Bombers defence is coming into its own

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 14/09/2015 (3842 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

It’s a little early to anoint them the second coming of Swaggerville — why would we want to anyway? — but it appears the 2015 Blue Bombers defence is finally coming into its own and forging a long-awaited identity.

Typically, we should have known the potential and limitations of this defensive 16 or so (rotational players included) by the one-third mark of the season. After five or six games, even with a new defensive coordinator, the players should have been settled into the new system and figured out how to maximize their roles and contributions. Yet they weren’t just transitioning into a new scheme, and adding new players, they had to expel all the counter-intuitive habits they had been forced to pick up in the previous regime.

Of course we weren’t there, but it’s not hard to imagine the first day of defensive meetings for returning players like Greg Peach, Bryant Turner, Jake Thomas and Zach Anderson, after spending their previous season in the unorthodox school of Mr. Etchevery. It had to be a mix of both surprise and relief to be issued a playbook and not be told to forget everything they had learned their entire football careers. Mix in a host of new players like Jamaal Westerman and Justin Cole, and you had two groups of linemen, fresh off different football histories, all trying to fit their talents into a Richie Hall system that no one, outside of linebacker Sam Hurl, had been exposed to before.

While sack statistics are seldom the be all and end all when it comes to taking the temperature of a defense, with this group of late bloomers, they do provide a decent read as to when the lightbulbs collectively came on. In the first six weeks, this defense had a total of seven sacks. The last five weeks, they have had 18. While Westerman has half of those to himself, after speaking with him on Saturday, he would be the first to tell you that on numerous occasions, he has been the benefactor of the collective efforts of this group.

More important than the superficial pivot-dumping tallies though, are the solidification of the middle of this defence. Once again, through the first six games of this season, this Bombers defence was five yards away from having allowed four, individual, 100-yard rushers against them. They were getting reached and walled out of their gaps, and seemingly gashed at will. The last five games though, no single back or QB has run over the century mark, and this should be credited to the recognition of the strengths of this group. While a little bit smaller than traditional front fours, this bunch is highly athletic and explosive, which is now being enhanced by the playcalling.

The ends are capable two-way rushers, adept at bringing inside moves when the opportunity presents itself, so there has been more combination stunting with their inside linemen, where contain is covered up by looping tackles.

The interior players have shown a knack for penetration and disruption, so they frequently call middle twists, even during potential running downs — which is usually taboo — because they are athletic enough to cover their gaps and get away with it.

To exact even more pressure, they sometimes line up three edge players, and Turner, on high probability passing downs. Even the effectiveness of their blitzing has increased from their humble beginnings. The first third of this season, when bringing pressure, they were picked up and exploited on the regular. Lately, they have dialed up their aggressiveness, and not only blitzed more effectively, but more often too.

While it should be noted that the first game of the season that this defence took over and made their own was against the 1-10 Roughriders, the green and white have had a very prolific offence in comparison to the rest of the CFL.

It may have taken longer than usual for these defensive denizens to arrive on the scene and make their presence known, but if they continue to build and feed off their recent successes, it will take a lot of pressure off of an offence that has been forced to transition yet again. And when you have a dominant defence at your disposal, that can take over games, you might be surprised by what you can achieve.

Doug Brown, once a hard-hitting defensive lineman and frequently a hard-hitting columnist, appears Tuesdays in the Free Press.

Twitter: @DougBrown97