Let’s rewind a bit to the scene inside the Winnipeg Blue Bombers locker room after Thursday’s sloppy home opener loss to the Hamilton Tiger-Cats…
It was subdued — naturally — and there was a healthy share of F-bombs and other expletive deleteds being spit out in conversations between frustrated teammates.
What was also noticeable was this: a calmness and an honest admission there’s still a pile of work to get done when the team returns from its first bye week of 2026.
No one was panicking, or running up to a teammate, grabbing them by the shoulders and screaming, ‘Oh, the humanity… What do we do now?’
“It’s Game 2. We lost Game 2 and it’s a long, long season. We’re fine,” said running back Brady Oliveira. “When you lose people are quick to over-react. It’s, ‘What’s wrong? What’s going on? What’s happening?’
“We just didn’t play a clean enough game. Too many mistakes. There too many missed opportunities throughout the whole course of the game and if we score on a few of those it’s a completely different ball game.
“Again — long season. There’s nothing to panic about.”
Panic? no. Fix? Absolutely.
“A lot of mental mistakes on three levels from the line to the second level to the back end,” said safety Redha Kramdi. “We didn’t execute at a high level and when you play a good opponent, you get exposed.
“We played horrible and we need to take ownership for that loss. Offence did amazing; they put enough points up for us to win the game. We need to do better defensively.
“It’s just small mistakes — alignment, assignment, it was way off our standards and it’s killing me that the offence put up some great quality football and we couldn’t, on defence, give us a chance to win.”
ICYMI, here is our Game Recap from Thursday night:
And what follows is this week’s edition of UPON FURTHER REVIEW…
THREE NUMBERS WHICH JUMPED OUT AFTER… a second glance at the stats package, which can be found here:
1 We’ve hammered away on this for the first two Blue Bombers games because the totals are telling. Hamilton’s offence converted 13-of-22 second-down conversion opportunities, 59 percent, including going 7-of-14 on second-and-long (seven-plus yards).
Through two games, the Ticats and Calgary Stampeders have converted 58.7 percent of their second downs and 46.9 in second-and-long situations.
Just for comparison, Winnipeg’s defence ranked first in this category a year ago at 43.6 percent overall.
“We played young, didn’t tackle well enough. There’s just some plays you’d like to have back,” said head coach Mike O’Shea. “There were just some mistakes we’re not used to making.
“When they watch the film, they’ll know… I think they know now. It’s things that are easily fixed. But, tackling, at some point you’ve just got to make the decision to wrap up and tackle somebody.
“I thought we could have got off the field a couple more times just by cleaning up the tackling.”
2 Collaros was good on 28-of-35 — a healthy 80 percent — for 421 yards with two TDs and one interception. That was the fifth 400-yard passing game in his career and third highest, after throwing for 439 yards in 2016 as a member of the Ticats and 432 yards with the Blue Bombers in 2024. His clubs are now 3-2 in his 400-plus yards passing performances.
One more on this because it came up post-game… just how rare is it for the Blue Bombers to throw for more yards than their opponent — as was the case Thursday night — and lose?
Well, the Blue Bombers actually out passed their opponent in 10 games last year and their record was 5-5.
3 Winnipeg’s defence has now surrendered exactly 171 yards rushing in two successive games this year, including 100-yard efforts by opposition running backs — Dedrick Mills had 112 in the opener and Hamilton’s Larry Rountree III racked up 124 yards along the ground.
The last time that happened was in September of 2024 when Edmonton’s Justin Rankin went for 157 and then 109 in successive games against the Blue Bombers.
“There’s no play design in defensive football that says we’re going to leave two gaps uncovered,” explained O’Shea. “So, if it happens, if there’s a big space there or somebody’s not in the right gap and then you compound it by missing a tackle then those big yards are made.
“I don’t think we were getting moved, I just think we fell short of our gaps. We weren’t getting pushed around. It didn’t feel like that. I just felt like a loss in gap integrity and some better tackling was needed.”
SOME GOOD NEWS… on the injury report from the Hamilton camp. In the first quarter Thursday night Tiger-Cats defensive back took a knee to the head while trying to tackle Blue Bombers receiver Tommy Nield, who flipped over in the collision.
Peters stayed down for an extended period before being taken off on a stretcher and then to hospital. By the end of the night, he had rejoined his team for the flight home.
First and foremost, I want to thank God for His protection and divine intervention. I’m grateful to share that after being evaluated and cleared by the medical team, I’m doing okay.
Thank you to the incredible medical staff, trainers, and support personnel from the Hamilton…
— Jamal Peters (@JamalPeters21) June 12, 2026
AND FINALLY… for those of you who have read this far, thank you. And for those who missed the game or want to relive all the highs and lows, check out the condensed game here: