Winnipeg Sun<\/a>. \u201cLet\u2019s try and win out. It\u2019s obviously tough. But we\u2019ve done it before\u2026 we\u2019ve gone on nice little runs where we\u2019ve won a ton of games in a row. Our focus, which I think is great, is not worrying about the second half of the season. It\u2019s worrying about now, about beating Montreal this week and forgetting about who we play after that.”<\/p>\nOver the past two weeks, however, Winnipeg has had some rocky finishes to say the least.<\/p>\n
In Week 10, the Blue Bombers coughed up a 17-point lead to the Stampeders\u00a0before kicker Rene Paredes hit a 40-yard field goal for the Calgary win. Then, Winnipeg squandered another 17-point lead to the Ottawa Redblacks last week, but were on the right side of walk-off field goal, with Sergio Castillo nailing a 47-yarder for the win.<\/p>\n
The offence was nearly\u00a0non-existent in the second half of those games, managing only one touchdown and 14 points in total. Across 2025 thus far, Winnipeg sits in the bottom third of the league in most offensive categories, including touchdowns (20), first downs (181), average yards per play (6.24) while committing\u00a0the most turnovers (28).<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have a ways to go,\u201d Zach Collaros, with a league-worst 9-10 touchdown-to-interception ratio, said to The Sun regarding the offence. \u201cWe just need to continue to believe in what our core tenets are, and that starts with physicality and executing and paying attention to the details. All those things that sound cliche but really what makes a great football team and a great offence.\u00a0The rest will come with that.\u201d<\/p>\n
While the run game\u00a0has surely been better than the passing attack, with Winnipeg\u00a0sitting second in rushing yards per game (112.8), it hasn’t been by Oliveira dominating as we have been accustomed to seeing.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The reigning Most Outstanding Player\u00a0has led the league in rushing yards\u00a0the last two seasons, putting up nearly 2,900 yards and 12\u00a0touchdowns over that span.<\/p>\n
This year, however, things have been different.<\/p>\n
The 28-year-old has had to battle through a shoulder injury that cost him two games, while\u00a0his 5.0 yards per carry sits tied for eighth this season (minimum 30 carries) which is\u00a0nearly a yard less per carry than he has averaged over the past two campaigns.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf we just finish this thing off right and make sure we\u2019re winning games, the numbers are irrelevant to me,\u201d Oliveira told The Sun.<\/p>\n
That doesn’t mean he doesn’t want to get back up to top form, however.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think I could do that every single year. And yeah, I want to win football games. But I still don\u2019t see that out of the picture. I\u2019m going to get going and it\u2019s just a matter of time.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Bombers\u00a0are now set to square off with the injury-riddled\u00a0 Alouettes to kick off Week 12. Montreal’s season has completely gone downhill over the past three weeks, losing three quarterbacks to injury while dropping three straight games.<\/p>\n
Quarterback James Morgan is now in line to make his first career CFL start, tasked with turning around a Montreal team that has gone 2-5 since starting the year 3-0, being\u00a0outscored 93-46 during this\u00a0three-game skid.<\/p>\n
If the Blue Bombers were to get another run going like they have in years past, this could be the moment, with the Alouettes missing other key contributors like receivers Austin Mack and Tyson Philpot.\u00a0Winnipeg might not be coming into this one firing on all cylinders, but all of Montreal\u2019s cylinders are in the shop for repair.<\/p>\n
“This team has been in some tight games this year,\u201d said Oliviera. \u201cWe\u2019ve faced a lot of adversity. Down the stretch we\u2019re going to start playing some really good football teams, teams that are going to be up at the right time, championship-calibre teams. We can use what we\u2019ve learned in the past to benefit us down the road.\u201d<\/p>\n
The team boasts the best home record in 2025\u00a0at 4-1, and hosting a\u00a0playoff game at Princess Auto Stadium is by no means ruled out. A win on Thursday, however, would get things back on track for the Bombers to potentially host a postseason contest for the fifth straight season.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The second half of the 2025 season is here, which means the party is just getting started in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":86599,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[437],"tags":[49,48,521,522,520,82],"class_list":["post-86598","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\/86598","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=86598"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86598\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/86599"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=86598"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=86598"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=86598"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}