort and refusal to quit suggested that maybe O’Shea hasn’t been blowing smoke all season about all the character in this team.

But if the fourth quarter against Calgary was a character test for this Bombers team, Saturday’s tilt against the Eskimos is the final exam. While the Bombers continue to sit just two points back in the standings of a playoff spot, they cannot simply count on the Montreal Alouettes and B.C. Lions to continue losing every week as a reliable path to the playoffs.

“We’ve got to stop talking about other teams helping us,” O’Shea said Friday, “and start helping ourselves.”

The Bombers have lost six of their last seven games and have still not beaten a team with a winning record this season — they’ve got two wins over Saskatchewan, a win over Montreal and a win over B.C..

Add to that the fact this team is just 1-8 this season in games in which Drew Willy doesn’t start and finish the game and the Bombers have their work wwcut out for them when they take the field against the Eskimos on Saturday with Matt Nichols under centre.

Character can be a great equalizer in football. But it cannot level the playing field if you only show it in the locker room.

paul.wiecek@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @PaulWiecek