{"id":421001,"date":"2026-01-20T08:08:09","date_gmt":"2026-01-20T08:08:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/421001\/"},"modified":"2026-01-20T08:08:09","modified_gmt":"2026-01-20T08:08:09","slug":"gruesome-injury-in-east-semi-final-motivated-patrick-neufeld-to-continue-cfl-career","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/421001\/","title":{"rendered":"Gruesome injury in East Semi-Final motivated Patrick Neufeld to continue CFL career"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Photo: Reuben Polansky\/3DownNation. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n

Canadian offensive lineman Patrick Neufeld was unable to play the second half of the East Semi-Final due to a nasty injury he opened up about after signing a one-year contract extension to return to the Winnipeg Blue Bombers for 2026.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a kidney injury. I recovered a loose ball in the first quarter there and one of the Montreal defenders going for the ball hit me in the lower back. I didn\u2019t know it at the time \u2014 I was in pain, but I just kind of thought it was like one of those hits in football. He must have hit me right in the kidney,\u201d he told the media on Monday.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt halftime, I was just urinating the wrong colour, let\u2019s say, and immediately got our trainer Al (Couture) to assess everything. The next thing you know, that was the end of my day. It was just super unfortunate. Another huge reason why I wanted to come back was because I just felt like I couldn\u2019t go out like that and need to redeem myself.\u201d<\/p>\n

Winnipeg had a miserable start to the East Semi-Final, falling behind 25-6 to the Montreal Alouettes by halftime. Backup blocker Tui Eli took over for Neufeld at right guard to start the third quarter and the team hit the ground running, scoring 21 unanswered points in seven minutes to take a 27-25 lead.<\/p>\n

The Blue Bombers were unable to maintain the lead, losing to the eventual East Division champions by a score of 42-33. Neufeld never reentered the game, which may have been his last had his contract extension with the team not worked out.<\/p>\n

\u201cI just couldn\u2019t return. It was just one of those organ kind of things where you\u2019ve got to make sure you\u2019re looking out for your health more than anything,\u201d said Neufeld. \u201cIt was about two weeks of pretty solid pain and I can tell you guys for sure you want to stay away from kidney injury because it doesn\u2019t feel great.\u201d<\/p>\n

The offensive line never made an appearance on locker room clean out day, which occurred shortly after Winnipeg\u2019s playoff loss. Neufeld, who recently turned 37, didn\u2019t speak to the media, nor did veteran stalwart left tackle Stanley Bryant.<\/p>\n

According to the native of Regina, Sask., he and his fellow offensive linemen chose not to speak because they were still processing a whirlwind year.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it was just a sentiment of feeling upset and frustrated with how our season ended. Me personally not getting to play the second half of that game was really disappointing, just with the hit that I took and the injury that happened,\u201d said Neufeld.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe just wanted to be in the room with the guys. It\u2019s a business of change, so you never know who\u2019s not going to be back in that offensive line room. We were kind of just sitting in our offensive line room reminiscing about the season. It was not an airing of grievances, but just talking about the season \u2014 the good, the bad, the ugly, the fun, all that.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Blue Bombers have already started making changes, recently releasing pending free-agent centre Chris Kolankowski, who has already landed with the Hamilton Tiger-Cats<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Neufeld indicated he was surprised by the move, calling Kolankowski one of his best friends. He expects Eli to take over the starting job at centre, while also speaking positively about young offensive linemen Gabe Wallace and Ethan Vibert. He also wants to see pending free-agent Bryant return, indicating he speaks regularly with the 39-year-old future Hall of Fame inductee.<\/p>\n

Winnipeg has already made a key change to its coaching staff, hiring Tommy Condell as offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach. In a corresponding move, Jason Hogan was demoted to his old role of running backs coach.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt felt like a frustrating season \u2014 especially on offence, we just couldn\u2019t click, couldn\u2019t mesh together for some reason. I think we were for whatever reason on different pages and that made that made it frustrating,\u201d said Neufeld. \u201cWe just weren\u2019t playing to the standard that we felt like, so I think everyone this offseason is kind of taking it to heart, the guys who are coming back, and want to make a statement that\u2019s not the team going forward that we were in the past.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s about executing and playing better, that\u2019s the bottom line. It\u2019s about production and that\u2019s just on executing. There\u2019s a lot of elements that go into execution that we\u2019re going to have to focus on. I think there\u2019s going to just be kind of a renewed sense of fire, I think it\u2019ll be refreshing having a new offensive coordinator, but having still part of our staff who\u2019ve been around for a long time.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s great that Marty (Costello)\u2019s going to be back coaching us as an offensive line. He\u2019s a tremendous coach for our group and has led us for the last number of years and I don\u2019t know if there\u2019s an offensive line coach who works harder on preparing us and getting us ready for game day, so we should be excited to have him still here and to be playing for him. I think it\u2019ll just be a true commitment to executing and getting the job done on game day.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Photo: Reuben Polansky\/3DownNation. All rights reserved. Canadian offensive lineman Patrick Neufeld was unable to play the second half…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":421002,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[437],"tags":[166835,166836,22070,22936,176422,49,48,7028,521,522,520,165927,527,5718,2849,175683,82,176423,176424,7504],"class_list":["post-421001","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cfl","tag-3down","tag-3downnation","tag-blue-bombers","tag-bombers","tag-bryant","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-canadian","tag-canadian-football-league","tag-canadianfootballleague","tag-cfl","tag-chris-kolankowski","tag-football","tag-injury","tag-kidney","tag-patrick-neufeld","tag-sports","tag-stanley-bryant","tag-tui-eli","tag-winnipeg-blue-bombers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/421001","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=421001"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/421001\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/421002"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=421001"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=421001"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=421001"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}