Two schools of thought are circulating in Bomberland right now in the aftermath of the Winnipeg Blue Bombers unique win over the Ottawa Redblacks on Saturday.
The first: A win is a win is a win no matter how it looks. There are no points for artistic merit in football, after all, and the victory was critical for a Blue Bombers squad missing its starting quarterback and trying to stay in the playoff discussion both through the West Division and a possible crossover spot through the East.
Further to that, the special teams and defence stepped up when it mattered and the offence cranked out 172 yards along the ground. So, take the road ‘W’ and get back to work for the next one.
And the second: agreed on all of the above. But… what the hell with the passing attack?
Eight passing attempts and three completions for 54 yards in a full Canadian Football League game? And it’s a ‘W’?
“That’s a good win that finishes off a good week of preparation. It’s all about getting that ‘W’ and going 1-0. Simple as that,” said veteran defensive end Willie Jefferson in the locker room Saturday night. “Now we’re coming home to our fans, and we’ve got to to it again. We’ve got to stack these together.
“That was a complete defensive team game, and we got some big plays from special teams. This was one of those games I was telling you about — the offence was having a hard time putting the ball in the end zone, so the other two phases have to find a way to compliment that.”
Asked what a result like that might teach some of the younger faces on the roster — and there are more than some might think — Jefferson added:
“If we can stick to our process and know it’s not going to be easy, know it’s not going to be handed to us… if we can get that into our minds, then we know we’re going to have to fight these last couple of games for some wins.
“It’s going to be ugly, it’s going to be tough, it’s going to be grimy. If you’re ready to play football, this is the best time to play football.”
There was a whole lot of ugly in the win, sprinkled with some toughness and coated with grime. But when Chris Streveler puts just eight passes in the air, one of which was intercepted, and completes just three of them for 54 yards…
“You tell me those numbers, I’m not paying attention to them,” said head coach Mike O’Shea after the win. “I mean, we’re grinding. It was going to be one of those games.
“We won. That’s it,” he added when asked to assess the offence. “That’s what the film is for, that’s what the day after is for. We’ll clean some things up and move forward.”
“I’m proud of the whole team. It’s hard to win in professional sports and we got it done. Period,” added defensive back Deatrick Nichols. “That’s football. Every win is going to look different; every loss is going to look different. You just try to add them all up and then when the playoffs come, you’re ready for any situation.
“Wins like that, the funny wins where you at the stats and go, ‘Wow, we pulled something off’ are a plus when you get to the end of the year.”
ICYMI, here is our Game Recap from Saturday afternoon:
And what follows is the rest of this week’s Upon Further Review…
IT’S THE TIME OF THE YEAR WHERE THE STANDINGS/SCHEDULE WATCH… is massive, and Saturday’s victory, as much as it was rough around the edges, very much keeps the Blue Bombers in a solid spot with everything happening around them.
Winnipeg, remember, has won the season series with the B.C. Lions and lost the same to the Calgary Stampeders, but still has a couple of paths open to the playoffs.
To that point, here are the remaining games the Blue Bombers are in full chase mode with:
Stampeders (8-5)
Road (4): Montreal, Sept. 26th; B.C., Oct. 4th; Hamilton, Oct. 11th; Edmonton, Oct. 24th
Home (1): Toronto, Oct. 18th
Blue Bombers (7-7)
Road (1): Edmonton, Oct. 11th
Home (3): Hamilton, Sept. 27th; Saskatchewan, Oct. 17th; Montreal, Oct. 25th
Lions (7-7)
Road (1): Saskatchewan, Oct. 25th
Home (3): Toronto, Sept. 26th; Calgary, Oct. 4th; Edmonton, Oct. 17th
Elks (5-9)
Road (1): B.C., Oct. 17th
Home (3): Saskatchewan, Sept. 27th; Winnipeg, Oct. 11th; Calgary, Oct. 24th
Argos (5-9)
Road (3): B.C., Sept. 26th; Saskatchewan, Oct. 10th; Calgary, Oct. 18th
Home (1): Hamilton, Oct. 4th
THREE NUMBERS WHICH STOOD OUT… after a second glance at the stats package, which can be found here:
1 No number stands out more from the stats package than the passing totals for Winnipeg in the win. To that end — and merci beaucoup to Steve Daniel from the CFL for the numbers — consider this:
-That was the lowest passing yards total for the Blue Bombers since the club had just 39 in a 15-1 loss to the B.C. Lions on September 9, 1975. Worth noting: less than a year before that the club had just 15 yards passing in a 19-12 win at Hamilton.
And as we pointed out in our game recap, the Blue Bombers did win a game played in a rainstorm in 1960 with zero completions and zero passing yards.
Further to the above: the 54 yards passing was the lowest by any team in the CFL since Edmonton had 49 in a game in 2015.
And one more: in the last 49 years only one team had three completions or less in a game. The Shreveport Pirates had one completion in 20 attempts in a 1994 game.
2 One of the sidebar stories that came out of the result on Saturday was the end of Nic Demski’s consecutive game streak with at least one catch, which now stops at 84.
Demski drew an offside penalty on one target attempted to him in the first quarter and was the intended target on the interception thrown by Streveler. He also caught an 11-yard pass early in the fourth quarter, but the reception was wiped out by a holding penalty.
Still, for the team’s leading receiver to be held off the stat sheet is telling — especially with his ability to do so much damage on the shovel passes and receiver sweeps he has made a living at for eons.
3 One of the cooler stats to come out of Saturday’s win was the 128-yard missed field goal return for a TD by Trey Vaval — a Blue Bombers record and the fourth longest in CFL history. (FYI, it was initially called a 129-yard return by the stats crew and then adjusted).
The CFL record for a missed field goal return is 131 yards, which prompted a smart question from a reader about how a return can cover that distance given the 20-yard end zones. The record was set in 1958, back when end zones were 25 yards deep.
After the game we asked Vaval if he had any gas left in the tank after his first return (he added a 71-yarder later).
“No,” he said with a grin. “I got down there and then to the sidelines and my legs kinda died. But the trainers gave me some electrolytes, and I felt better after that.”
And when we asked how close he was to busting the second one?
“I don’t know,” he said with a shrug. “Like I said before, I kind of black out when I return the ball. I just catch the ball, trust my blockers and try to hit it. I saw the kicker coming and with the angle he had and someone behind me, I couldn’t really cut back. I just wanted to get as much yardage as I could for my team.”
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 win in Ottawa, we have it here with the condensed game: