Far-from-stellar company refusing to let Blue die

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This article was published 07/10/2015 (3816 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

If the cliché is true — what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger — the B.C. Lions should fortify their kitty litter before the Bombers come knocking Saturday night. Because nobody has been taken to the brink of death more often than them.

Of course, the flip side to this equation is the Blue and Gold may already have had their spirit murdered courtesy of the last two games, which would mean it is far too late to benefit from any character-building losses or perceived silver linings.

In a season that has been nothing short of agonizing, the Bombers have been wounded and leaking on the roadside for some time now, yet because of the company they are keeping in the four- and five-win range, the suffering won’t go away and refuses to end.

The unpleasantness these teams have endured is much like a scene from the comedy Me, Myself, and Irene where Jim Carrey and Renée Zellweger are trying to roll a lifeless bovine off the road, when they discover it is still alive. Carrey ends up shooting it nine times in the head with his side arm, and then puts it in a chokehold, all the while exclaiming, “What the hell is wrong with you? Die!”

In the CFL, where six of nine franchises make the playoffs, teams are rarely ever put out of their misery before well into October.

Most often the fan bases are forced to watch the slow and excruciating demise of their local teams, but in the case of the 2015 Blue Bombers, Montreal Alouettes and B.C. Lions, one of these playoff imposters is actually going to rise up out of the excrement and slip into the post-season.

If the Bombers still indeed have a pulse, and if they can put these soul-sucking defeats behind them, they should come to the realization they are actually playing the best football out of all three of these teams.

They may have found cruel and unusual ways to lose to Calgary and Edmonton, but these are the two best teams in the CFL at the time being. While they have matched up well against the Stamps for a number of years now, playing the Eskimos down to the wire is an exponential improvement over the 99-15 score disparity of the previous three games.

Formidable

After the home game versus Winnipeg, the Lions go to Edmonton, play Hamilton at home, go to Toronto and finish at home versus Calgary.

They may have looked formidable against Saskatchewan last weekend, but the Roughriders have been easy pickings this season, and B.C. could very easily lose the rest of those games.

Montreal has a slightly easier final five-pack, as they play Toronto and Hamilton at home, then go to Toronto and Edmonton, before finishing with the free spot on the bingo card, the Roughriders at Molson Stadium — but they have to finish a game ahead of Winnipeg to cross over.

After the B.C. game, the Bombers play back to back against Ottawa, get a week off and then finish in Toronto.

If they can split the Ottawa games and win in Toronto, they could conceivably clinch the final berth in the West, but it is all contingent upon what happens in Vancouver Saturday.

All season long, the Bombers have been reluctant to declare any of their games, “must-win,” scenarios.

If the ball club refuses to recognize the upcoming Lions game as anything but season-defining and imperative, they are disrespecting the intelligence of their fan base.

The Bombers may be lying in the middle of the road, and have a full clip of 9-mm hollow points in their head from a state trooper’s service revolver, but you can’t ignore the fact they have been playing better football of late, against better opponents, than both the Lions and Alouettes.

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One would think if it is reported this management team has intentions of returning the majority of its 11-21 coaching staff for 2016, the least they should be expected to accomplish is to maintain this standard of play throughout this final four-game stretch.

If they don’t win that first game against B.C. though, the good news for the long-suffering fans and stewards of this football club is they won’t have to watch their team bleed out any further, because they will, without question, be dead on the roadside.

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

Twitter: @DougBrown97