Bombers need to start playing ‘smart football’ to get back in win column

WINNIPEG — Drew Willy fully understands how this works: When the Winnipeg Blue Bombers are in a tailspin, his is always the first name that gets taken in vain.

Quarterback is the only position on the football field in which a win or a loss gets assigned, and the Bomber pivot – who heard references of ‘Willypeg’ when the club got off to a 5-1 start in 2014 – is hearing his name again, albeit for all the wrong reasons.

There were a lot of things that went wrong in Thursday’s 20-16 loss to the Edmonton Eskimos that dropped the Bombers to 1-3, including a gaudy number of penalties and some defensive breakdowns at critical junctures.

But after a solid first half in which the Bombers took at 13-10 lead into the intermission, Willy and the Bomber offence struggled in the second half, managing just two field goals. Willy finished the night 25 of 38 for 299 yards with one touchdown strike, to Rory Kohlert, and two interceptions, the second coming on the game’s final play which had the Bombers seeking some sort of last-second miracle.

“I don’t know if it’s doing too much. It’s just going through the reads properly… maybe… I’ve got to look at the film,” Willy said afterward. “Obviously the third quarter from myself was definitely not good enough.”

And when pressed as to if the Eskimos had made any defensive adjustments in the second half that posed problems, Willy wasn’t about to offer up any excuses.

“No. The first interception was just second and long and I shouldn’t have forced it in there, I should have just thrown the check-down,” he said. “I was just trying to make a play there and get some momentum going and (Eskimos linebacker J.C.) Sherritt dropped 15-20 yards back and I tried to force one in to Darvin (Adams).

“It’s not smart football. I just need to check it down there. And then I’m missing throws after that. I just need to regroup after that and make better throws.”

All that said, the Bombers O woes Thursday go deeper than the quarterback position.

The Bombers had 33 first down plays against the Eskimos and, factoring in penalties, sacks and losses, netted just 77 yards offence. Willy was 12 of 19 for 184 yards with a TD and an interception on first down, but the Bombers rushed nine times for only 27 yards, Willy was sacked once, and there were four penalties.

Bottom line: That put them – as they have been saying often through the first four games – ‘behind the sticks’. Case in point; of the 22 second-down plays the Bombers ran, a whopping 13 of them needed 10 or more yards to be converted and only four were second-and-five or less.

That’s a whole lot of math to say what Ryan Smith summed up afterward in just a few words.

“It’s the penalties, and you can’t win a lot of games when you are behind the sticks,” said the Bombers receiver. “And any time you’re second and long, there’s just a lot less available on your play-call sheet. We have to execute better on first down and stay out of second and long and first and long, also.”