Year in Review | #5 A Defence Under the Microscope

Year In Review Series: Ed Tait takes a look at the 2017 Blue Bombers season with his Top 10 stories of the year…

It is both an uncomfortable subject and reality for the Winnipeg Blue Bombers.

Over the last two seasons, the club has posted a 23-13 mark in the regular season – second-most in the Canadian Football League to the Calgary Stampeders – and have exactly no playoff wins to show for it.

Just like every team in the land, the Bombers have their strengths, but aren’t without their warts. And the question for this team as the calendar is about to flip to 2018 is what to do about a defence that can be both impressive and infuriating at the same time?

“We do need to change what we’re doing on defence,” said Bombers head coach Mike O’Shea. “We can’t expect to do the same thing and get the results we want. Every player on the defence knows that, every player on the team probably understands that, every coach on the defence knows that.”

“What does that involve and entail? We’re not even close to figuring that out yet. We have to sit down and watch all the film again and have good discussions about why things happen the way they do.”

That was last month, in O’Shea’s end-of-season media address, and clearly the football operations department is still debating what that fix might look like.

Just to recap, the Bombers surrendered 7,144 yards in 2017, and combined with last year’s total, have a two-year total of 14,487 or an average of 402.4 yards per game.

At the same time, this defence has forced more turnovers – 101 – than any other team over the last two seasons, and has led the league in points off those thefts. Part of the baffling conundrum with this unit is the Bombers finished third in quarterback pressures and had three CFL All-Stars in the secondary in T.J. Heath, Chris Randle and Taylor Loffler, and yet were scorched for the dreaded ‘explosion plays’ defensive coordinator Richie Hall has spoken about so often over the last couple years.

“You can’t hide the fact that we gave up a lot of yards and we have to minimize that in order for us to win a championship, no doubt,” said O’Shea. “Everyone knows that. But there are things that our defence does that are excellent. We have to figure out a way to combine those good things and not give up the yards that we give up.”

“I’d have to look back in the stats to find a team that two years in a row took away 100 balls and provided opportunities like we do for our offence. (The defence) scored seven times and had one go to the one-yard line (on a Tristan Okpalaugo interception return).  Those things are pretty positive.”

“We increased our number of pressures, we did really well in getting pressure on the quarterback,” O’Shea continued. “Do we need to be better at it? Absolutely. But the one elephant in the room is the yardage given up. I thought also there were some missed opportunities we had for takeaways that obviously (would have) stopped some yardage and stopped some points. I’ve got to look at what that added up to – how many yards that is, how many points that is if we would have capitalized like we did the year before with an ungodly amount of takeaways.

“Most teams would be pretty happy to be second in the league with 42. I’m not trying to cover up that we gave up a lot of yards, but I’m not throwing it all out.

“There’s a way to maximize our takeaways and our pressures and minimize the yards we give up. I have to figure out how we do that.”

What shouldn’t be forgotten is it was also the defence that sealed wins later in the season with critical plays – a Pick-6 interception by Randle in a victory in Edmonton at the end of September and a seven turnover/seven sack performance in a decision over Calgary (minus Bo-Levi Mitchell) that secured the coveted home playoff game.

And yet, there’s this: in the last two Bomber playoff games, the club has surrendered 995 yards offence, has watched as both B.C.’s Jeremiah Johnson and C.J. Gable of Edmonton rushed for over 100 yards while quarterbacks Jonathon Jennings and Mike Reilly combined to complete 72.1 percent of their passes for 663 yards, with five TDs and one interception.

Again, the offence and special teams need work, too. But it’s the defence which is squarely under the microscope this offseason.

“Mike addressed it and it’s the big concern: the defence not playing at a championship level and sustaining that championship level week in and week out,” said GM Kyle Walters at his end-of-season chat with the press. “… The need to improve that side of the ball is a paramount concern. That’s evaluating the talent and we need to get better across the board with everything we do on that side of the ball or it’s not going to improve where we are organizationally.”

This is the fifth in a series recapping the Top 10 Bomber stories of 2017.

Next: Critical Injuries at Critical Times