Bombers wrestle with future while cleaning out lockers

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This article was published 08/11/2015 (3619 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

For the fourth time in a row, the Blue Bombers’ hopes ended the same way: with handshakes, early November garbage bags, and reporters asking what the team must change.

The night before Sunday’s locker room cleanout, a group of players went out on the town. There was no one destination, defensive end Jamaal Westerman said, just Winnipeg entire. “We left our tracks everywhere,” he laughed, the last chance they’d have to spend together before they fly their separate ways.

After that, all there was left to do was mill about the locker room on Sunday, just before noon. Against one wall, receiver Julian Feoli-Gudino pulled a garbage bag up to his stall, and started tossing in socks. Reporters circled the room, hunting for answers for this franchise’s now-perennial question: what happened?

“It’s very difficult,” quarterback Drew Willy said. “I think there was a lot of optimism coming into the season, and we just didn’t execute like we needed to as a team. We need to get better, and we’ll be ready to go next year. But I feel very good about where the pieces are, and things like that.”

If the Bombers’ campaign had proceeded, Willy might have been back in the saddle for the post-season. He was close to it last week. Instead, the pivot was left to wrestle with a 5-13 season he spent mostly off the field, sometimes on crutches, after fracturing his tibia and partly tearing a knee ligament.

When it happened back in August, the Bombers predicted he’d be out for six to eight weeks; it ended up being more like 13. His injury wasn’t the only setback that befell the team, but Willy knows that many things — the standings, the execution, potentially Marcel Bellefeuille’s job — turned on that one collision.

And though the starting quarterback wouldn’t say whether he’d be surprised if the offensive coordinator was canned in the offseason — “that’s above me,” Willy said — he did admit to carrying some of the weight of that possibility on his shoulders. Things might have been different, Willy said, if he’d played.

“I just wish I could have helped him more, because he is a good man,” Willy said. “And he’s been under a lot of scrutiny, for sure. For me, that hurts because I wasn’t able to help him. You never want to have anyone have to deal with that kind of thing.

“It’s tough,” the pivot added. “It’s a man’s job. He gets a lot of scrutiny, but at the same time we need to execute better. But that’s what we signed up for.”

This is pro football. Attitude is half of everything. So optimism pervaded players’ words, even in the wake of disappointment. Canadian receiver Addison Richards still needs surgery for the lower-body injury that scuttled most of his season; “It was definitely bad timing to get the injury, because I thought I was just starting to hit my stride, and settle in,” he said. “I’m just focused on next year. I know I have a bright future, because this is my life.”

And kicker Lirim Hajrullahu, walking away from a dismal sophomore CFL season that hit rock-bottom against Edmonton last month, hadn’t had his exit interview yet on Sunday morning. Still, although he’s leaving 2015 without a contract, he was holding his head high about what the outcome of that discussion might be.

In his defence, Hajrullahu said, his field-goal misses were mostly by inches. “I had one bad game, and I take it as a learning experience,” he said. “I have all off-season to fix that… it’s just little things. It’s not like I’m kicking bad. I believe in my mechanics, I believe in everything I’ve been doing. So I’m not going to change anything extra, I’m just going to put extra focus on my field goals.”

Some of the Bombers are sticking around for the Grey Cup. Drew Willy is; so is Canadian defensive back Matt Bucknor, among others. Westerman, who is the Bombers’ nominee for the CFL’s outstanding player, defensive player and Canadian awards, could be back for the league’s awards dinner on Nov. 26.

He’s not exactly savouring the idea of watching other teams compete for the top prize. “It’s gonna suck that it’s in our house,” Westerman said. “I think I’m going to leave my locker dirty, dirty it up real bad, so whoever has to use it, it’s gonna be a real bad time for them. Maybe put some tacks down or something.”

All joking aside, Westerman will be watching. After bouncing around the NFL for six seasons, his first CFL campaign went by in a blur. He saw enough, though, to fall in love with the Canadian game — now he wants more. (For the record, he’ll be cheering for B.C., where his brother Jabar Westerman is a Lion.)

“It’s a great brand of football,” Westerman said. “I think the more you watch, the more things you learn… I’m excited to watch the games, but it does suck to be out of it. I can’t even lie. It is hard. It probably won’t hit you as hard until when you turn on the game, and you realize it’s a game week, and I don’t have a helmet. It’s game week, and I’m sitting on the couch. That’s going to be rough.”

melissa.martin@freepress.mb.ca