Jyles takes the reins

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 01/10/2010 (5520 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

First things first, a semi-newsflash from Bomberland…

Quarterback Steven Jyles was back in Winnipeg Blue Bomber colours on Thursday, rolling out and throwing strikes to his new-fangled receiving corps without barfing, sniffling, hacking or showing any signs of the virus that kept him away from work for two days.

So for everyone who was fretting about who would start at quarterback in Saturday’s critical contest in Vancouver against the B.C. Lions — everyone outside of No. 2 pivot Alex Brink, that is — it’s time to exhale.

Yes, the man with the second-best QB-efficiency rating in the CFL returned to his post behind centre and spent much of the final full workout before the B.C. game throwing strikes to Terence Jeffers-Harris, Greg Carr, Terrence Edwards, Brock Ralph and Aaron Hargreaves. Chris Davis got some work, too, with Adarius Bowman wearing the scout team uniform.

For the record, not long after exiting last week’s 44-40 loss to the Montreal Alouettes Jyles developed a sore throat and began experiencing flu-like symptoms and opted to shut it down for a few days rather than expose the rest of his teammates.

He was in head coach Paul LaPolice’s office Wednesday for four hours, poring over game/practice film and studying this week’s plan.

“I’m rejuvenated now and fired up to go out and play,” said Jyles. “I feel good to be back out here with my teammates and preparing for B.C.

“B.C. is one of the teams we have to beat. We have to get four points off of these guys (the two teams meet again on Thanksgiving Monday in Winnipeg) to keep ourselves alive. That was my main focus. That’s why I made sure on Wednesday I let this finish and run its course.”

LaPolice, meanwhile, was downplaying the return of Jyles to practice, stressing instead how he wanted a full team effort as the final third of the regular season opens.

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The boss spent the entire week trying to hammer home a sense of urgency to his troops. He wheeled a mirror into the locker-room to deal with complaints from within about officiating — his point being the men responsible for last Friday’s loss were staring them back in the face.

As well, before practice Thursday he went out of his way to make this clear: There is no sugar-coating the 3-9 record. So for all this talk about the Bombers being ‘the best 3-9 team in history’? Absolute bunk, according to LaPolice.

“We’re 3-9. People can say all they want about it, but we’re 3-9,” he said. “Stats can be misleading. I think we’re a competitive football team, but we’re 3-9. People have to understand that and our players have to understand that. The only way we change that is by winning football games.

“I spoke about that to our team today. They’re not going to have an asterisk at the end of the year, ‘Hey, at 12 games they were 3-9, but it was a great 3-9.’ That’s not what we’re measured on, that’s not what our players believe in, that’s not what we believe in. So we have to prove it on the field.”

ed.tait@freepress.mb.ca