Bombers’ loss to Ticats no ‘off day’

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This article was published 30/07/2019 (2231 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

It is not the fact that the Winnipeg Blue Bombers finally lost a game — after starting the season five and unbelievable — that should bother anyone. It is the fact that the Hamilton defence reminded the rest of the league how to beat them, and what the blueprint for it is.

You will hear all of the following platitudes this week: “We were never going to go 18-0 this season.” “It’s better to get a wake-up call early in the year than late.” “You want to be playing your best football as the schedule winds down, not as it starts up.” Yada, yada, yada. As worn out as these lines are, there are varying degrees of truth to them. And at the one-third mark of the season, this team is sitting in first place in the Western division, first place overall and has the Toronto Argonauts on deck. So any and all criticisms should still come from a place of a football team that is very likely going to be 6-1 in the near future and hosting the Calgary Stampeders at home.

Yet this game was more than just one of those days where things didn’t go right. It was a reminder to the rest of the league that even the team that looked virtually unassailable and unbeatable at times still has its own soft and vulnerable underbelly.

Quarterback Matt Nichols got full marks for owning his performance, and this game, on the post-game show. He lamented over his mistakes and errors with the football, and how it’s part of the job of being a professional quarterback. But do you really think that Nichols, after throwing for 12 touchdowns and only one interception this season, fresh off winning his 10th straight game for the Blue and Gold, just had a bad day at the office? Do you really feel he just woke up on the wrong side of the bed, put his athletic supporter on backwards and sprayed the football all over the field, tripling his interception numbers in a single day?

This theory does not give the Hamilton defence, or head coach Orlondo Steinauer, nearly the credit deserved for exploiting the weakness that was right there in front of them, and collapsing the pocket in every conceivable manner.

While their defence only managed a single sack of Nichols, his play doesn’t become this erratic without the kind of harassment from the front seven that would make a restraining order blush. When the Bombers used to have Matthias Goossen at centre, Sukh Chungh at right guard and Paddy Neufeld at left guard, they rarely allowed this kind of pressure up the middle, and picked up more blitzes than got by them. Over time, teams learned that you had to dial up something pretty special and unique to consistently get heat in the face of Nichols. And when Nichols has a clean pocket, and can step up in it, he throws dimes. And 12 touchdowns. And one pick. And when he doesn’t, and his boys are being pushed back into his lap, he throws 49 passes, three to the other team, and has an average of 5½ yards per completion.

For the record, on only eight carries, Andrew Harris averaged 6.6 yards on the ground.

So how did the offence combat this unrelenting rush that was thrown at Nichols all night? Did they throw quick slants to their 6-5, 230-pound receiver with the huge catch radius and ability to high-point the football — in man coverage — and have him break a couple explosive plays to the house, to back off an overly aggressive defence? Unfortunately, he was at home, probably wondering why they kept forcing Lucky Whitehead the football on hitch screens, hoping for lightning to strike in the same spot twice.

In the face of all this heat, the only thing the offence managed to do on this night to back off the blitz and pressure was to check it down to Harris. Harris had eight receptions on the night, and the majority of these were Nichols trying to get the ball out of his hands before he got brutalized.

It was like watching the movie Rounders, where the antagonist, Teddy KGB, tells Matt Damon, “All night, he check, check, check.”

While Harris turns bailout check downs into first downs better than most, it was hardly enough discouragement to get the Tiger-Cats to back off. And until Nichols can get the football to somebody who can discourage teams from ganging up on him, and the time in the pocket to deliver it, you may see more of these uncharacteristic, “off-day” performances down the road.

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

Twitter: @DougBrown97