Kickoff: Thursday, June 13th , 6:30 p.m. CDT; TD Place, Ottawa, Ont.
TV/Streaming: TSN 1/3, RDS; CFL+
Radio: 680 CJOB
Streaks: Wpg: 1L; Ott: season-opener after a bye in Week 1
Scene Setter
There are a lot of eyes on the Blue Bombers this week and many of them are already watching with a critical bent. How much of that is real and how much is an over-reaction — it’s still June, last we checked — will begin to be answered in more detail in Ottawa on Thursday.
Yes, there was so much of last week’s loss to the Montreal Alouettes which was out of character for the Blue Bombers, from the mistakes, to the penalties, to the inefficiencies on offence, it already has many beginning to pen the opening lines on a way-too-early obituary.
Let’s remember here the old saying that life is 10 percent what happens to you and 90 percent how you react to it. And if history has taught us anything about this Blue Bombers squad over the last few seasons, it’s that they usually react to a loss by instantly getting up off the mat and throwing punches again.
Consider this: the Blue Bombers have not lost back-to-back games in the last two years. And while they did drop their final two games at the end of 2021, it was with an asterisk as they rested a ton of starters in the push for what was a second straight Grey Cup title.
So, the last time the Blue Bombers lost consecutive games that mattered was during a three-game losing streak from September 21-October 5 in 2019 with a banged-up Chris Streveler replacing an injured Matt Nichols at QB and just before the CFL trade deadline that delivered Zach Collaros.
That fact — not losing consecutive meaningful games since before the pandemic — says a ton about the veteran leadership still in place. As offensive coordinator Buck Pierce said earlier this week, “this is a resilient group.”
You could say that and then some. The Blue Bombers are now 51-18 over the past four years and including last week — which is 10 more wins than the next best outfit, the Toronto Argonauts, who are 41-28 over that same span. Seven straight seasons of double-digits wins has cemented a daily grind that everyone falls back on after a loss.
“We’re just working. That’s the main thing. I don’t think we’re doing anything different or anything special,” said receiver Nic Demski. “We’re just coming in here and working and working together. We’ve just got to trust the process, trust the offence, trust the scheme, trust the play-calling, trust our assignments and everything will be in good hands. We’ve seen it before. Of course, it’s a new year but at the end of the day we’ve got to be comfortable with each other and trust each other and I think we do.
“(The loss to Montreal) wasn’t who we are. It wasn’t the standard that we set. I always take my hat off to the other team; they came out here and they played physical from the first snap. They were fast, they were flying around out there and kudos to them. But looking at ourselves in the mirror we’ve definitely got to be better, step up, take accountability and play to our standard because I don’t think we played to what we are capable of — in fact, I know we didn’t play to what we’re capable of.”
THE DEPTH CHART
The Blue Bombers have made three changes to the depth chart this week. Off are WR Kenny Lawler, RB Brady Oliveira and DT Jamal Woods; on are LB Adam Bighill, WR Keric Wheatfall and FB/LB Bailey Feltmate. Lawler, FYI, has officially been moved to the six-game injured list.
3 THINGS TO WATCH
1. Oliveira/Lawler Down… Next Men Up
The Blue Bombers have been smacked upside the head with some early-season injuries and taking the league’s leading rusher in Oliveira and one of the most-dangerous receivers in Lawler out of the lineup doesn’t help an offence which struggled a week ago gain traction.
Oliveira missed almost all of camp and was limited to 55 yards from scrimmage (38 rushing, 17 receiving) on 14 touches in the loss to Montreal. Veteran Johnny Augustine will step in for him in what will be his fourth career start — his last coming at the end of 2021 when he rumbled for 148 yards on 23 carries in his first 100-yard game.
Lawler’s spot will be taken by Keric Wheatfall, the Fresno State product who dressed for three games with the Philadelphia Stars of the USFL last year after a look-see from the Eagles in 2022.
Keric Wheatfall will make his CFL debut Thursday
“I feel like I’m a LeBron on the field. I can block. I can run downfield. I can make the cuts, catch the ball, get upfield, do whatever I need,” said Wheatfall earlier this week. “This is a big opportunity for me. I’m excited for this, man, and I love my team. Actually, from all the teams I’ve been on in all the different types of leagues, this is probably the closest I got with all the players in the quickest amount of time. I love it here in the CFL. I’d love to continue keep playing out here with the Bombers. This is all a blessing to me.”
2. A New ‘D’ Emerging?
It seems sacrilegious to ask a Blue Bombers defence which surrendered the fewest points a year ago for more. But new defensive coordinator Jordan Younger is pushing a revamped crew to be more versatile, more flexible and more difficult to attack in 2024.
And if anything positive came from last week’s loss, it was snippets of what this unit could be even with two new corners in Tyrell Ford and Terrell Bonds, and changes to the D-line in defensive tackles in Miles Fox and Devin Adams and defensive end Celestin Haba.
New defensive coordinator Jordan Younger
“A lot of encouraging things and a few things we have to absolutely have to clean up,” said Younger of the Montreal loss. “All in all, if you’re not looking at the score of it there were a lot of positive things that we can build on with the defence – the number of two and outs, most of their yards came on explosion plays so if you take a couple of explosion plays out of it, of course, it’ll look better. I was certainly encouraged by what I saw.
“Our vets have been playing together a long time, so those corrections are easy to make. The challenge is to get the young guys to accelerate their learning curve so that they can recognize some of the challenges in game – before we have to go to the sideline and talk about them.
“You have to crawl before you walk and doing things with new people the challenge is you’ve got to install it in a way where everybody can understand it and then once you’ve seen it on film – seen the reactions and how you should move – now you can become more advanced.”
3. The Sensei and His Pupil
Every week the slate of CFL games offers up at least one compelling QB matchup and none could be more riveting than veteran Zach Collaros and his protegé, Dru Brown, meeting for the first time as rivals.
We told you earlier this week of the respect Brown earned during his days in Bomberland and that respect is clearly mutual.
“It’ll be fun. I’ve competed against those guys in practice but I haven’t gotten to play them in a game, so it’ll be fun — but competing every week is fun so it’s not necessarily anything different,” Brown told reporters in Ottawa on Tuesday.
Asked if there might have been any trash talk between himself and Collaros, Brown simply smiled.
“Nah, I’ve got too much respect for him,” he said. “We talk pretty much daily just about ball and stuff and how things are gong. He’s checking in on me; I’m seeing how he’s doing, but nothing that crazy.
“The guy showed a lot of love towards me and I appreciate that. I can’t really put it into words but I’ve got a lot of respect for him.”
THE LAST WORD
“We just try to get better win or lose. We take our meetings seriously after a game, we take our corrections seriously. Nobody likes to lose. We especially don’t like to lose. Nobody liked how that felt during and after the game. It’s been about taking the corrections to heart and attacking that.
“You don’t want to panic after one loss but you have to study why things happened the way they did, correct it and not let it happen again.” — defensive back Evan Holm.