{"id":144619,"date":"2025-09-15T02:23:16","date_gmt":"2025-09-15T02:23:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/144619\/"},"modified":"2025-09-15T02:23:16","modified_gmt":"2025-09-15T02:23:16","slug":"upon-further-review-ham-32-wpg-21","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/144619\/","title":{"rendered":"Upon Further Review | Ham 32 Wpg 21"},"content":{"rendered":"

There are no clear signals or signposts but there\u2019s a vibe developing with the Winnipeg Blue Bombers after three straight losses. Simply put, it feels like the five-time Canadian Football League West Division title holders \u2014 and champions in 2019 and 2021 \u2014 have reached a tipping point.<\/p>\n

To be a bit more succinct \u2014 and graphic \u2014 it\u2019s time for this team to poop or get off the pot here, what with their grip on a playoff spot slipping with the Saskatchewan Roughriders and Calgary Stampeders having pulled too far ahead and the B.C. Lions having successfully closed the gap on the blue and gold and the Edmonton Elks still lurking.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Indeed, while the Blue Bombers fell 32-21 to the Hamilton Tiger-Cats Friday night, the Lions knocked off the Ottawa Redblacks 38-27 later that night with the Toronto Argonauts then providing some help with last-play 31-30 over the Elks Saturday afternoon.<\/p>\n

That leaves Winnipeg and B.C. both at 6-7 \u2014 and with the Blue Bombers having won the season series \u2014 and the Elks now 5-8.<\/p>\n

Still, worth noting here: Winnipeg has not just dropped three straight but has gone an abysmal 3-7 in its last 10.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know what to tell you. I\u2019m going to give you the same speech I always give after a loss: we\u2019ve just got to play tougher, be better. It\u2019s the same s\u2013t,\u201d said dime back Redha Kramdi inside a morose Blue Bombers locker room late Friday night. \u201cWe\u2019ve just got to be better. It\u2019s small stuff. It\u2019s a couple missed tackles on defence. And if we hold them to threes instead of touchdowns (after first half turnovers) maybe we have a chance at the end.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo one is losing hope or anything, we\u2019ve just got to start playing better football. If we don\u2019t start winning the week we can\u2019t expect to come out and win the game with the way we\u2019re playing. And if we keep saying. \u2018the next game, the next game, the next game \u2018 we\u2019re going to end up home in early November. We can\u2019t be looking too far ahead, but we have to start winning.\u201d<\/p>\n

We outlined the current tiebreaker scenario briefly above, but it\u2019s worth checking in on the remaining schedule, knowing two of the the three West teams could still make the playoffs \u2014 the fourth as a possible crossover team in the East Division.<\/p>\n

REMAINING GAMES:<\/p>\n

Blue Bombers (6-7)
Road (2): Ottawa, Sept. 20th; Edmonton, Oct. 11th
Home (3): Hamilton, Sept. 27th; Saskatchewan, Oct. 17th; Montreal, Oct. 25th<\/p>\n

Lions (6-7)
Road (2): Calgary, Sept. 19th; Saskatchewan, Oct. 25th
Home (3): Toronto, Sept. 26th; Calgary, Oct. 4th; Edmonton, Oct. 17th<\/p>\n

Elks (5-8)
Road (2): Hamilton, Sept. 20th; B.C., Oct. 17th
Home (3): Saskatchewan, Sept. 27th; Winnipeg, Oct. 11th; Calgary, Oct. 24th<\/p>\n

Friday\u2019s game was another snapshot of the ills which have plagued this team this season: too many turnovers, an inconsistent offence that leads to a worn-out defence which then can\u2019t find a stop in critical moments.<\/p>\n

And it\u2019s slowly eating away at this bunch.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s disappointing. We put a ton of work in during the week, and I feel like we prepare really well,\u201d said veteran guard Pat Neufeld. \u201cThere\u2019s obviously plays we want to get back and I know it sounds like a broken record but it\u2019s these mistakes we\u2019re making, these lulls in situations where we\u2019ve got to be firing on all cylinders and we\u2019re not.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s starting to get gut-check time, and we don\u2019t have a lot of time. We\u2019re going to have to start figuring things out ourselves, dig in and get this thing rolling.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt takes intent,\u201d Neufeld added. \u201cYou\u2019ve got to be like a racehorse and put the blinders on and have a real solid focus on the task at hand and that comes in the meeting room, at practice, at walk-throughs, the games\u2026 everything. We\u2019re not separating, and we\u2019ve got to find those moments where we\u2019re going to be great and overcome the errors.\u201d<\/p>\n

ICYMI, here is our Game Recap from Friday night:<\/p>\n

Game Recap | Wpg 21 Ham 32<\/a><\/p>\n<\/p>\n

And what follows is the rest of this week\u2019s Upon Further Review\u2026<\/p>\n

THREE NUMBERS WHICH STOOD OUT\u2026 after a second glance at the stats package, which can be found\u00a0here:<\/a><\/p>\n

1 The offensive inconsistency continues to be a frustrating talking point and there are a couple of numbers which scream out to that point.<\/p>\n

First, Brady Oliveira and the offensive line were dominating up front in the first half, as Winnipeg\u2019s workhorse had 13 carries for 110 yards and two receptions for 24 yards in the first two quarters. After that he had just two rushes for six yards and two catches for 11 yards in the final 30 minutes. Three of his four second-half touches came on the club\u2019s first possession in the third quarter \u2014 two rushes and a catch \u2014 and then he went 23 minutes and 24 seconds before he had the ball in his mitts again on a reception with 2:15 left in the game and Winnipeg trailing 32-13.<\/p>\n

And second, Chris Streveler\u2019s numbers got a considerable boost late in the game with the Ticats attempting to milk the clock and pumping the brakes on being overly aggressive offensively and defensively. Streveler started out going 11-of-19 for 132 yards with the TD to Keric Wheatfall and the two costly interceptions that led to 14 Ticat points. And in the last two drives \u2014 both inside the final 2:42 \u2014 he was 7-of-10 for 109 yards.<\/p>\n

All that said, Winnipeg had more first downs (22-21), more rushing yards (198-163), more passing yards (241-230) and more yards net offence (420-393) than the Ticats. Countering that, Hamilton had the ball for almost 10 minutes more than Winnipeg.<\/p>\n

2\u00a0The Blue Bombers were again crushed by their mistakes, with the two interceptions thrown by Chris Streveler leading to two touchdowns by the Ticats. That came on a night when the defence again did a solid job of limiting the passing totals for another Most Outstanding Player candidate in Bo Levi Mitchell, who finished with 230 yards passing.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Winnipeg\u2019s turnover differential on the season is -12, now worst in the CFL.<\/p>\n

3 On top of everything listed above, consider this: Streveler and Zach Collaros have now combined to throw 23 interceptions \u2014 that\u2019s already seven more than all of last season and the most since 2013, when Max Hall (10), Justin Golts (seven), Buck Pierce (six), Jason Boltus (three) and punter Mike Renaud (one) combined to throw 27.<\/p>\n

AND FINALLY\u2026 thanks for reading this far and for those who have made it to the bottom and want to see the video evidence of the loss to the Tabbies, we have it here with the condensed game:<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There are no clear signals or signposts but there\u2019s a vibe developing with the Winnipeg Blue Bombers after…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":144620,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[437],"tags":[49,48,521,522,520,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-144619","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cfl","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-canadian-football-league","11":"tag-canadianfootballleague","12":"tag-cfl","13":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/144619","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=144619"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/144619\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/144620"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=144619"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=144619"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=144619"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}