Bombers stumble in thanksgiving showdown, fall short against Argos 14-11

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This article was published 12/10/2024 (721 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

It was too little, too late from the Winnipeg Blue Bombers offence.

The club’s offensive playmakers were served a heap of stuffing to kick off Thanksgiving weekend, mustering just one touchdown and a whole pile of mistakes in a 14-11 loss to the Toronto Argonauts at Princess Auto Stadium on Friday.

Quarterback Zach Collaros was held to 23-of-30 with zero touchdowns and one interception while Brady Oliveira, who is perhaps the front-runner for the league’s Most Outstanding Player award, was only able to muster 64 yards on 12 carries. Kenny Lawler led all receivers with six receptions for 108 yards.

A fourth-consecutive sellout crowd didn’t have much to cheer for as the offence sputtered for much of the contest, particularly in the first half, and didn’t find the end zone until 4:29 remained in the fourth quarter.

It’s the third time Winnipeg has scored 12 points or less this season.

“We were playing a good defence,” head coach Mike O’Shea said with a laugh. “You got to give some credit to the opposition, we didn’t just stop ourselves. I do think that we had some other opportunities, as I’m sure they think they had more opportunities too.”

Indeed, Winnipeg will look back on this one thinking it could have shaken out much differently had they capitalized on a few key chances.

Following an Argos touchdown, the Bombers went two-and-out — the first of five occasions in the first half — and were forced to punt. On the ensuing play, Janarion Grant coughed up the ball on a hit by special teams stud Brian Cole, who also recovered the ball to set the Bombers up inside the Argos’ 10-yard line.

The Bombers squandered the prime field position, however, as Terry Wilson was stuffed on a quarterback sneak at the goal line.

“On the goal line, you got to score there,” said Collaros. “Our special teams did a great job, it was B Cole who punched it out against arguably the best returner in the history of the CFL, so, yeah, you got to finish those drives. You’ve got to score points there and we didn’t.”

The kicking game was a problem too. Sergio Castillo, who has put together an impressive season for Winnipeg, was one-for-three on field goal attempts, missing wide left from 42 yards and hitting the upright from 48, but connecting on a 26-yard attempt. Those misses came back to bite the Bombers in a big way.

Missed opportunities were just the beginning, though.

The final numbers in the box score may pass the eye test — 322 yards of net offence and 22 first downs normally wouldn’t warrant criticism — but this was a performance in which the final score told the true story of what unfolded.

Collaros was sacked five times in the first half — seven times in total — while Winnipeg had 97 yards of net offence and just four first downs heading into the locker room at halftime, which they were escorted to with a chorus of boos.

The Bombers quarterback shouldered the blame for “at least half of those,” noting he “was just trying to do too much.”

“They’re good up front. They’re very good up front. They have a lot of great players,” Collaros said of the Argos defensive line.

Members of the offensive line were not happy with their performance.

“Football is a 12-man game. All 12 of us have to be on the same page every play, and that’s always difficult to do,” said left guard Liam Dobson. “We’ve been fortunate to be doing that a lot recently but today it didn’t all click for some reason so we gotta get back in the meeting rooms and figure it all out.”

Winnipeg looked like a different team out of the locker room. Chunk gains of eight, nine, 16 and 11 yards had the team driving into Argos’ territory. That is until Collaros coughed up a back-breaking fumble that halted the offence in its tracks, one of four Bombers turnovers in the contest.

To the unit’s credit, they remained resilient as the defence continued to hold its own and strung together some positive plays. Much of that was through a quicker passing game, which featured Oliveira, who added six catches for 41 yards to his stat total.

The Bombers found some success in chipping their way downfield on their lone touchdown drive, which was capped by a one-yard plunge from Wilson.

It may be one of the only things the unit can collectively hang its hat on entering the bye week.

“For me, it just felt like we were playing fast in the second half. Things were really moving, we had some long drives. I think that’s also another thing, when we can install those long drives on a defence and the way our offensive line plays up front, they just wear on guys,” Oliveira said.

“Ultimately, we made some mistakes and there wasn’t enough time on the clock for us to finish it out.”

joshua.frey-sam@freepress.mb.ca

X: @jfreysam