LeFors wants to soldier on

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This article was published 21/07/2009 (5926 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

His shoulder may be throbbing and his whole upper body aching, but Winnipeg Blue Bombers quarterback Stefan LeFors has left little doubt he will take the first snap this Friday against the Toronto Argonauts.

In declaring himself ready and able after practice Monday, he also displayed a sense of humour that would seem to indicate his funny bone was not damaged in a hellacious hit he took in last Saturday’s 25-13 loss to the Hamilton Tiger-Cats.

"It’s good… not an issue," LeFors said with a sly grin, stealing head coach Mike Kelly’s infamous phrase from last week’s Spygate news conference. "It’s sore. It’s something that I’m going to have to live with and fight through and we’ll be all right on game day."

LeFors had his right (non-throwing) shoulder examined Monday and the diagnosis is a slight shoulder sprain after a violent collision with Ticats linebacker Otis Floyd. Both men were down for a spell before LeFors popped back up and, after a brief chat with head coach Mike Kelly, re-entered the game and drove for a first down on a third-and-inches gamble.

"That hit on the sideline was like a car wreck," Kelly said. "And in my 30 years (of coaching), that might have been the most vicious collision I have ever stood right next to. When he was the first one to get up, boy, there was a sigh of relief, but I had serious concerns about both players when they were laying there.

"Otis rolled over and his eyes went back in his head and he had people coming over to help him right away. Stef got up — I couldn’t believe he was the first one up — and I put my arm around him and walked over to the side and the first thing I asked him was, ‘What’s your kids’ names?’ He could tell me and I said, ”OK, good. You can play.’

"I had a very serious heart-to-heart with him today and his words were he’s ready to go to war. I don’t usually like using war analogies to football because they are certainly two completely different things, but he’s a battler and he’s going to be in there doing the best he can."

Trouble is, even before that hit LeFors was having difficulty completing throws. And with the shoulder aching after the collision, he couldn’t rotate his upper body properly to generate any velocity. After another two-and-out (he was just seven of 19 for 99 yards), he asked Kelly at the sideline if he was hurting the team. The coach knew then it was time to pull his starter and tap Bryan Randall.

LeFors’s toughness aside, the bigger story is the complete ineptitude of the Bombers’ offence in the loss.

"I haven’t gotten a whole lot of sleep and I’ve done a lot of self-evaluating," Kelly admitted. "I go back to certain situations, certain coaches that I’ve worked for and with, and (former Orlando Rage head coach) Galen Hall telling me, ‘You don’t have to be very fancy. You can just do a couple things very well.’

"All those things have been going through my head. I don’t know if I can say we ‘revamped,’ but we’re looking at a couple of things that will put Stef in a little more comfortable position, allow us to get the ball in our playmakers’ hands a little bit sooner, work in a little bit better rhythm and allow us to function in the pass game. Right now, to be honest with you, I’m pretty pleased with all phases of our game across the board other than our pass game, and if we were able to throw the ball a little bit better I think we would have had a different outcome in a few games.

"My approach probably hindered some of the execution because I was expecting maybe too much maybe too soon," added Kelly. "I have to pull the reins back on myself a little bit."

ed.tait@freepress.mb.ca