Eyeing redemption after meltdown

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This article was published 28/07/2019 (2232 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

GUELPH, Ont. — After an impressive five-game win streak to open the CFL’s regular season, the Winnipeg Blue Bombers crashed into the loss column on Friday night, suffering a 23-15 defeat at the paws of the Hamilton Tiger-Cats.

But even after such a flawed performance, the potential for redemption is at hand for the West Division leaders. The Blue Bombers, who will be based in southern Ontario this week while they lick their wounds and plot their next moves, will face the woeful and winless Argonauts at Toronto’s BMO Field Thursday night.

Losing to the Argos would be inexcusable.

Before we get too far ahead of ourselves, here are five takeaways from Friday’s meltdown in Steeltown:

The game manager falters

Much has been made about Matt Nichols’ rep as an effective game manager, but Friday’s loss illustrated the flipside of the argument.

When the 32-year-old quarterback tosses interceptions while trying to find receivers in tight coverage or makes errant throws, Winnipeg’s offence suffers big time.

Nichols entered the Hamilton game as a model of efficiency in 2019, with a 12-1 touchdown-to-interception ratio and emerged from the debacle with a 13-4 mark.

It didn’t help that Nichols was feeling the heat thanks to Hamilton’s excellent defensive line.

In the two games, Nichols surrendered three picks during the 2018 season — Week 5 against the B.C. Lions and Week 13 against the Saskatchewan Roughriders — Winnipeg lost by three and five points, respectively.

A return to his usual precision form from No. 15 is what the Blue Bombers need most.

“I’m hard on myself and I will be for a day,” Nichols said after throwing a season-high 48 passes against the Tabbies.

“I’ll watch the film (Saturday) and it will be gone and we’ll be back to the 1-0 mentality and get back to work. It’s professional football, you’re not going to win every game. I know that, been around long enough to understand that. It doesn’t make losing easy, (but) it makes me hungry and want to get back to work.”

Ticats were tougher, smarter

The Tiger-Cats lost their all-star quarterback, Jeremiah Masoli, to a season-ending knee injury after taking a 14-0 lead midway through the first quarter, but the Bombers defence failed to take advantage of his inexperienced replacement, Dane Evans.

“Personally, I think I played like (expletive),” Winnipeg safety Jeff Hecht said.

“I outsmarted myself a little bit, especially when they went to their bullpen. Tried to do too much.”

An early deficit shouldn’t have bothered the veterans, but there was little pushback from the visitors after Masoli’s departure. Evans did just enough to stay out of major trouble.

“Getting behind early hurt us a bit,” Hecht said.

“It’s a wake-up call. We’re a team that hasn’t been behind early and we just couldn’t recover, it seems. It’s a character game, I guess you can look at it that way. Losing sucks, but we’re going to move on and get better.”

Hang onto the dang ball

The Blue Bombers lacked rhythm on offence, displayed a lack of urgency on defence and were just plain sloppy on special teams.

Rookie returner Kenny Walker coughed up the ball twice on punt returns, although he escaped blame for one of the botched returns due to a no-yards call on the Ticats.

Lucky Whitehead compounded the issue by fumbling a kickoff return; Hamilton finished the game by scoring 14 points after turnovers.

“We’ve just got to make sure we’ve got ball security,” Winnipeg specialteams ace Mike Miller said.

“On special teams, our job is to keep momentum on our side and we didn’t do a very good job of it tonight.”

On the other hand, ball-hawking corner Winston Rose continued to enhance his reputation with two interceptions to boost his total to five in six games.

He’s tied with Calgary’s Tre Roberson for the league lead.

 

Are reinforcements on the way?

Key injuries left the Blue depleted in the second half, with strongside linebacker Anthony Gaitor (upper body) and receivers Darvin Adams (lower body) and Drew Wolitarsky (lower body) leaving the game not to return.

That meant extra work for receiver Daniel Petermann and Walker, yet the long-term effect of the Gaitor, Adams and Wolitarsky injuries was unknown immediately after the game.

It also seems very likely that highprofile free-agent addition Chris Matthews, who was healthy, but stayed at home in favour of Kenny Lawler, will be airlifted to bolster the receiver corps.

Matthews missed a large chunk of training camp with an injury and has played in only two games so far It would be a surprise if he wasn’t on the field for practice today.

Rookie defender Marcus Rios would be a logical replacement if Gaitor is unable to go Thursday, but Rios is currently on the six-game injured list.

 

 

A home away from home

The Bombers have settled down for the next few days in Guelph — a college town once home to GM Kyle Walters and head coach Mike O’Shea — where they hope the extra time spent together away from the distractions of home will be beneficial in the run-up to Thursday’s game at BMO.

Players and coaches took Saturday to review video of the loss in Hamilton and the head coach expected some sour reviews.

“These are all three-phase losses, really,” O’Shea said.

“We’re going to look at the film and you’re going to see plays where we just didn’t meet our standard. But that’s what these extended road trips are for — a chance for these guys to spend a lot of time together and make good decisions on where we go from here.”

Harris welcomed the change from the normal routine between games.

“I like the fact we get to spend some time together,” he said.

“It’s a good thing for the team — bonding — and it’s definitely an adjustment.”

Not everyone was gung-ho about camping out.

“It’s always tough on the road, for me specifically, when the routine is upended, right?” Hecht said.

“I’m a very structured person, so sitting on the road in the hotel, changing my meals, it’s all distractions that need to be abated. And then we need to focus on correcting our mistakes and then get on to Toronto, because we don’t have much time until we’re back on the field.”

O’Shea wasn’t keen on any feel-good chatter what his team has accomplished through the first third of the regular season.

“If we spend too much time dwelling on this loss or looking at what we’ve done — I don’t break the season into thirds anyways — so we’re wasting time,” O’Shea said.

 

mike.sawatzky@freepress.mb.ca Twitter: @sawa14