It is a scene we’ve witnessed far too often inside the Winnipeg Blue Bombers locker room over the last couple of weeks, and already six times through a dozen games this season:

Players sitting in their lockers long after the final whistle, some still in their gear, staring straight ahead with a mad-enough-to-spit-rust look on their mugs that speaks of frustration, of disbelief and white-hot anger.

In short, this is what a .500 football team looks like.

The question now is, what do the Blue Bombers have left to give in the final third of the 2025 Canadian Football League regular season and, potentially, beyond?

Winnipeg is in third place in the West Division at 6-6, but has dropped all five games against the two teams ahead of them in the standings, losing twice now to the 10-2 Saskatchewan Roughriders — they’ll meet again on Friday, October 17th back here — and three times to the Calgary Stampeders, now 8-4 after their loss to the Edmonton Elks Saturday night.

In many ways the Blue Bombers can now stop focussing on what’s ahead of them in the standings and should now take a peek at what’s happening behind them in the West with both the Elks and B.C. Lions at 5-7. Winnipeg has already captured the season series against B.C. and is up 1-0 on the Elks after a win in Week 4 — they meet again on Oct. 11th in the Albert capital — but Edmonton has also now won four of its last five.

“I don’t think there’s any point in (looking at) it,” said head coach Mike O’Shea after the game Saturday when asked about the standings. “We’re either going to improve and get to where we want to get to or we’re not. I just bet on our guys that we’re going to improve.”

And when it was pointed out the Blue Bombers are now a combined 0-5 against the Roughriders and Stampeders…

“That’s true,” he said. “Once again, I’ve got a lot of faith in our guys that they’re going to come back to work tomorrow, then they’re going to have a day off and come back to work the day after that and they’re going to be excited to be on the field and looking forward to getting better and looking forward to getting to Hamilton and find a way to win.”

A few easy-picking areas the Blue Bombers need to clean up ASAP include:

Scoring some damn points in the second half — the Roughriders blanked Winnipeg 9-0 in the final 30 minutes and out-scored the home side 18-zip in rallying from a 13-3 hole.
Winning the turnover differential — the Blue Bombers were a -3 in the takeaway/giveaway department.
And cutting down on the costly penalties — Winnipeg was nailed for five penalties for 66 yards, including two pass interference infractions in the fourth quarter totalling 41 yards.

“We’re just not making our plays when we get the chance,” said veteran centre Chris Kolankowski. “When it comes to a game like that, you can look at a play in the first, second, third or fourth quarter as to why we didn’t win and when it comes down to the wire. You look at the whole game under a magnifying glass and look to see where you could have got that extra inch, that extra first down to stay on the field… all that stuff. These are the hard ones to look at afterward because there are so many plays that make it that close.

“It hurts,” Kolankowski. “At the end of the day, though, it’s professional football and it comes down to the details. It’s not college anymore. It comes down to the details on every snap on every drive. So, to lose like we have in the last couple of weeks is frustrating, but it’s what we signed up for.”

ICYMI, here’s our Game Recap story from Saturday’s loss in the Banjo Bowl:

Game Recap | Banjo Bowl – Sask 21 Wpg 13

And what follows is the rest of this week’s UPON FURTHER REVIEW…

THE BIG STORYLINE EXITING THE GAME… and leading into this week’s game in Hamilton against the Tiger-Cats once again focusses on the status of quarterback Zach Collaros.

The Blue Bombers QB1 exited the game with Winnipeg leading 13-12 and just over five minutes left in the third quarter when blitzing Roughriders linebacker C.J. Reaves exploded into the backfield to deliver a massive hit. Reavis was flagged for roughing the passer after the play was challenged by O’Shea and while Collaros ran into the locker room after the hit — waving briefly to the crowd — and was spotted with his teammates post game, he did not return and his status won’t be known until the team returns to the practice field on Tuesday, if not later in the week.

“It’s brutal again,” said Brady Oliveira of seeing Collaros leave a game for the third time this season. “That’s a guy that does everything right and puts in preparation to the max. The guy is here super early, he’s here super late — him and Strev (Chris Streveler) both, all our quarterbacks. But Zach is the leader of that group, the leader of this team, the leader of this locker room and to see him go down just sucks. You hate for when it’s guys like that do the right thing all the time.

“… I’ve said it before: Zach truly is an ultimate competitor. The guy just truly wants to win games by any means and whatever that looks like. I have so much respect for him because of that. I’m the same way. I just want to win football games. We put a lot into this; a lot of sacrifice to win football games.

“Hearing that he jogged off is a good sign.”

That said, Collaros’ exit — coupled with his injury history — not surprisingly let to some commentary post-game about his future, although it comes without knowledge of what caused the veteran pivot to leave the game. This from Blue Bombers legend Milt Stegall, now an analyst with the CFL on TSN:

“As far as Zach goes, I’m going to look at it from a standpoint of if that was my son, he wouldn’t step on the field again. He’s retired; that’s it. He’s never playing another down of football. I’m basing this on that we’re thinking he suffered a concussion. It hasn’t been disclosed what he suffered; I’m basing it on he’s suffering a concussion. Zach Collaros should not step on the field again.

“I know the medical staff in Winnipeg; they do a great job. If he’s medically cleared, they’re doing the right thing, I know that. But then I’m looking at it if I’m one of those board members, or I’m an executive with the Winnipeg Blue Bombers, would I want my son to step back on the field again? That’s the way I would look at it. 100 percent, Zach Collaros should never play football again.”

THREE NUMBERS WHICH STOOD OUT… after a second glance at the stats package, which can be found here:

1 Go ahead and point fingers at whatever aspect of the Blue Bombers you may find lacking, but the most telling is staring everyone right in the face: Winnipeg has turned over the ball a league high 34 times this season, including four interceptions on Saturday. Their turnover differential on the season is now -11, ranking last.

“That’s one of those metrics that’s well known across football, from minor football all the way through to the pro level is if you lose the turnover margin, you’re going to have a chance of losing the game,” said O’Shea. “There are some games where you end up winning even though you’re behind in the giveaway/takeaway category. We’re not there yet. We’re not there where we’re taking the ball away enough or surviving giveaways.

“It’s football. (The Riders) are a good team. They get paid. We’ve just got to figure out a way to take care of the ball better and limit the damage when it happens and take the ball away a little more.”

This telling stat to add to that: in the Blue Bombers six wins their turnover differential is +7. And in the six losses, it’s -18.

2 After it being a talking point all week following his low carry total in the Labour Day Classic — five for 24 yards — Oliveira lugged the ball 20 times for 83 yards in the Banjo Bowl.

That was his highest total of the season and the most since the club’s Western Final win over the Riders last year, when he also had 20 carries.

Credit the Riders, though, for limiting Winnipeg’s power back to an average of 4.2 yards per carry and a long of 14 yards.

3 Discuss among yourselves…

Chris Streveler’s numbers in his two starts this year, both wins: 32-of-45 (71.1%) for 419 yards and three TDs against four interceptions.

And his numbers in the three games he had to step in for an injured Collaros: 32-of-52 (61.5%) for two touchdowns against four interceptions.

QUOTABLE…

“We’ve just got to keep going. When the odds stack against you, you’ve just got to continue to work and stick to the script. Everything is going to be all right. We’ve just got to keep believing and stick together. It’s not frustrating at all; it’s part of football. You’ve got to have the right mindset when you see that everything you want is still in front of you. You’ve got to trust the process here.

“I don’t look at it as offence, defence or special teams — we just didn’t accomplish enough as an entire unit. We’ve all got the same jersey on.”

— Deatrick Nichols

NOTABLE… Thanks to Blue Bombers fans — again — for packing Princess Auto Stadium for what was the 11th consecutive sellout, a club record.

 

eleventh straight sellout. electric as always, bomber nation 💙 #ForTheW pic.twitter.com/MIqsuDov8C

— Winnipeg Blue Bombers (@Wpg_BlueBombers) September 7, 2025

AND FINALLY… thanks for reading this far and for those who have made it to the bottom and want to see the video evidence of the Banjo Bowl loss, we have it here with the condensed game: