{"id":45850,"date":"2025-08-05T00:59:14","date_gmt":"2025-08-05T00:59:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/45850\/"},"modified":"2025-08-05T00:59:14","modified_gmt":"2025-08-05T00:59:14","slug":"need-to-know-week-10","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/45850\/","title":{"rendered":"Need to Know | Week 10"},"content":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s early in the practice week \u2014 way too early \u2014 to come to any concrete conclusions or make any bold proclamations.<\/p>\n

Still, Day 1 of the Winnipeg Blue Bombers work week leading up to Saturday\u2019s matchup with the Stampeders in Calgary did offer some encouraging signs and developments for a club now 4-3 and trying to keep pace with\/hunt down both the 5-3 Stamps and Saskatchewan Roughriders, who are rolling along at 7-1.<\/p>\n

First and foremost, quarterback Zach Collaros was back at the helm after missing last week\u2019s win over the Toronto Argonauts and not finishing either of his two starts before that. Stanley Bryant was also back at the left flank after missing the last two games, while Dillon Mitchell was getting a lot of looks in certain offensive packages with the starting unit.<\/p>\n

The Blue Bombers did not issue an injury report Monday afternoon, but Collaros took the normal amount of reps and when head coach Mike O\u2019Shea was asked if the club\u2019s QB1 was \u2018trending towards playing\u2019 offered this:<\/p>\n

\u201cWith these type of things, we\u2019re always going to check in with them after practice, check in with them again in the morning and then trust the player and Al (Couture, head athletic therapist) and his staff \u2014 the best in the league \u2014 to let them work.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The update on Bryant from the future hall of famer himself: \u201cGreat. Feeling great and had a great practice today so I\u2019m feeling fine. We\u2019ll see how the week goes.<\/p>\n

\u201c(Not playing and watching from the sideline) was a very different perspective. I\u2019ve never missed that much time before in my career. So, it was just sitting back and kind of like being in coach mode and trying to help guys out seeing things from a different point of view. I helped on the sidelines as much as I could.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was cool but not something I\u2019m ready to join yet.\u201d<\/p>\n

Seeing Mitchell get some work with Collaros & Co. \u2014 usually with Keric Wheatfall moving inside to slotback \u2014 is a noteworthy development given the former Edmonton Elks receiver has yet to dress for a game this year and last week was moved to the practice roster.<\/p>\n

O\u2019Shea, not surprisingly, was non-committal when asked about Mitchell running with the starters.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe had a lot of people running a lot of different things,\u201d he said. \u201cWe had a different day today; practice was structured quite differently if you count the reps and the way we did it. But Dillon\u2019s a good football player.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mitchell, meanwhile, continues to be upbeat and refuses to say anything negative about his situation or the organization \u2014 quite the opposite, in fact.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m feeling great. Super great. This is a beautiful town, beautiful city,\u201d he said. \u201cI love Winnipeg. I feel like this has been a great experience for me. As much as everything that has gone on, that\u2019s strictly internal.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Asked by CJOB\u2019s Derek Taylor what fans might see if he gets into action this weekend, Mitchell added:<\/p>\n

\u201cI hope people get to see a win from us, first off. And then, being a player, you want to go out there and play well, you want to go out there and play for your brothers and teammates and make them proud.\u201d<\/p>\n

As for the waiting for his opportunity after putting up solid numbers before signing here as a free agent this winter, Mitchell again praised the situation around him.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy attitude is always positive, so I wouldn\u2019t say anything that happened has been waiting,\u201d he said. \u201cThose things are between me and the office people. It\u2019s a collective team effort and if you know how to play your part, you wouldn\u2019t be upset. It\u2019s a unit thing and I\u2019m a big guy in making sure all of my teammates understand I\u2019m a great person.<\/p>\n

\u201c\u2026 Being a part of the locker room, there are a tremendous amount of great people, and you don\u2019t get that everywhere in the CFL, you don\u2019t get guys that care about their teammates. Being able to be surrounded by leaders\u2026 from my experience playing in another place it\u2019s the consistency of making sure that no matter if it\u2019s wins or losses we still come to work the same way every day. It\u2019s just great to be around guys who care about football.<\/p>\n

\u201cRight now, I\u2019m just focussed on making every day great and having a great practice every day.\u201d<\/p>\n

FYI: More news on the injury front \u2014 DB Redha Kramdi, DT Cameron Lawson, DB Jamal Parker, Jr., DB Enock Makonzo and receiver Dalton Schoen all did not practice on Monday while DB Evan Holm was excused from the session. Meanwhile, DT Jamal Woods, LS Mike Benson, OL Micah Vanterpool were all back in full gear.<\/p>\n

TALKING POINT: Armchair QBs across Bomberland have been asking about what happened on Chris Streveler\u2019s third interception in last Friday\u2019s win and the circumstances behind it.<\/p>\n

Just to recap, the Blue Bombers led 37-31 and were 1st & 10 on the Argos\u2019 14-yard line with 2:56 left when Streveler\u2019s pass attempt to Jerreth Sterns was intercepted in the end zone by Tarvarus McFadden.<\/p>\n

The play call \u2014 a pass instead of a run \u2014 and the riskiness behind it when a field goal would have put the club up by nine, was brought up with offensive\u00a0coordinator Jason Hogan after Monday\u2019s practice.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\u201cBased on our film work, our prep, we felt comfortable with it,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s 1st & 10 but we felt comfortable understanding we\u2019d probably get man coverage. We got the look for it and at that point in time they\u2019re also loading the box a little bit so at times you\u2019ve got to make them pay if they\u2019re going to play man coverage and load up the box to try and take the run away. You\u2019ve got to take some shots.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hogan said the TD would have been the \u2018kill shot\u2019 and given the team even more momentum. As it was, the Argos did get three more possessions as Winnipeg went two and out on its next two possessions and then added a Sergio Castillo field goal with 38 seconds left.<\/p>\n

\u201cDefence tries to go zero-one-three (holding an offence to zero, one or three points and not surrender a touchdown),\u201d said Hogan. \u201cWe try and go six-three. That\u2019s the mindset behind being in the red zone and trying to take shots when we need to and when they\u2019re there.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe felt that was the right time. We got the man coverage, the ball was not placed in the right area and we paid for it, unfortunately.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It\u2019s early in the practice week \u2014 way too early \u2014 to come to any concrete conclusions or…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":45851,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[437],"tags":[49,48,521,522,520,82],"class_list":["post-45850","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cfl","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-canadian-football-league","tag-canadianfootballleague","tag-cfl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45850","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=45850"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45850\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/45851"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45850"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45850"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45850"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}