Relax, it could have been much worse for the Bombers

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 03/07/2018 (2625 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

In the spectrum of what can happen to a football team when its starting quarterback goes down for a third of the season, I have zero issues with the team sitting with a record of 1-2, staring down a back-to-back set with the B.C. Lions.

If the Winnipeg Blue Bombers split the next two games against a team that seems to be of lower caliber than both Edmonton and Hamilton, and then gets QB Matt Nichols back at 2-3, that’s a perfectly acceptable and recoverable position to be in, and a highly successful navigation to what was once a disastrous proposition.

Regardless of your thoughts on how the team performed in Hamilton on Friday night, things could always be so much worse — and often are that much worse — when the most important player on the field goes missing for a third of the year.

There are very few teams in the CFL that would not miss a beat if their undisputed No.1 went down. There are even fewer teams that could start a rookie quarterback who had never played a snap of pro football and win a single game, let alone only lose by three points in the season-opener and be handed only a single lopsided loss.

That’s the thing about promise and performance, though; once it arrives, it doesn’t get a week off from our expectations, and we tend to forget about context. The problem with what happened in Montreal about 10 days ago, which could be one of the most complete and comprehensive examples of utter dominance by all three phases in years, was that it set an unrealistic bar of performance going forward. You see it happen once, you see the impossibility of an unproven pivot putting up 56 points, and a defence only allowing 10 at the same time, and that carries forward to the next game. And sometimes, the next game is against the hottest quarterback in the CFL (Jeremiah Masoli) and a very complete football team (the Hamilton Tiger-Cats), without any major limitations.

While this space isn’t about creating excuses, there are very few defences in the league that can limit an offence to less than 300 yards of aerial offence when they are on the field for an entire quarter longer than their opponent. This does not mean the finger of blame points directly at the offence for the uninspired performance by the defence, as competent defences are just as capable of getting themselves off the field. Yet, when you have a stretch of six consecutive two-and-outs with the football, in conjunction with the roll Masoli is on, these are exceptionally difficult circumstances.

If, over the course of two weeks, a defence can only give up 195 yards in one game, and then 480 yards in the next, why do the 480 yards carry so much more weight? Isn’t it just as likely for the defence to hold its next opponent to somewhere between the two extremes?

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Regardless of how much you feel the big-yardage games are the most common denominator of Richie Hall-led defences, there are new players — and a new slate in place for this crew — who are not necessarily doomed to repeat the mistakes of the past. As much as I’ve been critical of Hall-led defences over previous seasons, it is simply too early to decide the fate and outcome for this 2018 crew.

Losing your franchise quarterback and not having an experienced back-up in place is a scenario that would cost most football teams their entire season. The Bombers have has been extremely fortunate to discover that not only do they have a viable back-up but also that their season will most likely not be lost by the time their starter returns. Yet, to expect and think they would not stumble greatly at some point in this scenario — and that there wouldn’t be a trickle-down effect no matter how good the fill-in QB (Chris Streveler) has been — is to not understand the gravity and weight of the situation they are in.

If you can win and compete in games after the worst possible thing has happened to your team, you have already overcome remarkable odds. Every phase of this team should get better when Nichols returns.

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

Twitter: @Doug Brown97