Not even Socrates could solve Blue dilemma

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This article was published 02/11/2010 (5452 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The wacky world of sports is fertile ground for a wide variety of philosophical mysteries; ethereal questions for which answers cannot be so readily found in box scores or even on the field of play.

For example, if you put Tiger Woods on a box of Wheaties, does that make him a cereal philanderer?

Tough one, yes?

And if Tommy Hunter starts Game 4 of the World Series for the Texas Rangers, does that mean the Rhythm Pals close? (Kids, ask your grandparents.)

This brings us to the Winnipeg Blue Bombers, the Charlie Browns of the 2010 season, who this past weekend lost 16-13 in overtime to the Edmonton Eskimos to fall to a dismal 4-13, with one final regular-season game remaining against the incoming Calgary Stampeders on Friday.

Question: If a football team sets a new CFL record with eight losses by four points or less (out of 17 games), is it on the cusp of competence or does it possess a fatal flaw, which if not identified and exorcized, will continually lead to its untimely demise?

It’s a philosophical riddle because there is no immediate answer. And there’s no shortage of evidence either way.

Take the loss to the Esks as Exhibit 245. The Bombers, who had not won on the road all season and won’t, travelled to Edmonton, where they rarely win at all, and start a fourth-string quarterback who just a few months ago couldn’t find Winnipeg on a map if you spotted him Manitoba. The Eskimos, meanwhile, were fielding their No. 2 guy in Jared Zabransky, and the home team had everything to play for, while the visitors had squat.

All things considered, it should have been the 1996 West semifinal all over again (Edmonton 68, Winnipeg 7). But, no, Joey Elliott makes an admirable debut at quarterback and the Bombers intercept Zabransky four times and push the Eskimos to the limit.

So do the circumstances — no matter how stacked for or against the Bombers — really matter? If a healthy Buck Pierce was facing Ricky Ray at the top of his game, would the Bombers have still lost by less than four points anyway?

After all, it can’t be all about the quarterback. Pierce lost close games. Steven Jyles lost close games. Now Elliott. You get the feeling that on Friday night the Bombers could trot out either Frank Wilczynski or Justin Goltz, signed last week, get a Herculean effort from their defence, and lose another heartbreaker.

Again, look no further than last week at Commonwealth, when the Bombers racked up an astounding 145 yards in penalties. That’s 15 more yards than Elliott managed to complete in passes. One Winnipeg player, rush end Odell Willis, accounted for 55 yards in penalties alone, including three 15-yarders.

That’s not bad luck, folks. That’s bad coaching. That’s lousy self-discipline. And when you’re already starting a fourth-string quarterback on the road, that’s precisely why you come home with the 13th loss of a season. Period.

That’s the thing about the Bombers: The only things consistent are the losses, not the reasons. If it was Elliott who had thrown four interceptions, fine. But he didn’t. Elliott did everything a rookie quarterback making his first CFL start could do, in terms of protecting the football, and still the collective found a way to self-destruct.

Don’t get me wrong. You can’t deny the upside to this Bombers team, or the notion that some key new pieces have presented themselves in some fresh faces on defence (LB Clint Kent, DB Deon Beasley) or offence (WR Greg Carr, OL Kelly Butler, SB Terence Jeffers-Harris). Meanwhile, both Justin Palardy and Mike Renaud just might be the answer to the Bombers age-old kicking woes.

Neither can even the team’s harshest critics accuse these Bombers of the most egregious sin of all: Quitting. For all their well-documented shortcomings, a team that loses so many games by so few points is not without backbone. A team that had given up on their season, or their coach, or themselves wouldn’t have taken the Eskimos to overtime in a meaningless (to them) game in a hostile environment.

But for the Blue Bombers, that’s only another paradox for a lost season. It’s just another mysterious philosophical question to add to the mounting enigmatic pile.

How can a team that refuses to quit never finish?

randy.turner@freepress.mb.ca

Randy Turner
Reporter

Randy Turner spent much of his journalistic career on the road. A lot of roads. Dirt roads, snow-packed roads, U.S. interstates and foreign highways. In other words, he got a lot of kilometres on the odometer, if you know what we mean.

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