Winnipeg Blue Bombers: Now that was just stupid

You don’t want to hang all of this one on Brian Brohm. Or the hogs in front of him. Or the defence. Or the special teams.

This was an equal-opportunity screwup. Share and share alike.

But the main reason the Winnipeg Blue Bombers were given a 37-19 wedgie by the Saskatchewan Roughriders on Sunday? Just blame it on stupid.

Stupid is Mike Willie running into punter Ray Early to breathe fresh life into a stalled Saskatchewan drive.

Stupid is an illegal contact penalty on Johnny Adams on the same drive.

Stupid is an unecessary roughness penalty on Johnny Adams on the very next play on the very same drive that ended in a touchdown for Gang Green.

Stupid is an unecessary roughness penalty on Lin-J Shell.

Stupid is an unecessary roughness penalty on Bruce Johnson.

Stupid is Lirim Hajrullahu hoofing the football out of bounds on a short kickoff attempt with one minute and 27 ticks remaining on the clock and the score 30-19 for the ‘Riders.

Stupid is a Marcel Bellefeuille game plan that did not include a pass attempt of more than 10 yards until the skirmish was 28 and a half minutes old. That’s almost an entire half without flinging the football far enough for a first down! And that’s the offensive scheme that we were told was much too complicated for newby quarterback Matt Nichols to master in three days? Five-yard sideline passes? Doesn’t say much for his smarts, does it.

Which brings me to one final stupid: Stupid is the Bombers filmaholic head coach, Mike O’Shea, not starting Nichols despite the fact he hadn’t been in town long enough to sample his first Salisbury House cheese nip.

Oh, yes, stupid ruled the day on many levels for the Blue and Gold, losers to a previously inept Roughriders outfit which, at 0-9 entering the fray, had been the free space on the 2015 Canadian Football League bingo card. The Green People gave the Bombers a proper paddywhacking before an SRO audience on a wind-swept afternoon in that ugly excuse of a ball yard on Piffles Taylor Way in Regina, and I doubt very much that Winnipeg’s filmaholic head coach needs to watch video evidence to confirm how ugly stupid his crew was and is.

I mean, what’s there to see, other than a pathetic parade of penalties and further evidence that Brohm is not a CFL-quality quarterback?

The best you could say about Brohm’s work on Sunday is this: He didn’t implode. There were no picks. Actually, there wasn’t much of anything. No touchdowns. No energy. No excitement. Just blah…and some garbage yards and a few garbage points once the debate had been decided in the ‘Riders’ favor.

Mind you, Brohm is working with an extreme handicap, and this time I’m not talking about his throwing arm. He has Bellefeuille for an offensive coordinator.

I’ve never had a peek inside Bellefeuille’s play book, but, judging by the play-calling, it can’t be any more complicated than an Archie or Jughead comic. And it’s certainly less entertaining. I swear, the Bombers would be better served if the QB simply crouched down in the huddle and designed plays in the dirt. You know, like the kids do in sandlot football. That way we might actually see a deep ball thrown on occasion.

Not with a Bellefeuille offence, though. He’s bold and brash like Donald Trump is mousey quiet. His idea of daring is running with a pair of scissors. Plastic scissors.

So, ya, anyone behind centre for the Bombers is playing with one arm tied behind his back.

Who that will be when the same two outfits do it all over again on Saturday at Football Follies Field in Fort Garry remains a mystery, but it’s my guess that Nichols will get the call he should have received on Sunday.

If not…well, that would just be stupid.

Patti Dawn Swansson has been writing about Winnipeg sports for more than 40 years, longer than any living being. Do not, however, assume that to mean she harbors a wealth of sports knowledge or that she’s a jock journalist of award-winning loft. It simply means she is old and comfortable at a keyboard (although arthritic fingers sometimes make typing a bit of a chore) and she apparently doesn’t know when to quit. Or she can’t quit.
She is most proud of her Q Award, presented to her in 2012 for her scribblings about the LGBT community in Victoria, B.C., and her induction into the Manitoba Sportswriters & Sportscasters Association Media Roll of Honour.

Matt Nichols: The answer at quarterback or a lamb being led to slaughter with the Winnipeg Blue Bombers?

Take comfort, Bombers Nation. Rest easy. The cavalry has been summoned and, no doubt, Matt Nichols arrived in River City with a pocket full of miracles, a satchel full of high hopes and a truckload of good-luck charms.

The mere fact he’s in town, of course, must be recognized as a favorable development, in that the Winnipeg Blue Bombers latest quarterbacking lamb didn’t have a change of heart and retire from football while en route from Edmonton.

I mean, playing QB for the Winnipegs is not exactly a plum assignment. It ain’t what it used to be. You know, back when Ken Ploen and Don Jonas and Dieter Brock and Matt Dunigan and Khari Jones were flinging the football behind offensive linemen who performed as big as they ate. Now it’s more of a bug-and-windshield thing, and you ain’t the windshield, baby. But, hey, you get danger pay.

So, sure, come on down, Matt. Hit us with your best shot.

Naturally, there are those among you who pooh-pooh the acquisition of Nichols as yet another swan dive into yet another Canadian Football League’s dumpster by Kyle Walters, the club’s general manager who is often seen wearing the look of a very perplexed man. (This, of course, is what happens when your original starting QB, Drew Willy, is in sick bay, your current starter, Robert Marve, is also in sick bay, and your third option, Brian Brohm, is quite healthy but unfortunately has a birth defect known as his throwing arm.)

But come now, ye negative natterbugs. You ought to know by now that this is the Bomber way. They dare not wander out into the vast football forest and discover their own quarterback, sign him and groom him into star starter. They wouldn’t recognize a quality quarterback if Bo Levi Mitchell and Zach Collaros were playing catch in Walters’ back yard. Doing it in-house is old school. That kind of thinking went out with Dieter Brock.

Thus, we have Matt Nichols, plucked from the back alley bin of the Edmonton Eskimos for a token finder’s fee of a seventh-round draft choice. A conditional choice, at that. Cripes, man, that’s like giving a kid a participation prize in Pop Warner.

So, I shall not be joining the chorus of harrumphs that arose once word of the Nichols-for-nil transaction arrived. What, I ask, was Walters supposed to do? Bring Danny McManus out of moth balls?

Besides, I have it on good authority that Nichols is of substantive stock. That authority would be none other than the head coach, Mike O’Shea, who stared at a gathering of interrogators on Wednesday afternoon and announced that he had “seen enough film on him” to confirm his new QB’s bona fides. It is always a good thing to hear the coach say he has “seen film” on a player or a game, because it means he doesn’t respond to every question like he’s been asked to explain Donald Trump’s take on Hispanics.

The coach also advised news scavengers that they, and fans, are to ignore Nichols’ numbers while he was adorned in the green-and-gold linen of the Eskimos. Except one—the No. 5, as in the number of Ws he racked up as the Edmonton starter this season.

“The No. 1 job for any quarterback,” stressed O’Shea, “is winning. The first test is winning and he’s passed that.”

Apparently the tall foreheads on the Eskimos’ sideline don’t share that sentiment, because they busted Nichols down to backup and handed the starting job to a CFL neophyte, James Franklin. And, with Mike Reilly soon to rejoin the fray, his best-before date had expired.

Unfortunately, we’re told we shouldn’t expect to see what Nichols has to offer on the Sabbath when the Bombers are in Regina for their annual day-before-Labor Day skirmish with the winless Roughriders. Apparently, three days isn’t a sufficient amount of time to absorb the Winnipeg playbook.

Geez, I would have thought reading football’s version of Dick and Jane wouldn’t take more than, oh, 10 minutes.

Patti Dawn Swansson has been writing about Winnipeg sports for more than 40 years, longer than any living being. Do not, however, assume that to mean she harbors a wealth of sports knowledge or that she’s a jock journalist of award-winning loft. It simply means she is old and comfortable at a keyboard (although arthritic fingers sometimes make typing a bit of a chore) and she apparently doesn’t know when to quit. Or she can’t quit.
She is most proud of her Q Award, presented to her in 2012 for her scribblings about the LGBT community in Victoria, B.C., and her induction into the Manitoba Sportswriters & Sportscasters Association Media Roll of Honour.

Winnipeg Blue Bombers: Will head coach Mike O’Shea follow one bad move with another?

This is down to Mike O’Shea.

He never should have sent Drew Willy back into the fray to begin the second half of Sunday’s train wreck in Hamilton. It was 31-No Hope at the time. The Tiger-Cats were home and cooled. The Winnipeg Blue Bombers, meanwhile, were anxious just to get home.

Yet the Bombers’ still-greenhorn head coach dispatched Willy to take the snaps. And the lumps. Dumb, dumber and dumbest.

This isn’t hindsight speaking, simply because we’ve received word that Willy, the Bombers starting quarterback and offensive lifeblood, has a wonky right knee that renders him hors de combat for the next six weeks to two months. I said it when the large lads disappeared for recess at Timbits Park in the Hammer. With the tally 31-zip after 30 minutes, the Bombers were as likely to win that football game as Wade Miller is to sprout to 6-feet-5 inches tall over the summer. So, I figured, let’s see what kind of junk the understudy has.

No, I didn’t mean Brian Brohm. He never has been, nor will he ever be, a quality starting quarterback in the Canadian Football League. The jury long ago delivered that verdict on him.

Thus, like many others in Bombers Nation, I wanted to see the flavor of the month go in and stir the drink. That would be Robert Marve, third on the QB pecking order. Give him the reps. Let him experience an entire half’s worth of growing pains.

Alas, head coach No’Shea would have none of that. Damned if he wasn’t going to feed Willy back to the wolves, who had already taken a substantial chunk out of his hide with five first-half sacks. The end result was a 38-8 whupping and a right knee that suffered more damage than Donald Trump after he opens his mouth.

“I got a lot of faith in Drew and I still believe he gave us the best chance to win,” was No’Shea’s unreasoned response to news scavengers when asked, post-match, why he hadn’t pulled the plug on Willy when it was obvious to everyone from Ken Ploen to the ghost of Cal Murphy that the Bombers had #NoHope.

Oh, shut the front door, Mike!

And now, with Willy gone for perhaps the remainder of this 2015 crusade, the head coach is spewing similar spittle that flies in the face of reason.

So, who’s your starting QB when the Toronto Argonauts roll into River City on Friday, coach Mike?

“Well, I’m not gonna tell ya right now,” a tight-lipped No’Shea said at a Tuesday afternoon inquisition, very much playing the coy boy. “We’ll go through practice tomorrow and we’ll know then for sure. I don’t want to offer our opponent any competitive advantage, right, in terms of prep. My choice.”

Again, shut the front door, Mike. Your opponents already have a competitive advantage in terms of prep—you’re the Bombers and they’re not.

As much as it probably doesn’t matter whether it’s eeny or meeny behind centre vs. the Boatmen, it’s all about the best chance to win, as the coaching mantra goes. My guess is that No’Shea will determine that man to be Brohm and anoint him the starter, but it will be the wrong thing to do. Again.

Marve has skedaddle to his game. Plenty of it. Brohm has stand still. More’s the pity.

“Brian is a very efficient quarterback,” the coach told news scavengers hanging on his every evasive word Tuesday. “He’s more like Drew in terms of his pocket presence, his passing ability, how he goes through the process of reading a defence and using the tools he has in our offence.”

Which is exactly why you shouldn’t start him.

Going “through the process” doesn’t get it done for a Bombers QB. That gets you time in sick bay. What you need is some lickety-split. And some now-you-see-him, now-you-don’t Houdini.

That’s Marve. He might actually finish what he starts.

Patti Dawn Swansson has been writing about Winnipeg sports for more than 40 years, longer than any living being. Do not, however, assume that to mean she harbors a wealth of sports knowledge or that she’s a jock journalist of award-winning loft. It simply means she is old and comfortable at a keyboard (although arthritic fingers sometimes make typing a bit of a chore) and she apparently doesn’t know when to quit. Or she can’t quit.
She is most proud of her Q Award, presented to her in 2012 for her scribblings about the LGBT community in Victoria, B.C., and her induction into the Manitoba Sportswriters & Sportscasters Association Media Roll of Honour.

Winnipeg Blue Bombers: From Brittle Buck to Wonky Willy, the beat(ing) goes on

Stop me if you’ve heard this before: Down goes Willy! Down goes Willy! Down goes Willy!

Drew Willy, of course, always gets up and dusts himself off because, as we are reminded ad nauseum, he’s one tough dude. Trouble is, he doesn’t always finish what he starts. That is, the Winnipeg Blue Bombers quarterback too often is seen staggering off to the infirmary while his understudies are left to pick up the broken pieces of another fine mess the offensive line has gotten them into.

Such was the case yet again on Sunday afternoon at Timbits Park in Hamilton, where the Tiger-Cats beat up Willy. Then they beat up Brian Brohm. Then they beat up Robert Marve.

Why, I haven’t seen QBs get beat up like this since…well, since the last quarterback to play behind the Blue and Gold O-line. Guy’s name was Pierce. Buck Pierce. Had more owies than the ER at the Health Sciences Centre. Buck was as brittle as a piece of burnt toast. He doesn’t play football anymore, though. He got out before medics had to put a tag on one of his big toes.

Why do you think the Bombers’ starting pivot gets paid such large coin? His wage isn’t based on merit. Willy’s base salary is $100,000. The other $300,000 is danger pay.

I swear, if I’m Willy, I’m marching into general manager Kyle Walters’ office this morning and demanding to renegotiate. I want to cut a better deal. Except Willy can’t march, can he? At best, he can limp after being chased from the fray in the third quarter of Sunday’s skirmish, a 38-8 paddywhacking by the Ticats, who look to be the finest outfit in the eastern precinct of the Canadian Football League.

How bad was the O-line? The Tabbies had seven sacks in all, five in a laughable first half. Cripes, man, Caitlyn Jenner gets better protection than that from her fleet of hangers-on.

That’s not to say this face plant is all on the hogs up front. The Bombers specialty teams did some toe-stubbing, as well. Like on a punt that was partially blocked, and on a botched kickoff return, both plays leading to Ticat TDs as the home side put the game out of reach with a 21-0 advantage seven minutes in.

It was a good, old fashioned mollywhomping. That, at least, is how Milt Stegal described it in the TSN studio once the damage had reached 31-nada. The Bombers were “getting mollywhomped,” he declared, and I didn’t bother to look up the word “mollywhomped” in the dictionary. But I’m sure there’s a pic of a big, ol’ can of whup-ass beside the definition.

I must say, though, I’ve seen worse. Honest. I have. Hey, when you’ve been watching large lads grab grass and growl for more than half a century, you’ve always seen worse.

There was a playoff game in 1996, for example. It was 31-1 at the half. It was 68-7 at the finish. For the other guys. And that was a playoff game. That shameful exercise on a slick, snow-covered patch of earth at Commonwealth Stadium in Edmonton cost Cal Murphy the one thing he cherished almost as much as his transplanted heart—his job as head coach of the Bombers.

A 55-10 loss in the Banjo Bowl half a dozen years back wasn’t exactly the Mona Lisa, either. Nor was a 52-0 licking in the 2012 Labor Day Classic.

So, sure, the goings-on of Sunday afternoon were ugly. This was Tiger Woods golf game ugly. It was Donald Trump hair ugly. It was Jeff Reinebold head coach ugly. But it was far from the ugliest of the ugly. And ugly won’t even begin to describe what the Bombers will look like if Wonky Willy is unable to start another game he won’t finish due to his gimpy right knee.

Mind you, it doesn’t really matter who takes the snaps, does it. He’s a lamb going to slaughter. Make room in the infirmary for Robert Marve or Brian Brohm.

Patti Dawn Swansson has been writing about Winnipeg sports for more than 40 years, longer than any living being. Do not, however, assume that to mean she harbors a wealth of sports knowledge or that she’s a jock journalist of award-winning loft. It simply means she is old and comfortable at a keyboard (although arthritic fingers sometimes make typing a bit of a chore) and she apparently doesn’t know when to quit. Or she can’t quit.
She is most proud of her Q Award, presented to her in 2012 for her scribblings about the LGBT community in Victoria, B.C., and her induction into the Manitoba Sportswriters & Sportscasters Association Media Roll of Honour.