Bombers all show, no finish

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This article was published 03/09/2018 (2569 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

REGINA — Few would have predicted that when the Canadian Football League regular season opened in mid-June, months later the Winnipeg Blue Bombers would be in a fight for their playoff lives.

Projected by many to be among the league’s juggernauts in 2018, the Bombers have instead become one of the CFL’s biggest mysteries. A 31-23 loss to the Saskatchewan Roughriders in Sunday’s Labour Day Classic in Regina was the latest low point in a season that has already had too many.

Sunday’s defeat was the Bombers third straight, and now at 5-6, the Blue and Gold sit in fourth place in the West Division. The road back to respectability won’t be an easy one, with the Bombers returning home this week for a rematch against the Roughriders in the annual Banjo Bowl clash Saturday afternoon.

Before we look too far ahead, here are five takeaways from the loss to Saskatchewan.

Nichols makes sense?

Bombers head coach Mike O’Shea was asked to assess the play of Matt Nichols. Instead of directly answering the question, he used the opportunity to voice support for his No. 1 pivot.

“He’s our starting quarterback,” O’Shea said. “He’s very good.”

It was an odd response, considering Nichols completed just 54 per cent of his passes for 166 yards, which was surprisingly four yards better than his season-low of 162 in a win over B.C. in Week 4. It was the third time in eight games this year that Nichols has thrown for fewer than 200 yards, in a season he has still yet to eclipse the 300-yard passing mark.

Nichols opened the game with an interception that was returned to the Bombers’ one-yard line — eventually leading to a 7-0 Saskatchewan lead just minutes in — and with the game on the line in the dying seconds, he was picked off once more to seal a Roughriders victory.

Nichols was much less complimentary of his play, telling reporters that he needed to be better and vowed to do just that when the Bombers return to action this weekend.

“I’ve got to find a way to get us going and so, for me, I’m obviously disappointed in myself,” Nichols said. “No one is going to work harder than me this week, that’s for sure. I’m ready to get back to work right now.”

But after struggling for much of his eight starts this year, those words have become much harder to believe. The question now becomes just how long a leash should Nichols have?

A switch to Streveler?

While O’Shea’s comments about Nichols didn’t answer the question, they certainly weren’t unusual.

The Bombers coach has been steadfast in his loyalty to his players, particularly at the quarterback position. O’Shea showed the same allegiance to Drew Willy, and it wasn’t until Willy was injured and Nichols arrived in a trade with Edmonton in 2015 that a change finally happened (Willy was traded to Toronto midway through 2016).

To be clear: Nichols is a much better quarterback than Willy and he certainly deserves a lot of credit for what he’s done for the Bombers the past couple of years. But is he untouchable?

Nichols’ numbers are down: he’s completing just 62 per cent of his passes — almost a full 10 per cent lower than 2017 — and is averaging 221 passing yards, which is more than 40 fewer than the 263 he was putting up a year ago.

It would be one thing if the Bombers were thin behind him. It’s another when you have Chris Streveler, who, despite being a 23-year-old rookie, has shown he can bring a spark to the offence, even under limited reps. With just one throw Sunday, Streveler connected with Darvin Adams for a 10-yard touchdown. The score was his eighth touchdown pass this season — only three fewer than Nichols this year.

O’Shea believes Nichols gives his team the best chance to win, and though he’s probably right, he needs to know when he’s not. Streveler has the arm and the legs to make things happen and he’s excelled in spot duty. If not an outright switch, sharing playing time between the two has to be at least a consideration at this point. If not, things might only get worse.

No finish…again

For the second week in a row, the Bombers defence played well enough to win. For a second straight week, they weren’t good enough down the stretch to compensate for a futile offence.

Holding a 20-17 edge heading into the fourth quarter, the Roughriders scored two touchdowns in the final 15 minutes to earn the win. The first — a 25-yard toss to Marcus Thigpen — was a complete collapse in communication from the defence. Thigpen found himself all alone in the end zone, slipping in behind three Bomber defenders, all without a man.

“Missed tackles, missed assignments, missed communication… any of those things, they might seem little, but any of those things can be the big difference from winning or losing a game,” Bombers defensive back Brandon Alexander said. “We can’t have those mental lapses and with the game on the line we’ve got to be able to buckle down.”

Alexander admitted he, too, had a few missed tackles and took responsibility for a missed assignment late in the game that resulted in a 39-yard catch by Jordan William-Lambert, which set up the Roughriders’ back-breaking second touchdown with 1:30 left in the fourth quarter.

The Roughriders were able to make the appropriate adjustments at halftime, including establishing a run game with a switch to Thigpen over Tre Mason as the feature tailback. It was the fourth time this season the Bombers have led at halftime, only to lose the game.

“One thing is we can’t leave it to that point. It starts earlier on in the game, making sure we get points when we’re in those positions, making sure we’re hanging on to the ball,” O’Shea said. “Obviously, we’ll have to keep looking at fourth quarters and see what goes on.”

Harris hits his stride

After combining for just 85 rushing yards in losses to Ottawa and Calgary prior to Sunday, Andrew Harris returned to his usual dominant self against the Roughriders.

The Bombers running back racked up 158 yards on the ground on just 15 carries — an average of more than 10 yards. His punishing runs helped set up the Bombers two touchdowns and at times he seemed unstoppable. It’s not often No. 33 has that kind of night and the Bombers go unrewarded on the scoreboard.

“We probably had close to 400 yards on offence, so I can’t really call why we didn’t win this game,” Harris said. “The big plays they were able to get on us were the difference makers.”

The offence finished the day with 358 net yards — Saskatchewan had 332 — but it was less about what the Roughriders did and more on what the Bombers couldn’t muster that ultimately did them in. Down by just a point with more than seven minutes left in the fourth quarter, the Bombers had multiple chances to string together a game-deciding drive.

But in the last three drives of the game, two of them ended in two-and-outs and the final series concluded with an interception. In those three drives, Harris got the ball on just one play.

Rough road ahead

If you think things are bad for the Bombers now, it isn’t going to get any easier and could very well get worse if something doesn’t change.

Of the final seven games on the schedule, five are against Western teams currently ahead of the Bombers in the standings. Winnipeg plays Saskatchewan twice at home, Edmonton twice on the road and Calgary once at Investors Group Field (the two other games are against Ottawa, who currently leads the East, and Montreal, who just defeated the Redblacks).

That means the Bombers will be able to control their playoff destiny, assuming they can rack up wins against divisional opponents. But that, of course, will be easier said than done. For a locker room that has been defined for its cohesiveness, this will surely be a big test as to just how tight this group really is.

“Just coming together. Not a lot of finger pointing, not that we do that, but we’ve just got to get tighter as a group,” Harris said. “All three phases need to come together and play a great game and we didn’t do that tonight. We need to come together as a team and fight for each other.”

jeff.hamilton@freepress.mb.ca

twitter: @jeffkhamilton