Bob Irving
CFL.ca
Winnipeg Blue Bomber fans are among the most passionate in the country, and judging by the calls we took for three hours on CJOB’s Monday morning radio talk show, their anger over the 34-23 loss to B.C. in the 99th Grey Cup is directed primarily at the offence.
And with good reason.
There is no doubt that the Bombers’ achilles heel throughout the 2011 CFL season was the offensive unit. Their inability to consistently move the ball was an issue in too many games and never was that more evident than in Sunday’s Grey Cup B.C. Place stadium.
Buck Pierce and company managed to cobble together only five first downs in the first half of game. In the third quarter they produced but ONE first down. Yes, ONE.
Six first downs over three quarters of football will generally get you in big trouble. And yet, to the everlasting credit of the Winnipeg defence, the Bombers were only behind 14-9 until late in the third quarter.
Paul McCallum’s third field goal of the game made it 17-9 before a back-breaking 66-yard Travis Lulay to Kierrie Johnson touchdown pass on the final play of the third quarter gave B.C. what appeared to be a fairly comfortable 24-9 lead.
Despite the big deficit, the Bombers had a glorious chance to author a dramatic momentum shift early in the fourth quarter. However, Odell Willis dropped a gift interception from Lulay deep in Lions territory.
It was a demoralizing play.
The Bombers did score two late touchdowns to make the score more respectable but that late burst did nothing to hide Winnipeg’s offensive shortcomings. 113 of Buck Pierce’s 250 passing yards came in the dying minutes when the Lions had relaxed on defence.
The Blue Bomber defence held the team in the game until exhaustion took over the third quarter. No defence can spend as much time on the field as the Swaggerville gang did and expect to consistently stop an offensive attack that features the budding superstar Lulay, receiver Geroy Simon and Arland Bruce.
The horrendous punting of Jamie Boreham aside, this latest Blue Bomber Grey Cup loss rests squarely on the shoulders of the offensive unit. And that’s five times now, since they last won it in 1990, that the Bombers have made it to the CFL championship game and come up short.
Blue Bomber General Manager Joe Mack said after the game that he felt badly for the coaches, the players AND the tremendously loyal and supportive Blue Bomber fans.
Mack also said he is confident that the youngest team in the CFL has a bright future. And he pointed out that the Bombers came a long way in 2011 after a 4-14 record in 2010.
But he agreed that the off-season priority will be to find a way to make the Bomber offence more consistently productive. And he said he would “demand” that head coach Paul LaPolice provide him with the appropriate solutions to the problem.
Exactly what that means is anyone’s guess.
