Unzip that body bag, Bombers still breathing

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 04/10/2009 (5844 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

THEY looked dead, to be honest. They were dog-tired, beaten down physically and mentally. Anyone there to witness the scene was ready to notify the next of kin and zip the body bag shut on the Winnipeg Blue Bombers 2009 season.

We take you back exactly two weeks ago to Molson Stadium in Montreal in the wake of the Alouettes’ 33-14 spanking of the Bombers and a third consecutive loss that left the local footballers at 3-8…

Doug Brown sat slumped in his locker, the picture of a deflated man. Michael Bishop almost bit his tongue in half resisting the urge to trash the offensive system in which he was operating. And, to top it all off, the Bombers announced the blockbuster trade that sent Romby Bryant and Arjei Franklin to the Calgary Stampeders — a move that had all the appearances of a desperate attempt to deflect attention from what was simply a horrendous football team.

Funny, then, how the last couple of weeks have completely changed that perception. In fact, the Bombers’ back-to-back victories — the latest Friday’s 27-17 win over the Edmonton Eskimos — has been part of a turnaround so dramatic it’s almost incomprehensible.

"I truly believe that if you believe in people then eventually the fruits of your labour will show," said Bombers head coach Mike Kelly Saturday during a break from watching game film. "That’s what we’ve all done in here: we’ve believed we’re doing the right things. I know it hasn’t looked pretty on the outside all the time, but we have seen signs of growth even on cloudy days. We haven’t wavered, we’re not going to waver. But I think the consistency of the message is finally paying off."

That’s part of it. And to his immense credit Kelly has repeatedly insisted he believed in his outfit even when it had dropped three in a row by a combined score of 117-38 and everyone in Bomberland was convinced he was certifiable.

But there are other factors to be served up as evidence, and they’re far more concrete. In the last two games the Bombers have:

"ö Turned the ball over just three times while forcing eight turnovers of their own;

"ö Got solid QB play from Bishop, who completed 65.2 per cent of his passes for 496 yards with three TDs and one interception;

"ö Had their defence crank it up another notch by limiting the Toronto Argonauts to 266 yards and then forcing Eskimos starter Ricky Ray from the game because of ineffective play;

"ö And had their special-teams unit contribute with Jovon Johnson’s spectacular 118-yard missed field-goal return touchdown against the Esks while Alexis Serna connected on seven of eight kicks and the coverage outfit shut down both Dominique Dorsey and Tristan Jackson.

In other words, it’s been exactly the kind of football Kelly promised when he first began implementing changes.

"I feel good for the players," said Kelly. "It wasn’t like a Grey Cup celebration (Friday) night in there when we won. It was like we expected to win. We were happy that we won and it was a jovial locker-room, but it wasn’t excessive. We know we have a task at hand and we have to take it one game at a time. It’s a credit to our players that they’ve kept level heads in such trying times.

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"After that trade (with Calgary) there was a bit of a change of attitude in that locker-room. It was a positive one. Some guys who hadn’t accepted leadership roles all of a sudden said, ‘hey, this is my opportunity now to step up a little bit’ and they did that. And to be quite frank, the guys that we brought in here have been tremendous additions for us, they’ve made us practice better and faster.

"We just felt we needed to change a little of the chemistry in order for us to continue to grow. That’s what we did and now it’s starting to show."

ed.tait@freepress.mb.ca