Nichols and dime offence won’t do

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This article was published 11/09/2015 (4021 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Robert Marve couldn’t get it done. Neither could Brian Brohm.

So it falls to Matt Nichols to accomplish what all others before him have failed to do this season ­­— win a game in which Drew Willy is absent due to injury.

The Winnipeg Blue Bombers are 0-3 this season in games Willy failed to finish due to injury. They’re 0-3 in the three games since Aug. 9 Willy didn’t play in at all due to a leg injury.

The Bombers are a big, fat 0-6 this year in games Willy didn’t play the full 60 minutes.

Looked at another way, the Bombers are 3-1 and a winning football team in games Willy did go the distance.

Two things have become clear: this team’s inability to find a competent backup for Willy is the biggest single reason the club is 3-7 and well on its way to missing the playoffs for the fourth straight year. If this team is going to have any chance whatsoever of extinguishing this tire fire before it’s too late, it rests on the arm of Nichols.

That’s a lot to ask, of course, of a man who threw more interceptions in Edmonton this season (10) than touchdowns (eight) and was essentially given away last week for the humble price of a seventh-rounder two years from now.

It is an even a taller order when you consider that same underachieving quarterback has had the grand total of four full practices to learn the Bombers’ offence, such that it is.

But desperate times call for desperate measures and with the Bombers in desperate need of a win in today’s Banjo Bowl at Investors Group Field, Nichols might just be this team’s last hope to salvage something out of a season in which hosting the Grey Cup was supposed to be an exclamation point, but is increasingly looking like a middle finger.

For what it’s worth, Nichols said Friday he’s already more comfortable in a Bombers uniform than he’d felt in years with the Eskimos, calling the trade that brought him here a “breath of fresh air…

“I’ve had the most fun playing football this last week than I’ve had in the last few years. It’s fun to me right now. I’ve had a great time this week and I’m just excited to go out and do everything I can to help this team win…

“I love it here. And in my mind, I’d love to be here (long term).”

Nichols will be Winnipeg’s fourth starting quarterback in the last five games when he takes the field today. That’s bad, but what’s worse is this: Nichols will be the eighth different starting quarterback for the Bombers in the last eight Banjo Bowls.

If you want a single stat to explain why the Bombers have missed the playoffs in five of the last six years, you need look no further.

The QB problems this year are not particularly new, in other words. But they are acute — and they are not going away anytime soon. While Willy this week shed the crutches he’d been using to hobble around IGF, the painfully slow walk he’s been doing around the stadium without them suggests he’s still weeks away from returning, if he returns at all this season.

All of which brings us back to Nichols, who was 5-2 as a starter for the Eskimos this season, yet still got run out of Edmonton (all of which tells you just how vastly different the fortunes of the Eskimos and Bombers are this year).

Still, such is the low bar set by his Bombers predecessors in 2015 the general consensus is whatever Nichols does against the Riders will be a vast improvement over anything Brohm or Marve have mustered.

Bombers head coach Mike O’Shea said as much on Friday following practice at IGF, noting Nichols’ CFL experience will give him a presence on the field that was distinctly absent with Brohm and Marve.

“He’s got six years of CFL experience — that poise, that leadership, that understanding of the CFL game,” O’Shea said. “He’s going to bring that on to the field with him, he’s going to bring that into the huddle, he’s going to bring that into his decision-making on each and every play.”

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He’d better. While the Bombers are just one win out of a playoff spot coming into this weekend, this date with the Riders has “desperation” written all over it.

Winnipeg needs a win, desperately. And they need a competent quarterback to replace Willy, desperately.

The alternative? Desperation will very quickly turn to resignation at IGF and a golden opportunity to put some life back into this beleaguered franchise in what was supposed to be a very special season will have been irretrievably lost.

paul.wiecek@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @PaulWiecek