This isn’t what the Winnipeg Blue Bombers calendar, so meticulously planned before the season, had called for a finish. Not now. Not two weeks too early.
The Bombers gathered Monday for their annual locker room clean out, for exit meetings with coaches and management, and in many cases, for one last back slap and group hug as a team.
The 2017 campaign, for all its promise, ended in disappointment Sunday night in a 39-32 West Division Semi-Final loss to the Edmonton Eskimos that has extended the franchise-record Grey Cup drought to 27 years.
And that left a squad that has forever boasted about the brotherhood and camaraderie in the room in a melancholy mood on Monday.
“This day and the cut-down day during training camp are my two least favourite days of the year,” said veteran receiver Weston Dressler. “I’m not ready to be done. It makes it kind of too real at this point. I haven’t accepted it all yet.
“But then you come in today and you start to realize it more. It’s not a fun day.”
Now begins the difficult part for the Bombers and for the football brain trust. The shorter term contracts in the CFL now mean keeping a team intact – or even a core together – is virtually impossible under the salary management system. The Bombers have a number of free agents, including high-profile starters like Dressler, Stanley Bryant, Jamaal Westerman, Moe Leggett, Chris Randle, T.J. Heath and Justin Medlock, among others.
Not everyone, clearly, will be back in 2018.
“I love it here,” said Westerman. “I love playing with these guys. I love the staff. Of course, I’d love to be back. But you never know what’s going to happen. It’s one of those things where you don’t even think about it until you have to make a decision.
“… You never think about that until this day, that this team is going to be different next year, one way or another. Some guys will be back, some guys won’t be back, some guys will maybe go different places and do great things, some guys might be done playing. That’s just the nature of the beast.
“Just from coming here three years ago and what the team was then… we were able to build it, not only with the on-field play, but with the camaraderie in the locker room,” Westerman added. “That’s a very special thing and this is probably one of the most special teams I’ve ever been around. We were able to stick together and grow together, not only on the field but we were really friends in the locker room. Guys just liked hanging out with each other. I mean, you’ve got guys from Florida, from New Brunswick, Calgary and Miami and everybody was cool and able to grow as a group and I think that, at times, allowed us to play above our ability.”
More on the Bombers season-ending loss to the Eskimos and the retooling ahead in our weekly collection of notes and quotes we call UPON FURTHER REVIEW…
MATT NICHOLS WASN’T THE PICTURE OF PERFECT HEALTH… heading into the playoffs and officially revealed Monday that, in addition to his left calf strain, was working with a broken ring finger on his throwing hand since the loss to Hamilton on October 6th.
“The first couple of weeks it was a little rough,” said Nichols. “It was extremely painful any time the ball left my hand. Aside from that, just walking around I never really felt it. It was just when I applied pressure and the ball left my hand. (Sunday) night was the best it’s felt. It’s a broken bone so it takes usually six to eight weeks for a bone to heal, plus I was playing with it so I was constantly pounding on it, which obviously slows down the healing process.
“But the couple weeks of limited throwing really helped a lot.”
Nichols also provided details on the calf strain and how that might have impacted his work on Sunday. For the record, he completed 35 pf 48 passes for 371 yards – the 35 completions breaking the club playoff record for completions of 29, set by Reggie Slack in a loss to Baltimore in 1995.
“I kind of strained it against Toronto towards the end of the game there,” he said. “I actually thought it was a severe cramp that was lingering a little bit. I felt good all week in practice and then felt it get injured more early in that B.C. game. It was a deal where you’d like to have more time to recover from it, but I think we did a good job of taking a ton of extra time rehabbing it and getting it good enough for the game.
“I don’t feel like it limited me at all during the game. I was fully able to drop back, move around in the pocket without ever really feeling it. I mean, if there had been a time in the game where I had been flushed from the pocket or had to take off and run… I don’t know how that would have went. But luckily the protection was great all game long and I never had a moment where I had to go and scramble around. I was able to find a throw. I don’t think it changed anything in how we played the game.”
JUSTIN MEDLOCK HAS KICKED A LOT OF FIELD GOALS… in his pro career, including 116 over the last two regular seasons with the Bombers. But the 34-year-old vet – one of the pending free agents – hinted on Monday that while he wants to come back, he will take some time to think about his future.
“I wouldn’t mind coming back. I want to take a second to think about what I want to do, whether I want to play or whether I want to play somewhere else or whether I want to play here,” said Medlock. “I’ve got to take a second to think about that. I’m not happy about the season… probably, not fully. But over the two years having five game-winners and winning the MVP (of special teams) and if my bad year is 80 per cent…
“The thing about me is I think a lot of people think I’m not really much of a punter, but we finished third in net punting the last two years and really close to finishing first. I did some good things… we’ll see how it goes.
“I’m just trying to think about all possibilities. I live in Florida… I’ve been thinking about doing some other things in life, maybe, so we’ll see. But I’m also considering coming back, too. I love playing here. I love playing for O’Shea. I think O’Shea is just an awesome coach. He’s really made the game a lot more fun the last two years.”
JUST FYI, MEDLOCK ALSO… wanted to get on the record his thoughts about the much-talked about fake punt on Sunday, and the one he tried in July in a 45-42 loss in Vancouver, and head coach Mike O’Shea’s role in both.
“The fake punt yesterday… O’Shea, he’s such a good leader, such a great leader, he takes the blame for it,” said Medlock. “But, ultimately, we had the look and it should have been executed. It comes down to the players… if the players execute it, it doesn’t really matter.
“It was the right call. He’s going to stand there as a leader and say, ‘Hey, it was my fault.’ Just like when I threw the pass in B.C. he took the blame and said ‘Hey, it was my fault.’ Was it a called fake? No. Was it something between me and another guy? Yeah. Could we have executed it? Yes. He took the blame because he didn’t want me to take the blame for everything.
“Ultimately it comes down to the players,” added Medlock. “We have to make the plays and we have to do our job, if we don’t do our job then that’s what happens and then he takes the blame. I just think he’s such a good leader in that aspect.
“Winnipeg has the right guy to win the Grey Cup. I tell him that all the time. Even after the B.C. game we had a sit down. He just wanted to check in on me about that game because he knew I took that pretty hard. That’s the kind of leader (he is). I just come from a different background and playing for different coaches that I don’t think would ever do that. They would just scream and yell at you. I just know how to take it, because I’ve been around that. It’s been a different, softer side but that’s what makes him so great, such a great leader. I mean, some people have that trait and some people are just scheme guys.
“Give him the right players and he’s going to do great things. Look, he got some good players and he did some good things.”
AN INTERESTING TAKE FROM THE ESKIMOS CORY WATSON… on that fake punt early in the second half. It was Watson, the former Bomber, who made the tackle on Timothy Flanders on the third-and-three from the Bombers’ 42-yard line.
After the game, CJOB’s Bob Irving tweeted about the call, with Watson replying to him with some details.
Hey bob, it was a good call. The boundary gaurd hinge back when he should have reach block. Without a doubt he would have gotten the first down. Bad mistake in that particular moment.
— Cory Watson (@cwats8115) November 13, 2017
THE BOMBERS COULD HAVE USED A DEFENSIVE PLAYMAKER… like Moe Leggett on Sunday. Instead, he watched the game with his foot still in a walking boot after suffering a ruptured Achilles in a win over the B.C. Lions last month.
“I tried my hardest not to shed a tear,” he said. “As soon as I walked out of the tunnel… I was going around the locker room saying, ‘Just put some cleats on the bottom of my boot. Just keep going.’ I wanted to play that badly. I would have given everything just to play one more play.
“It’s very difficult. This is my fifth surgery in my 10-year professional career. Early in my career injuries plagued me. I found a healthy setting and then it ended the way it did… it’s very devastating to me. It just makes me work that much harder.”
YOU WOULDN’T EXPECT TO HEAR OTHERWISE… from players when asked by the media if they’d like to be back, but count Leggett among those prospective free agents who doesn’t want a change of scenery in 2018.
“We will see,” said Leggett when asked if he expected to be back next year. “I’ve adopted Winnipeg as my home. Hopefully.
“Everyone knows I want to be back. We’ve built something special. We’re hungry. It’s that’s much closer. Last year we made the playoffs after a very long time. The outcome wasn’t good. This year we hosted a home playoff game. We’re getting better each and every year and a lot of these guys here, just like myself, we came in here with O’Shea and this new regime and the new stadium. We’re just looking forward to coming back next year and making a Grey Cup appearance and holding the Grey Cup up.”
ONE MORE FROM LEGGETT… on his recovery time: “Depending on the person, you’re looking at four to nine months,” he said. “I’m looking more to the four months. I was prepping myself that I was going to play in the Grey Cup. I’m still going to approach it like that because Day 1, I feel like I’ll be there for training camp.”
A PLAYER WHO REALLY CRANKED UP HIS GAME ON SUNDAY… was Canadian receiver Matt Coates, making his first playoff start for the Bombers. Coates finished with eight catches for 100 yards and, as one of the players under contract for next year, hopes that leads to more.
“We didn’t do enough as a team. We needed a little bit more out of everyone, myself included,” he said. “Everyone feels that way right now.
“In any season, you want more. But the way things played out, being injured in training camp and them giving me an opportunity to show what I can do in different aspects was nice. It was nice to be able to succeed in those opportunities.
“I believe we’ve got a really good thing coming out of here. We were 12-6 this year, and even in our losses we were in most of those games. There’s a lot of character in this room.”
AND, FINALLY… Matt Nichols is one of the key guys still under contract for next season. And one of his goals is to do his best to make a sales pitch for those with the opportunity to stay.
“There’s obviously a lot of guys that are going to have to make decisions, a lot of guys that I’m sure in their minds have no plans of leaving,” he said. “It is a business and guys have got to make decisions that are best for themselves and their families, also. All those things are understandable. But I’m definitely going to be a salesman and try and keep everyone here.
“I feel like we have a really good thing going here and we took a big stride from last season. Last season we were 11-7 and got to the playoffs again for the first time in a long time here. We took a step forward with a 12-win season this year… we struggled in the last couple of games but could have easily been 13 or 14 wins here if we had kept it going. We got our first home playoff game here in five or six years, first playoff game at Investors Group Field.
“We took that next step and now you just want to keep the core group of guys together to take that next step the next year. We’re building something great here. The season ended yesterday and I feel like I’m already going to make my plans for next season, the things I want to get better at and the things we need to get better at as a team and make sure that we do to be better for next year.”
