Bombers punch playoff ticket with dominant 55-27 victory, extend win streak to seven

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This article was published 27/09/2024 (346 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The Winnipeg Blue Bombers are headed back to the playoffs for the eighth year in a row.

The Bombers completed their improbable season-long comeback story — beginning 0-4 and 2-6 — with a dominant 55-27 triumph over the Edmonton Elks in front of a third-straight sellout crowd at Princess Auto Stadium on Friday.

This one was over by halftime.

Winnipeg scored 31 points before the Elks found the scoreboard and were able to sit on their 34-6 halftime lead the rest of the way.

It was one of those complete performances in all three phases by a squad that knows how important it is to be peaking this time of year.

The Bombers’ defence has been the team’s backbone all season, but it was a lethal offensive outing that stole the show on the strength of 526 total yards and never really allowed the crowd to catch its collective breath en route to a seventh consecutive victory.

“I think what people don’t realize when they were trying to talk about (us clinching a playoff berth) this week was we had a bunch of players who didn’t really know, and I think that’s the way it should be,” said head coach Mike O’Shea.

“We had a good game tonight and we’ll fix some things that need to be fixed and, as I said during the week, this time of year, you got to be playing really clean, focused football and I thought, for the most part, we did.”

The Bombers improved to 9-6 on the season and hold a four-point lead over the B.C. Lions for the top spot in the West Division, at the time of writing. The Lions were leading the Hamilton Tiger-Cats 16-8 at press deadline.

There’s no time for the Blue and Gold to relax, however, as the next item of business is securing that top seed and a first-round bye to the West Division Final, which is now a favourable outcome with just three games remaining in the regular season and Winnipeg holding the tiebreaker over every team in the West.

As for the Elks, they dropped to 5-10, and the ink is running dry on their comeback story. Edmonton is attempting to become the first team to start 0-7 and make the playoffs and looked to be well on their way with five wins in six games before dropping the last two contests against Winnipeg.

The Elks are fourth in the West, four points behind the Lions and three points behind the Saskatchewan Roughriders, and will need to win out and possibly get some help to get into the tournament.

Another big game awaits the Bombers in Hamilton against the Tiger-Cats on Friday, Oct. 4, but before we get to that, let’s unpack Friday’s lopsided affair a little more:

VINTAGE ZACH

We start, rightfully, with the Bombers’ quarterback.

Zach Collaros will be the first to tell you he hasn’t been good enough this season. Entering the night, his nine touchdown passes were among the lowest in the league, and he led all quarterbacks with 14 interceptions.

This was a different version of the Bombers’ pivot.

The three-time Grey Cup champion delivered a vintage performance on the strength of six touchdown passes and 432 yards on 21-for-26 passing and a perfect 158.3 efficiency rating.

It was a season-high in passing yards and touchdowns for Collaros, and just the fourth time this year he’s gone without throwing an interception.

“He was locked in, there’s no hiding that,” said receiver Nic Demski. “It’s funny, we come together as a group, come in a little circle, and you can just see the look in his eyes and just the message he gave us that something is different in the air. From that moment on, it’s like, ‘Okay, he’s locked in’ and he came out and proved it.”

Collaros looked nimble and poised while being pinpoint in accuracy, as he found Demski, Keric Wheatfall and Brady Oliveira for touchdowns in the first half, then Kenny Lawler twice and Demski again in the second half.

“It never really feels easy. When you got guys making plays the way that our guys were all night long, you’ll yield those results,” said Collaros.

“It’s awesome that we get the win, it’s awesome that we scored a bunch of touchdowns. Brady’s touchdown is something I’ll never forget, seeing it on the jumbotron was just amazing. Kenny’s catch was just a glitch in the matrix, from my vantage point at least,” he added. “Guys making plays all night.”

It was the first time Collaros has thrown at least three touchdown passes in a game since Sept. 9, 2023, which also so happens to be the last time he threw for five touchdowns in a game.

He made sure to spread the wealth, too, connecting with six different targets while three of them — Lawler, Demski and Wheatfall — recorded at least 80 receiving yards.

Lawler finished with eight grabs for 130 yards and two touchdowns; Demski caught four passes for 117 yards and a pair of majors; and Wheatfall caught three pass for 80 yards and one score.

BIG PLAY BLUE

Earlier this week, Collaros talked at length about why offences around the league — and the Bombers, in particular — have struggled to generate as many explosive plays as in years past.

The quarterback said defences in the NFL and CFL have placed an emphasis on preventing big passing plays by dropping more defensive backs into coverage and playing their safeties deeper. It’s forced offences into taking what the defences give them, which is often something short.

Collaros, who has made a living off finding receivers deep down the field after breaking the pocket, even went so far as to say it’s made watching game film boring as he’s needed to corral his big arm.

Perhaps film sessions will be more exciting this week.

The Bombers recorded six explosive plays on the night (plays of 30-plus passing yards or 20-plus rushing yards). Three of Collaros’ touchdown passes came on plays of 40, 61 and 33 yards, while he also had completions of 33, 50 and 35 on the night.

Meanwhile, the defence limited the Elks to just two explosive plays— one rushing and one passing.

“I’ve played against (defensive co-ordinator Jason Shivers) for a long time, as we have with a lot of these co-ordinators, so you have a good idea of what to do but it’s still pros versus pros. I just think our guys did a great job of making plays when the ball was in the air,” said Collaros.

OPPORTUNISTIC DEFENCE

It was perhaps the moment in which everyone knew this wasn’t going to be the Elks’ night.

With the Bombers up 24-0, things went bad to worse mid-way through the second quarter when Elks quarterback McLeod Bethel-Thompson tried dumping off the ball to running back Justin Rankin. The problem was it was a backwards pass, and Rankin didn’t corral the ball. The pigskin hopped a couple of times on the turf before Tyjaun Garbutt scooped it up and took it 62 yards to the house, making it 31-0 before the game was 22 minutes old.

“We know as long as we play all 12 together, big plays happen,” said Garbutt. “All that was, was me being opportunistic as I’m running to the ball. It’s not negotiable to run to the ball if you want to be a great defence, so, really, I didn’t really do too much. (Michael Griffin) made a great play, making sure the running back couldn’t corral the ball… and I just did what I’m supposed to do.”

It’s been the story of the last two weeks for a Bombers defence that has made life miserable for the Elks offence at times. Last week in Edmonton, Winnipeg generated six turnovers and records two sacks. The stingiest unit in the CFL encored with three forced turnovers and one sack while limiting Bethel-Thompson to 17-for-31 for 177 yards.

One area to clean up will be the run defence, which has been gashed by the Elks the last two weeks. After running wild for 157 yards in their first meeting, Justin Rankins tallied another 109 yards on 14 carries on Friday.

“I think the whole team understood that the game might look different, and probably had to look different, this week,” said O’Shea. “We were going to have to be different and it was different, but we still managed to obviously play extremely well in the first half and for the fourth quarter, too, probably. There were some real lulls in there but we’ll take this one for sure.”

Up next: The Bombers will look to take another step toward securing the top spot in the West Division for the fourth year in a row when they travel to face the Hamilton Tiger-Cats (5-9). The Bombers and TiCats met on Aug. 23, when Big Blue snuck out with a 26-23 victory at home.

Winnipeg is 3-4 on the road this year.

joshua.frey-sam@freepress.mb.ca

X: @jfreysam