Official Game Day Thread - Ottawa at Winnipeg, August 14, 2025

[BBRT]

This is the second game that the opposition team made changes at halftime and we stick to the same plan on offense and defense.

Up by 20 points and almost lost the game again.

I think our back up QB is done, having a hard time making first downs, at one time it would have been automatic.

Sorry for being negative but it has to be brought up.

Glad we won but the team and our GM doesn't seem to be repairing the problems. And this is a bottom team in the east that we almost lost to.

Agree 100% - Have to think our GM is asleep at the wheel!

[Ducky]

There's so much we can do with Strev in on 2nd. and short. Hogan needs to go back and look at what Lapo did with Strev when he was the OC.

Streveler is no where close to being that player anymore.

[TecnoGenius]

You guys are all thinking "the book".  You need to understand the "MOS book".  MOS is playing to HIS OWN book.

MOS's book:

1) Sneak on 2nd&2 because you can get 1Y then sneak again for 1Y.
1b) Always sneak on 3rd&1.
2) Go for FG if you're in your kicker's range.

MOS will always follow HIS BOOK.  I can't believe people still don't understand this?  He's done it every time.

Remember: our FG cover team has been exceptional for 1.5 seasons or more.  I can't recall a team getting a big FG return on us in ages.  Our cover should have been automatic.  Something broke down, and OTT had a good plan.

To me the big mistake was not following MOS rule 1b.  If we're going to sneak on 2 to get 2 then you are now committed to sneaking on 3rd for 1.  It was nearly a full 1, but not more than 1.  We should have sneaked on 3rd&1.  99% we make it.

Sure, we could punt, but that is not in MOS's book in this situation.

It's not on Strev to sneak 2Y, don't blame him.  He used to, but not always, and it's a hard ask.  It was on Strev to get the 3rd as short as possible, and he did get it short enough.

(And if you punt and botch it, OTT gets the ball at the 40.  That wouldn't give me warm feelings at all!!)

[TecnoGenius]

If memory serves me correctly Crum did beat the Bombers in OT. Can someone confirm? And if the game did go to OT I am not sure the Bombers pull this one out. I envision a major screw up to give the Red  Blacks the win in OT.

Was it OT?  Might have been.  He did beat us in his first start (or was it in in-game injury relief?).  He made us the laughing stock with that win.

I still say Zach beats Crum in OT this game.  We were playing well.  Weird poop would have to happen to lose that.  Which of course is possible...

[Throw Long Bannatyne]

That's about as testy as I've ever seen O'Shea, could be he's exhausted after a tough game but it sounds like the battle is wearing him down.

[gobombersgo]

[gobombersgo]

[TecnoGenius]

I watched the D attentively with binocs most of the night.  Kramdi really did play a lot of FS.  Lots of 2 S sets with Allen / Kramdi both at S.  I didn't see Kelly even once.  Clearly demoted.

T.Jones & Kyrie would swap WILL / MLB at times.  Interesting.

Lots of rotation on DL.  Hard to figure out what the rhyme or reason is.  But it was generally effective.  Hard for the OTT OL to get in a rhythm.

Lots of injuries for OTT.  I saw the 2 FBs take injury timeouts 3 times!  Dru down with ankle or knee.  Mauldin down once.  Another couple of guys too.  Some returned.

Dru being out definitely helped us.  They are a 2nd H team.  The squeaker could have gone the other way with a QB who can throw.  Although... that Crum run-in might have been just a FG with Dru in!  Never know.

We really didn't take any injury?  Holm went down but walked off and came back quickly (phew!).

[Pigskin]

If memory serves me correctly Crum did beat the Bombers in OT. Can someone confirm? And if the game did go to OT I am not sure the Bombers pull this one out. I envision a major screw up to give the Red  Blacks the win in OT.

The Crum Back. He he nearly pulled another one off tonight.

[TecnoGenius]

1Q0:40 The near-suicide pass to Wheatie on 2nd&11, completion & conversion... Zach had incredibly fast wind up and mega zip on the ball.  This may be the fastest pass we've seen Zach do all year.

This is kind of a new side of Zach we haven't seen in a while.  I wasn't sure he could speed up the wind up.  If we can get more of this it will solve a ton of "Zach's lost it" problems.

Great heater, great tough catch by Wheatie, and great job hanging on getting whacked in the middle.  Shades of Bailey on that one.  Tough for a tall skinny like Wheatie.

[TecnoGenius]

Dru must have attended the Matt Nichols School Of Throwaways in the off-season!  Haven't seen so many throwaways since Matty Ice was here...

[BlueInCgy]

You guys are all thinking "the book".  You need to understand the "MOS book".  MOS is playing to HIS OWN book.

MOS's book:

1) Sneak on 2nd&2 because you can get 1Y then sneak again for 1Y.
1b) Always sneak on 3rd&1.
2) Go for FG if you're in your kicker's range.

MOS will always follow HIS BOOK.  I can't believe people still don't understand this?  He's done it every time.

Remember: our FG cover team has been exceptional for 1.5 seasons or more.  I can't recall a team getting a big FG return on us in ages.  Our cover should have been automatic.  Something broke down, and OTT had a good plan.

To me the big mistake was not following MOS rule 1b.  If we're going to sneak on 2 to get 2 then you are now committed to sneaking on 3rd for 1.  It was nearly a full 1, but not more than 1.  We should have sneaked on 3rd&1.  99% we make it.

Sure, we could punt, but that is not in MOS's book in this situation.

It's not on Strev to sneak 2Y, don't blame him.  He used to, but not always, and it's a hard ask.  It was on Strev to get the 3rd as short as possible, and he did get it short enough.

(And if you punt and botch it, OTT gets the ball at the 40.  That wouldn't give me warm feelings at all!!)

The problem is MOS book has fallen into the toilet and the ink is starting to run and the pages stick together.  We are rapidly descending in bad Kevin Glenn years territory, where leads are blown routinely and the play calling is predictably awful.

[Blue In BC]

Better to win ugly than lose ugly like last week. Somewhat lucky to have pulled the game out in regulation.

Collaros 1st int: bad play call decision and worse execution. It took 3 points potentially off the board. 2nd int: also thought it was a bad play call and even worse execution.

Once again defence allowed the opponent to take the 2nd half K/O and drive for a TD and take about 8 minutes off the clock. How does that happen?

We seemed to have taken away getting beat deep but were giving easy soft coverage in front of the secondary. Bend but don't break. I'm not a fan when teams continually can succeed on 2nd and long.

Allen getting 2 PI's seemed questionable at best. Especially the 2nd one. I thought he played well though for his 1st game.

There didn't seem to be any serious injuries tonight that I noticed.

EDIT: Kicking the long FG that resulted in a Redblack TD was over confidence due to previous success on long FG's this season. Given the time and state of the game, it was a questionable call. Hindsight is always 100% and Castillo hasn't missed many. The real question was what happened to the coverage team? I realize there is a risk involved on long FG's but we whiffed big time.

[Blue In BC]

Did Griffin have a good game or a bad game? Not much in the way of stats and seemed somewhat invisible. That's not always a bad thing but I was surprised he wasn't more prominent??

Allen, Vaval and Holm had 7 DT's each.  I take that as both a good and bad thing. Defence gave up 400 yards but as I mentioned not much behind them. Lots of soft cushion yardage in front of them.

Generally a horrible 4th Q especially considering that we were playing against Crum and not Brown.

[blue_gold_84]

Another Jekyll and Hyde performance. This team really struggles to put together a 60-min. game.