Official Game Day Thread - Winnipeg at Saskatchewan, September 3, 2023

[northof30]

Exactly yet when asked after the game O?Shea said he?d do it again snd there in the problem lies. If our offense was in groove then yes give up the single and let your offense go score some points. But our offense struggled yesterday. I would have bet on our defense not allowing a touchdown vs relying on our offense to score

Bingo! I vote for you coaching!

[3rdand1.5]

Taking the ball to start and not deferring was questionable...

The no yards penalty in the endzone...one can argue both sides well, but IMO in a close game don't give up the points..

Same theory IMO with the late single point given up...yes one could argue the field position, but again I am of the belief that don't give up the points with a 4 point lead.

Another INT.


But....the biggest reason we lost IMO is our terrible special teams.....Castillo aside our special teams are arguably the worst in the league

[DM83]

DBs are awful.  Fundamentally unsound. A bunch of selfish hotdogs.
Special team guys are either not. Good enough or are just going through the motions.
On one of the puntncoverage examples, one guy was in the picture and went zooming by.  Then fifteen yards later a few other guys shows up..

34, 27, 47 not much effort. They didn?t seem to want to hit anybody.

Those. bomber. Coaches have to make some changes.  The. Guys noted above don?t want to play.

Why is 45 on the team? There are probably 90 Canadians from University that have more skill.

Very frustrated!

[theaardvark]

Not sure why all game no KL89, and overtime Boom, TD.

2 OT losses... thinking we need to start working on 2 point conversions.  Regardless Castillo, we need to go for more 2 pointers. 

The rouge's... still not sold on the decisions.  If Grant was in the lineup, no way we give up the points.  Demski, Augustine, do we have a Nat that can be a returner?  Did Augustine get a shot at one time?  Ball security?

[blue_or_die]

I recall in previous seasons using Johnny on returns, but only in a tandem scheme (ie not solely relying on him as the returner).

I?m 100% open to trying him back there though.

[bomb squad]

I was and am still OK with the decision to give up the single. It was either the 10 or the 40 in your own end. The 10 is a really tough place to be at that point in that environment. You have to be thinking you're going to at least be giving up a field goal, making a 1 pt game with probably around 2 minutes still left. The time left was a key factor. Still 3 minutes left. A lot can happen in 3 minutes. If there was maybe 40 seconds less than that, Ok take it on the 10.

[Lincoln Locomotive]

Taking the ball to start and not deferring was questionable...

The no yards penalty in the endzone...one can argue both sides well, but IMO in a close game don't give up the points..

Same theory IMO with the late single point given up...yes one could argue the field position, but again I am of the belief that don't give up the points with a 4 point lead.

Another INT.


But....the biggest reason we lost IMO is our terrible special teams.....Castillo aside our special teams are arguably the worst in the league

Yes....remember Hamilton conceding a point in the 21' GC?   

[TecnoGenius]

Regina is a tough place to play. Sold out and loud fans. Playing the Bombers is like a Grey Cup game to them it seems! 

I was paying very close attention to the noise level @Mosaic.  I've been there a few times before, but not paid much attention to that, or it's been very cold, etc.

Anyhow, IGF is for sure louder.  I bet those final plays in this LDC game were the loudest Mosaic ever gets.  Hyped fans, holding the lead, needing just a couple of stops.  Even the 70 year olds in my section were standing up and screaming.  They didn't scream all game up to that point.

At IGF my ears actually go into that overload mode where sound is distorting because my eardrums and cochlea are slowly being destroyed.  I'm sure you know what I mean if you've ever been to the BB.  That never happens at Mosaic.  It's super loud, but it's a different loud, they don't have nearly as many cowbells and horns (none in my section anyway) and they scream at the wrong pitch.

And I'm sure our roof plays a big part.

I expect the 2023 BB to be the loudest one yet.  I would bet money on it.  It'll be wild.  If you don't want near-pain ear experience or care about your hearing, bring some plugs (I won't, but saner people might).  I think we might bring the noise the whole 60 mins.  The Zach hit is the perfect motivation.

[TecnoGenius]

I don't think the Riders are for real. It happens some time when a new QB is starting his 1st few games and there is little film to review.

I don't either.  I think he's better than Crum, because he's a pocket passer, but he clearly has no deep touch, at least not yet.  He's doing way better than I would have guessed, and is miles better than Fine, but if you look closely his main asset is he can read what the D is giving and just take it.  And he seems to have an accurate arm on the short pass and wide out, even at the extreme angle.

He's a bit like Cody in that regard.  Just taller, and doesn't turtle like Cody.  Dolegala got quite a few plays @LDC because he was willing to stand and trust a secure pocket and take a big hit.  We were oh so close on so many plays to creaming him before the ball was released.  We're talking 1-2 tenths.  A game of inches for sure.  Give him credit, he made the plays he had to.

[TecnoGenius]

Hate to say it but this feels like the start of an inevitable decline for the Bombers.

That talk made more sense after the 1st BC game.  Not now.  If there was a "start of the decline" you could say it was GC 2022 and all this season, but it's slight and in many ways fixable using what we have.  A 2-pt LDC loss doesn't mean much of anything, and this loss stings way less than the other 2 this season.  Just look at how many people here pickem'd SSK...

I think we are clearly the class of the West, only able to lose on an "any given Sunday" basis.  The only question will be can we out-coach and out-brain TOR in the GC rematch.

[TecnoGenius]

Exactly yet when asked after the game O?Shea said he?d do it again snd there in the problem lies. If our offense was in groove then yes give up the single and let your offense go score some points. But our offense struggled yesterday. I would have bet on our defense not allowing a touchdown vs relying on our offense to score

I was and am still OK with the decision to give up the single. It was either the 10 or the 40 in your own end. The 10 is a really tough place to be at that point in that environment. You have to be thinking you're going to at least be giving up a field goal, making a 1 pt game with probably around 2 minutes still left. The time left was a key factor. Still 3 minutes left. A lot can happen in 3 minutes. If there was maybe 40 seconds less than that, Ok take it on the 10.

Ya, I was totally fine with both singles.  The last one we would have gotten our normal <10 yard return and been in real bad shape in safety territory.  SSK had all the momo and morale and crowd was into it.  Buck was going conservative already.  Hall was going into his make-them-beat-you-with-dink&dunk mode.  It wasn't a good time.

We were probably going to punt eventually, as there was 1.30 left and our O was faltering.  And we all know when we punted we were going to give up a 25-35 yard return, because that's what we do.  And we all knew we'd give up the 8 yard wide outs, because that's what we do.  And we all knew SSK had every trick play in the books like the couple of Morrow catches, because they had to win that game or face the mob.

So getting us at the 40 with plenty of breathing room is actually the real gutsy gamble in the sense that we are in a good position to take control of our destiny.  Did the O want it enough to make the 2-3 first downs we needed?  Or were they going to choke.  MOS bet on his O.  If they couldn't make a 1st down, maybe they deserved to lose.  Kind of like the GC.

The real failure in my eyes is the lack of creative playcalling in these situations by Buck.  And a lack of a book for this.  And probably the worst 2-point / 3YL redzone book in the league.  I get that Buck is probably saving the fancy book for "important" games, as he did in the 2nd BC game (where the book was wide open).  And we'll probably see the full book in the BB to ensure the series win, because that's the real important thing, not the LDC.  But it's frustrating nonetheless.

[TecnoGenius]

Obviously none of us can judge OL play, but we're consistently playing with 6 or 7 OL up front, which takes receivers off of the field.

The coaching staff no longer trusts our starting 5 like they used to.

I didn't see as much 6/7/Jackson plays as usual this game?  I wasn't playing super close attention though.  Will rewatch.

We've been experimenting to see what we need.  The 6/7 OL is usually more of a run thing, maybe with 25% pass rate?  It's a smart move as it keeps D's guessing.  It worked very well for HAM in 2019, until the GC when they completely abandoned it and got creamed on the line all night!  Maybe we'll abandon it later in the season too.  Who knows.

You may be right on "trust".  Neuf is whiffing sometimes.  Gray/Ko-man still have some lingering A-gap issues.  And even OTs are screwing up pass pro on rare occasions.  We didn't have these problems in '19 and '21.  Maybe we should have found a way to get Desjar and trade away Gray....

[TecnoGenius]

Taking the ball to start and not deferring was questionable...

No, it was the right call because the wind was a mostly non-factor in the 2nd half.  It was pretty hefty in the first half: note the much longer punts when kicking with it.

The initial OSK loss was the braindead play.  I said in my "keys to the game" that Dickenson The Lesser was going to pull out all the stops on ST trickery.  He does it every single year.

You don't let them do that and immediately steal all the momo and morale.  The first play sets the tone for the whole game.  Remember the 2019 GC when BA37 INT'd Evans on his first play?  HAM never recovered from that first play.

[TecnoGenius]

The rouge's... still not sold on the decisions.  If Grant was in the lineup, no way we give up the points. 

Yes....remember Hamilton conceding a point in the 21' GC?   

Different situations.  HAM guys was told to bring it out, and didn't.  That's why Coach O was talking to him on the sidelines.  Our guy 100% was told to let it roll.

HAM's mistake was done when behind, and changed it from a FG-to-win to a FG-to-tie.

WPG's rouge was done when we were ahead and changed it from a they-need-to-TD-to-win to a they-need-FG-to-tie.

And since SSK has the option to FG to tie on 3rd down, we know they'll take it every time and thus we ensure SSK does not get a "3 down territory" situation.  That cuts their chances to advance the sticks by 33%.  Then we rely on our O to get points in OT.

I wonder what it would have been like had we lost the toss... after Junkie proving losing was "better", statistically.  By going last, and SSK knowing they couldn't lose, they could afford to go ultra-risky on the 2pt convert.  It was cover-0 man with blitz and edge contain.  That's a super hard D look for Zach to win against, especially with that useless short inside curl in completely crowded lanes.  The only correct answer was probably a quick rainbow to Kenny or Schoen for a back-of-the-EZ timing circus catch.

[Lincoln Locomotive]

No, it was the right call because the wind was a mostly non-factor in the 2nd half.  It was pretty hefty in the first half: note the much longer punts when kicking with it.

The initial OSK loss was the braindead play.  I said in my "keys to the game" that Dickenson The Lesser was going to pull out all the stops on ST trickery.  He does it every single year.

You don't let them do that and immediately steal all the momo and morale.  The first play sets the tone for the whole game.  Remember the 2019 GC when BA37 INT'd Evans on his first play?  HAM never recovered from that first play.

and we scored off that pick and the Bombers set the tone immediately.....Harris was on fire.