Bombers’ traffic-snarling defence a sight to behold

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This article was published 03/07/2017 (3021 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Defensively speaking, what was once a freshly paved, four-lane, rapid transit corridor through the heart of the defence, now appears to have a detour sign planted in the middle of it, with a “Men At Work” advisory flashing by the roadside.

While one regular-season game is never the time to be making definitive statements about what will or won’t be occurring over the rest of the season, it is a snapshot into what is happening right now, and the middle of the Winnipeg Blue Bombers defence appears to no longer offer free parking and a toll-free expressway for anyone who wants it.

It may have taken three seasons, with three different pairings on the inside, some of which may or may not have been hamstrung by the schemes they were operating in — see Gary Etcheverry — but Saturday night in Regina, it sure looked like this regime finally figured things out in the middle, and heart, of the defence. Going up against a healthy and veteran-laden offensive line, with tenured additions such as Peter Dyakowksi and 2016 most outstanding offensive lineman Derek Dennis, and perennial all-star Brendan Labatte, the three-man interior rotation of Drake Nevis, Cory Johnson and Jake Thomas, stopped all traffic up the middle better than a demonstration on the Trans-Canada Highway, and made life exceedingly difficult for Saskatchewan Roughriders quarterback Kevin Glenn.

When you watch the men in the middle ply their trade, first and foremost you want to see them get off the rock and engage their blockers with some snap and power, inflict a little whiplash, and get those big boys off their track. Any time you see an offensive lineman popped up and without a firm base, windmilling their arms and trying to re-establish their punch, you know you’re winning the line of scrimmage, and that was evident Saturday night. Not only did this group stick double teams on the line of scrimmage, but they simply allowed little to no surge by the offensive line, and shut down operations from offensive tackle to tackle.

While this platooning threesome caused all sorts of interior traffic headaches on the line of scrimmage, once they successfully made the game one-dimensional by taking away the run, they showed they could also get after the passer. While edge rushers get the majority of the statistics, pressure up the middle makes conditions nearly unnavigable for pivots, let alone one such as Kevin Glenn, who doesn’t want to be forced off his spot or out of the pocket. If you just get edge pressure and nothing up the middle, quarterbacks simply step up and deliver the football. When you are getting edge pressure, though, and someone also breaks loose up the middle, most quarterbacks get all squirrelly in the pocket and brace for impact, as they desperately

duck and dip for an escape route.

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Glenn may have avoided the majority of harm that was thrown in his direction Saturday, but he was consistently affected and knocked off his spot in the pocket, and when he’s outside of the tackle box, he is simply not in his element. One interior player is going to consistently take a double team, but when the other is winning his one-on-one battle, like we saw against the Riders, it makes every play that much harder to execute. This group was disruptive and setting up a nice picnic lunch in the backfield all evening, a welcome change from what we’ve witnessed the last few years.

As the football gods would have it — or maybe just the schedule organizers — the Calgary Stampeders are coming to town next, and they are a group that pretty much runs the ball where and when they want to. If this new group in Winnipeg can control the middle yet again on Friday night, teams are going to have to take notice and be forced to contend with road closures and construction delays in the middle of the field when they face the Blue and Gold.