It says something about the last nine seasons of Winnipeg Blue Bombers football — nine straight double-digit win campaigns, five Grey Cup appearances, two championships — that there is a consensus the franchise has reached a ‘where do they go from here’ crossroads.

No doubt that kind of consistent success significantly raises the bar of expectations over time, so much so that the 10-8 record posted by the club in the 2025 regular season followed by a first-round playoff loss to the Montreal Alouettes has prompted all this doubt about what’s ahead.

That’s not just a sentiment from fans and media, either, as coaches, players and management have all taken turns since the end of the season publicly wondering aloud about where the team is headed and how it can get back to being one of the Canadian Football League’s elites.

That storyline — we’ve dubbed it simply ‘Onward’ — comes in at #2 in our look at the Top 5 stories of the Blue Bombers in our annual Year in Review.

Here’s the other thing about all this: there is an admission inside the walls of Bomberland that things need to be fixed and, just as important, a consensus that this team still has the key pieces in place to both make those tinkerings and take a step forward in 2026.

Since the end of the season both GM Kyle Walters and head coach Mike O’Shea have signed extensions, as have key players like Brady Oliveira, Redha Kramdi, Deatrick Nichols, Cam Lawson, Nic Demski and Pokey Wilson.

It’s a start — a solid one — heading into free agency in February.

“Everybody has said the same thing and that’s the best part about our situation right now: everybody understands the situation and our weaknesses and strengths,” said Nichols last week after his extension was announced. “And when everybody is on the same page then nothing else matters because everyone has the same goals, the same mindset. Everybody wakes up with the same intentions. When a unit or a group of guys have the same mindset, nothing is too difficult to handle.

“The problems come when a unit thinks there are 10 different problems. Then that becomes the problem because you can’t get to Step 1 to get everyone believing in the same thing. We’re already past that point and it’s easier to chase what’s in front of us because we all know what the goal is from Day 1.”

Winnipeg defence allowed the fewest offensive points in 2025, and the special teams found some magic in Trey Vaval and has a solid kicking game with both Sergio Castillo and Jamieson Sheahan — although that duo are also both pending free agents and Vaval has already had a handful of workouts by NFL teams.

The offence, as everyone is well aware, had its struggles in 2025 as Zach Collaros missed five starts and didn’t finish three others and with injuries and changes to the receiving corps seeing its production fall to seventh in scoring and last in passing. That led to the hiring of long-time CFL offensive coordinator Tommy Condell, last with the Ottawa RedBlacks, with Jason Hogan resuming his role as running backs coach.

Count Oliveira among the many that believe this team can reload for 2026.

“I trust this organization That’s a big part of why I signed back,” Oliveira said last week. “Seeing Osh and Kyle) sign back… We have been very successful the last number of years and I put full trust in their hands.

“I said this from the beginning last year: I truly did believe that we had a Grey Cup calibre team. I look across the board — the level of talent that we had, the level of leadership that we had, vets that have played a ton of football games in the CFL, for the Bombers, we just unfortunately fell short and could get it done.

“I think it came down to the details. I don’t think we were as detail oriented as years past and we have a high standard here. We’ve got to get back to that and I’m excited to get back to work. The works already started for next season.”

It might have been Lawson who best captured the prevailing sentiment within the Blue Bombers camp in a chat earlier this month after he, too, had signed an extension.

“Our coaching staff and the management are great people, and they know what to do,” Lawson said. “They’ve built championship teams in Winnipeg before. I have faith in them like they have faith in me.

“You know, sometimes you need to be punched in the face. You can get comfortable with where you are… there’s the saying ‘complacency is the killer of progress.’ I believe in that. After every season I’m always planning on things I can do better — how I can be stronger, how I can improve in certain areas. You never want to be OK with what happened. None of us are.

“And so, I think we can get back to winning championships and dominating once again and I know we’ll keep signing guys and bringing guys in that are going to contribute to that.”

Next: Take A Bow, Bomber Nation