The Winnipeg Blue Bombers groused for the last six days about how bitter and vile the taste of losing was after fully savouring the flavour of a seven-game win streak.

Turns out they’re going to have to swish that nasty stuff around in their collective mouths for a while yet before getting another chance to spit it out.

The Bombers were dropped 40-26 by the Edmonton Eskimos at Investors Group Field Friday night in a contest that served up many of the same flaws as last week’s setback in Calgary and in a 1-4 opening to the season: an iffy first half, an occasionally porous defence and just enough mistakes to have the naysayers emerging to tsk-tsk-tsk them all over again.

Couple that with the 15 penalties the Bombers took for a whopping 166 yards and it was an awful concoction against a defending Grey Cup championship side that is very much getting its mojo back.

“We’re just not happy with our performance today,” said veteran cornerback Chris Randle. “We came out with some fire, but we weren’t consistent enough and we weren’t playing our type of football with those types of penalties that put us in bad positions.”

The loss drops the Bombers to 8-6, now just two points ahead of the 7-7 Eskimos who have won two straight. On top of that, the Esks now own the season series and potential tiebreaker against the Bombers, having won two of the three meetings this year.

Asked how his crew regroups after losing two in a row, Bombers quarterback Matt Nichols delivered a familiar take.

“It’s the same thing we’ve talked about all year. We’re still a game ahead of Edmonton in the West. The sky’s not falling. We lost to a good football team, a team that out-played us tonight.

“Now we get ready for a good B.C. team, a team that is barely ahead of us in the standings. These next two games are going to be big for our season and that’s all we’re focused on.

“I’m already past this one,” added Nichols. “We’ve got to move on because down the stretch here we need to start playing some better, more consistent football, some cleaner football and be ready to go come playoff time.”

The Bombers now head into a massive home-and-home series with the Lions in the next two weeks. B.C. is 8-4 and are home to the Ottawa REDBLACKS Saturday night.

Winnipeg jumped out to a 7-0 lead midway through the first quarter on a brilliant Nichols-to-Weston Dressler TD strike that covered 49 yards. They were tied with the Esks with 6:17 left in the first half before Edmonton looked to take command with two TDs inside the final 3:51 – the first a Mike-Reilly-to-Adarius Bowman touchdown and the second a five-yard run by John White.

Edmonton held a 29-13 lead early in the fourth quarter before the Bombers did their trademark up-off-the-mat thing to start throwing punches again. Twice the home side pulled to within a touchdown in the fourth quarter… and twice the Eskimos responded, the kill shot a 61-yard TD by Derel Walker with 1:46 left that snuffed out any chance of a late rally.

Reilly put up incredible numbers, completing 32 of 38 for 355 yards and two TDs while Bowman (8 catches for 97 yards) and Walker (8 for 120) combined to again torch the Bombers air defence.

“We’re disappointed. We want to win every game. We expect to win every game,” said linebacker Maurice Leggett. “It’s disappointing. We’ll watch the film tomorrow and then it’s on to the next game. We’ve got to correct the mistakes we made this game. We all know that.

“It’s time to step back up and do what we do. And we create turnovers on defence and we just have to be better for the offence.”

A Bomber win, coupled with a loss by the Toronto Argonauts on Sunday, would have clinched the first playoff berth in these parts since 2011. Not surprisingly, head coach Mike O’Shea didn’t bring that up to his team beforehand. Or after.

Instead, he was fixated on one number – the penalties – and what now lies ahead in the doubleheader against the Leos.

“This time of year it’s tough to win with that many penalties,” he said. “That’s the big one. Teams are starting to play cleaner football and this game wasn’t for us. There’s no one to blame for penalties but ourselves.

“We lost to a good football team because they played good football and capitalized on our mistakes and we gave them too many opportunities with our mistakes. It’s pretty clear and simple.”

THE BIG STAT

15-166: The Bombers were nailed for 15 penalties for 166 yards – both season highs. Winnipeg had been averaging nine penalties through the first 13 games of the year.

OUCH REPORT

No update on the status of DB Bruce Johnson and FB Pascal Lochard, both of whom were dinged in the game.

NUMBERS GAME

51-17: The Bombers were out-scored 24-10 in the first half Friday against the Eskimos and, combined with the 27-7 deficit they faced last week in Calgary, have now been out-scored 51-17 in the first half of their last two games.

45: Justin Medlock went four of five in the field-goal department – the lone miss a 58-yard attempt at the end of the first half. He now has 45 field goals this season and the club record is 47, set by Troy Westwood in 1992 and matched again by ol’ lefty in 2003.

4: Number of punt-return touchdowns by Kevin Fogg that have been called back by penalty this season. Fogg’s second quarter 40-yard return for a score was wiped out by an illegal block from Jesse Briggs.

7-1: Mike Reilly’s career record vs. the Bombers.

11: The number of 300-yard passing games for Reilly this season – including three, totaling a gaudy 1,166 against Winnipeg. The CFL record for most 300-yard passing games in a single season is 14, set by Doug Flutie.

FYI

The Bombers dropped below .500 at Investors Group Field with the loss and are now 3-4 at home. Winnipeg is also just 3-5 against the West Division this year.