Official Game Day Thread - Winnipeg & Montreal - 110th Grey Cup

[Throw Long Bannatyne]

Not sure I'd compare last night's tilt to what happened in Ottawa in mid-July.

The Alouettes were down by 10 at the most last night; they continued to compete in what was a tight game in the second half.

IMO, they were the better team, particularly in the 4th quarter.

I see similarities in the two games, the Bombers were convinced they would win both games and missed opportunities to step on their throats when they had the chances to do so.

[bluebeard]

I wouldn't necessarily agree with that. But they did make the play when it counted. It happens just like in Ottawa. That didn't make Ottawa the better team, just better in the moment.

Is it possible that we haveplayers that are getting "long in the tooth" and just ran out of steam in the 4th quarter??  Do we need to bring in some younger players?

[Blue In BC]

Is it possible that we haveplayers that are getting "long in the tooth" and just ran out of steam in the 4th quarter??  Do we need to bring in some younger players?

I think we won the TOP for the game. In the 1st Q we had the ball for 11 minutes. So I don't think tired was part of the issue. Als made chunk plays rather than long drives. Our secondary players are generally quite young and they were the ones getting beaten.

OTOH our OL starters are getting long in the tooth and they didn't have a great game as a unit. I didn't notice a lot of max protection and didn't see Jackson very often in the blocking schemes in the 2nd half. We needed to dominate the LOS and win with our run game. That falls to coaching and game planning. Yes they were stuffing the run but we were being very predictable as usual. Demski was struggling and we didn't use Grant in sweeps or diversions.

For the most part we didn't throw deep because our receivers were not healthy. We failed to adjust.

[VictorRomano]

Is it possible that we have players that are getting "long in the tooth" and just ran out of steam in the 4th quarter??  Do we need to bring in some younger players?

I'm OK with moving on from Stanley Bryant - he looked like a pylon out there at times this year.  I'd give Jamarcus Hardrick another year.  Kolankowski, Gray, and Neufeld were all serviceable, but I'd be OK moving on from Neufeld if we have a younger guy in the fold.  Dobson, Maschino and Eli are all OK.

I'm also OK with moving on from Bighill.  He was the best in the biz in his prime, but IIRC he'll be 37 next season, and he's definitely no longer in his prime and has clearly lost a step; I think he'd make a great LB coach.  Jake Thomas is also getting up there, but if was can keep him for cheap, I'm OK with keeping him, because his play rarely costs us.  Jeffcoat only playing half-seasons is a waste of a spot, too - I'd let him go and replace him with a younger, every-down player.

[J5V]

I know it hurts, really stings. It's supposed to. Every Bomber feels exactly the same way. It's a fine line between agony and ecstasy. But take a step back and grab some perspective.

We've been in four, count 'em, four straight Grey Cup championship games. We are 2-2 in those four games. We have an awful lot to be thankful for and I appreciate each and every one of those Bomber players that played their guts out for us last night, and make no mistake, they played and wanted to win, for us.

In 2018 if you had told me that we'd play in the next four straight Grey Cup games and win two of them I'd have told you you were certifiably insane. But that is exactly what has happened and I am very, very grateful to this organisation for rewarding this fan with so many thrills over the last four years and beyond.

Win or lose the great thing about football is we get to do it all over again year after year and this fan can't wait to get the next season started.

[blue_gold_84]

I wonder if players like Geno Lewis and Jake Wieneke are feeling any kind of way this week.

[TecnoGenius]

Finally had the time, and stomach, to rewatch the game.  If you don't want to relive the pain, close the thread now!  (I understand, I really do, it's an awful loss to an inferior team and far worse than the loss to TOR.)  I'm really only going to mention things I didn't see at Tim Hortons, weren't mentioned here, and/or general thoughts.

I'm annoyed at 2 officials' calls, which actually is not bad for a CFL game...

1. The holding on Hardrick on a run play for 1st down on 1st down, we only get the live shot and I see nothing wrong or unusual.  A D is trying to get inside on Yoshi and he pancakes him.  This happens all the time, and Yoshi let him up quickly.  I don't see that called much in the regular season, and certainly not in a GC game where they were clearly letting the guys play and holding back their flags.  It put us in 1st & 20 (we did convert though!).

2. Most important: 4Q3:33 When Kramdi causes a fumble on 2nd and long they blow it incomplete.  But it's not.  It is bang-bang but in slowmo it's clearly caught securely in both hands, and securely moved down the arm, and securely tucked perfectly.  All the while Snead is going from facing the QB to facing the EZ doing a complete 180.  Only then does Kramdi's hit cause the ball to come out.

In the NFL they'd call this a football move and it's a fumble.  I believe even in the CFL that's a fumble, because perfect possession was clearly gained all the way to a perfect tuck.  The speed of the event has no bearing, except insofar as the ref can detect.  Therefore at worst the ref should have let it play out, as they usually do, and let command sort it out if it's turned over.

With 3:33 left on the clock I consider it a major failure that MOS didn't challenge.  That close to the end on a massive game-changing play is literally the perfect time to throw the flag.  I virtually guarantee command gives us that TO with the immediate recovery.

To add some spice to the situation, whoever blows their whistle first blew it very very late, well after the ball was rolling for several yards, and when it was clear WPG was going to recover.  What's up with that?  You blow the whistle the instant it's on the turf.  And only one ref was blowing, meaning other refs didn't agree, or weren't watching.

The funny thing is, when there live I thought this was a fumble for sure, and I don't remember them giving the good replay, nor slow-mo, like TSN gives us on one of the final looks.  They just let it go and moved on.  They may have done that to not give MOS time to think, however, it was still around 45-60s before the next snap, and his booth guys should have been screaming *challenge* down to him on the headset.

In the end it didn't matter for field position because Zema shanks his kick and it almost results in the same location as the fumble would have.  However, there's the morale/intangible aspect to a fumble recovery you don't get with Zema's kick.  If they call it a fumble recovery then we get up run away with the ball and celebrate like there's no tomorrow and the O comes on the field all fired up their D made a huge stop and TO, and we have all the morale and momentum.  Maybe then Zach & co don't go 2 & out in a horrifically weak manner.  To me this is the turning point that may have made the difference.  Remember... 1 or maybe 2 first downs and we would have left MTL with not enough time to get a TD.  What was MOS waiting for??  Flag doesn't get you any points at the end of the game.

[TecnoGenius]

Yep, the philosophy of not screwing up, screwed it up, Buck's offensive game plan was far too conservative and Zach played with little urgency to accomplish the task at hand. 

What lost and won the game was a non-aggressive call vs an aggressive call:

1. Zach sacked on the critical 2nd down scrambling because all the short curls were covered and Buck's call was short curl to convert.  This is a passive, no-guts call.
vs
2. 3rd & 5 Calvillo calls a 30Y pass in known man coverage with no safety help because they know we're going to blanket the 5 yard curls.  This is a massive gutsy call.

If Buck calls the 30Y iso pass on Kenny, the same one Calvillo called, then we have a shot.  There's also the chance of PI.  And if the sole defender beats Kenny for an INT, Kenny's there to tackle him and it's the exact same result as our subsequent punt.  But that call has not been made once this year.  Because we play the book and play not to lose.  We were sitting there thinking "at worst they tie", when MTL wanted to boldly take the W.

Zach saw the FS inching up to the sticks.  There was no help over the top.  If wide-out Kenny does a fake curl & go like Spieker did, or heck just a plain go route, then it's a 50/50 ball.  Zach would have had the time as, like Cody, it would have been a timing throw, tossed in 2.1s.  Are we really saying Zach/Kenny combo isn't as good as Cody/Spieker?  Then what are they making 2X the money for??  You match up our receivers with their counterparts on MTL and each and every one stunk in comparison, from our top $$Kenny$$ to our NATs and 4th option Bailey.  Did you see the plays their 4th option was making!  Or their NAT?  Somehow that garbage can of a receiving corps, of only 1st and 2nd year guys, made ours look like OTT's; and worse: made Cody look like gold compared to Zach.  It's painful, it really is.

Just like Parker bit hard on the double-move because who calls 30Y pass on 3rd & 5, the MTL D guy would have bit if we called it too, because based on film study they would have known we never ever ever in a million years will call that same play.  We really stunk badly on the chess match part and expected our execution would be enough, even when our execution was at best a bit weaker than MTL's all night to that point.  Except for a few extra Demski runs, I saw almost nothing called by Buck that we haven't called all season.  The wrinkles basically didn't exist.  Can you imagine how much better we would have been had we done even a few more tendency breakers?

It's aggravating, and, again, I pin most of this loss on MOS, Buck & Hall.  But mostly Buck & MOS because if we do something, anything, different, on that last drive (especially 1st down) then we would have held MTL to 21 points, which is darn tootin' good for a GC and enough to win.  In the end it was exactly the same loss as the TOR GC: we had one job to do, get 1-2 first downs on our final drive.  That's the part that hurts the most: we failed at that most critical of puzzle pieces.  That was the series to go into the book for radical wrinkles, but we looked, and the book was empty.  Lame.

[TecnoGenius]

So I'm watching the CFL Wired for the GC.  They have some new angles on a few plays, usually field-level handheld cams.  Anyhow, we all know on the big Cody 15Y run in the 4th that Wilson slips in contain.  But I didn't know that Willie also slips, in nearly the exact same manner.  It's like they have a curling slider on and they can't make cuts or change direction.

Willie had a hand on him but likely Cody gets away from him even if Willie hadn't slipped (Wilson would have had a better chance).  My point is our that guys are slipping at all.

So what's up with that??

Slippage should never be a problem just for one team, and if it is, then that's an equipment problem.  I don't recall seeing MTL slipping, so clearly their guys made the right call on cleats.  How can this happen in this day and age?  And if the players were reporting slips in the 1st half, why didn't they adjust equipment for the 2nd?  Surely they bring multiple sets of cleats.

Weird.  It's just another oddity or bad luck incident that all added up to our loss.