There’s a ’24-hour rule’ in sports — especially youth, amateur sports — where parents, athletes, relatives, fans are asked to follow a guideline calling to wait a day before expressing concerns.
The concept is simple. Take a deep breath or three and calm the nerves rather than launch into a fit of rage.
Yeah, we did that. And just about a day later Friday’s Winnipeg Blue Bombers loss to the Calgary Stampeders the crushing 41-20 setback still sits heavy as if we’d swallowed a Walby Burger whole. That comes mostly from magnitude and totality of the two beat downs by the Stamps over the Blue Bombers with the three touchdown defeats the worst back-to-back losses since losing by 22 to Ottawa and then Edmonton by 32 points back in October of 2014.
The success this organization has had in the years and the club’s 3-2 record likely means calling for dialling back on the vitriol a tad, but the two losses still left open some gaping wounds.
“They’re a good team,” said Blue Bombers quarterback Chris Streveler of the Stamps afterward. “But when we watch this tape, we’re going to look in the mirror a lot and see missed opportunities and mistakes and things we need to clean up. That’s always where our focus is — how we can be better.
“I always expect us to play up to our level. A lot of games in the season, so it’s disappointing. I want to play better; everyone wants to play better. It’s a disappointing feeling. But all you can do is take this, watch the tape tomorrow, learn from it, and be better moving forward. That’s all you can do.”
Added cornerback Terrell Bonds: “They just beat us in all three phases. It’s on the players. Coaches had a good game plan for us; we just didn’t execute it.
“But we’re a resilient group and I know we’ll bounce back next week and the games after. It starts during practice this week — practising harder, watching more film with each other and locking in on the little things because everything they did today they did last game on film. We just didn’t execute, and they made more plays than we did. Credit them.”
ICYMI, here’s our Game Recap story from Friday’s loss:
And what follows is the rest of this week’s UPON FURTHER REVIEW…
THREE NUMBERS WHICH STOOD OUT… after a second glance at the stats package, which can be found here:
1 One of the scariest numbers to come out of the two losses were the passing totals by Calgary QB Vernon Adams, Jr as he completed 29-of-42 passes for 489 yards with five touchdowns against one interception in the two Stampeder wins.
Diving further into that:
-The five touchdowns covered distances of 43, 11, 37, 42 and three yards and highlighted the danger of explosion plays and Winnipeg’s coverage issues after the veteran pivot extended plays with his legs. Of his 29 completions — get this — 20 were for 10 yards or more. In fact, in Friday’s win his first eight completions were all over 10 yards, including a 37-yard TD to Damien Alford.
“There’s a couple that are just really goofy,” said head coach Mike O’Shea. “There’s really no explanation except guys feel terrible because they’ve messed something up. You could probably find a root cause for one and then it might be a different cause for another — it’s not just communication. But a couple of them were just poor plays.”
-There’s more 16 of those 29 completions came on second down for 286 yards with a TD and an interception. All told, Adams, Jr. was a sparkling 16-0f-24 on second down.
“That’s what makes him good,” said Bonds. “He can make plays in the pocket; he can make plays outside of the pocket and he gives his big receivers a chance with some of those passes. Like I said, credit to them — they’re on a roll right now, but we’ve got them again in a few weeks. We’re not going to look past Toronto at all, though. We’ve got to get back to the grind.”
2 The turnover totals in the two games were horrid, with Winnipeg turning the ball over four times in Calgary and then a whopping six times on Friday. Over the two games the Blue Bombers finished a miserable -8 in the turnover ratio.
What’s worse is three of the six interceptions thrown by Zach Collaros and Streveler over the two losses were returned for touchdowns. That doesn’t even give the defence a chance to step on the field to defend the end zone.
By the way, don’t expect an update on Collaros until the team returns to practice on Tuesday.
3 Weird one… Brady Oliveira has had 30 carries and 11 receptions through his two-and-a bit games this season — remember, he was injured on the first drive of the season and missed a couple contests afterward — and has yet to find the end zone.
That stat was only exacerbated by a critical moment in Friday’s loss. Trailing 17-13 early in the third quarter Streveler had driven the team to the Stampeder seven-yard line. But on first and goal from the seven Streveler ended up rolling to his left before being picked off at the goal line, with Calgary then driving the length of the field to completely turn the game around.
At best, Winnipeg takes a 20-17 lead there with a TD — and so many expected them to pound it from the seven until they found paydirt, even knowing how good Calgary’s defence is — and at the very least they settle for a field goal to cut the Stampeder lead to 17-16.
Instead…
“I thought Strev did a great job… first drive of the third quarter marched all the way down the field. Methodical,” said O’Shea. “There’s probably three or four different decisions on that first-and-seven play.
“We could be a little more friendly to the quarterback in that situation. We could make a different decision… all those things. It adds up to a big play against.”
QUOTABLE…
“I thought we played pretty good defence in the first half with a couple mistakes here and there. And then in the second half it just felt like we had some critical mistakes that shifted the momentum, and we struggled to get it back under control. We’ve still got so much to work on as a team but it’s a long season and we’ve got time to get this right as a team.
“Now it’s about sticking together. Losses happen. When bad games happen or you get beat up you’ve just got to come back together as a team and get back to work next week. That’s all it is. There’s no time to mope.” — defensive tackle Cam Lawson
NIC DEMSKI AND KODY CASE BOTH FOUND THE END ZONE… Friday night but were obviously not in celebratory moods afterward.
“I just wanted to get the win,” said Case, who had two catches for 10 yards including an eight-yard TD while rushing once for 19 yards in his first start and then had three kickoff returns for 63 yards after Trey Vaval left with an injury. “We’ll regroup and get in the win column next week. Any time you’re on the football field it’s a great thing but it was a rough game this week. We’ve been here before coming off a loss. Now it’s about sticking to our process, trusting our gameplan and go out there and execute it.”
Added Demski, when asked about his career night that saw him finish with 146 yards on seven catches while adding another 27 yards on one run:
“I wish it was under better circumstances. Obviously, it’s nice to get the trust from the quarterback and the OC to have the ball thrown my way.”
TAKE A BOW, BOMBER NATION: Friday’s sell out was the club’s eighth consecutive, a new franchise record. They were vocal throughout and those that remained near the end also were full throat in voicing their displeasure.
“I just noticed that they were gone early, which is not a great night for them,” said O’Shea afterward. “Obviously, we want to do better for our crowd. They do great for us.”
“The fans are going to stick with us,” said Demski. “They’ve done a great job of selling out and we haven’t lost many games at home. We know they’re going to be on our side, they know we bring good football. I guess my message to them is to just stick by us; we’re going to get this thing figured out and we’re sorry.”
GIVEN THE OUTCOME, FROM A BLUE BOMBERS PERSPECTIVE… the highlight of the night may have come before kickoff when Milt Stegall received a standing ovation from fans upon his return to Winnipeg.
Winnipeg loves ya, @MiltStegallTSN 💙 pic.twitter.com/eJdupJci2h
— Winnipeg Blue Bombers (@Wpg_BlueBombers) July 19, 2025
To read more about Milt’s reaction to the ovation, check out this piece:
Stegall: “It wasn’t just cheers that were coming out, it was ‘We’re with you, Milt.’”
AND FINALLY… thanks for reading this far and for those who have made it to the bottom and want to see more of the video evidence of Friday’s loss, we have it here with the condensed game: