Disrupting Adams, Lions offence key to success for Bombers D

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This article was published 06/11/2023 (1014 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

If the Winnipeg Blue Bombers plan to punch their ticket to a fourth straight Grey Cup, it begins and ends with stopping B.C. Lions quarterback Vernon Adams Jr.

That’s not exactly a riveting proclamation, as Adams plays the most important position on the field, with quite literally a hand in every offensive play. If that wasn’t obvious before, it certainly became clear after Adams led the Lions to a 41-30 win over the Calgary Stampeders in the West Semi-final at BC Place Saturday.

Adams had a game for the ages. He dissected the Stamps with his arm, throwing for 413 yards on 28-for-39 passing and two touchdowns, while doing just as much damage with his feet, rumbling for a team-high 54 yards on seven carries and another three scores.

“You look at last game, he was nearly perfect,” Bombers defensive co-ordinator Richie Hall said during a media availability at IG Field Monday. “He should feel good about himself, because they’re playing very, very good football right now.”

The Bombers have seen this movie before. Adams, who led the CFL with 4,769 passing yards, came into IG Field in Week 3 and although he didn’t rack up as many yards through the air and on the ground, he was still dangerous, completing nearly 70 per cent of his passes for 237 yards and a pair of touchdowns in a 30-6 road win.

Adams was injured for the rematch in Week 9, making way for Dane Evans to get the start in what resulted in a 50-14 beatdown by the Blue and Gold, again at IG Field. Things would get a lot tighter with Adams back in the lineup for the final regular-season game, as the Bombers needed to mount a late comeback to edge the Lions in overtime, 34-26, back on Oct. 6.

B.C.’s offence finished the regular season ranked third, behind Winnipeg and Toronto, in several key statistical areas, including average offensive points (26), average net offensive yards (371), offensive touchdowns (45) and average yards per play (6.78).

“It’s a very good offence, very explosive offence with a lot of confidence,” Hall added. “We had a nail-biter a couple of weeks ago with them. They’re a very confident group, which they should be. But we’re a very confident group, which we should be also, so it’s going to be a heck of a game.”

In the most recent tilt, the one that required extra time, Adams made a fool out of the Bombers defence through the first two quarters.

The 30-year-old eclipsed 250 yards and completed one touchdown to give the Lions a 20-10 lead at halftime. The second half told an entirely different story, however, with Adams putting up just 83 passing yards and six points the rest of the game

“You got to get him out of his comfort zone, make him have to work,” Hall said. “He looked very in sync last week, so we have to disrupt him. We have to control the line of scrimmage. We got to minimize explosion plays. Is it anything magical that we have to do? No. Just like they didn’t do anything magical last week, they just played well. We have to go out there and duplicate what we’ve been doing all year long, and that’s just playing sound and making plays when you have the opportunity to make plays.”

The Bombers defence has been a bit overshadowed by the Zach Collaros-led offence, which paced the CFL this year in points, touchdowns, offensive yards, rushing yards and passer efficiency rating. Make no mistake, Winnipeg’s defence has also made its mark, allowing the fewest offensive points per game, fewest yards against and touchdowns allowed, just to name a few.

Every team wants to be playing its best football at this time of the year and Hall has liked the improvement he’s seen from the defence week to week. It only helps that the Bombers will be well-rested, having earned the bye this past week after finishing atop the West Division with a 14-4 record.

“When you look at us, we haven’t played a bad game. We’ve played a bad quarter. We’ve played a bad half. But we’ve never played a bad game,” Hall said. “When we played them last time, there were a lot of good things that we did and a lot of things that we didn’t do very well that we have to make sure we improve on. You always want your next game to be your best game, so when we play Saturday, we want it to be our best game of the season. It’s not going to be a perfect game, but it’s got to be better than how we played the last time.”

Jeff.Hamilton@freepress.mb.ca

X: @jeffkhamilton