It was late. Way late. Early-morning/last-call late, when the door to the Winnipeg Blue Bombers locker room opened following the second longest game in Canadian Football League history.
And if there was one term to describe the collective look on the faces of the men in the room at around 1:30 a.m. – some six hours after the ball was first put on the tee for the opening kickoff in what would be a 33-30 loss to the Edmonton Eskimos – it would be this: emotionally and physically spent.
Or, as the great Foghorn Leghorn of Bugs Bunny fame would say, ‘they looked like they were dragged through a knothole backwards’.
“I took a drink of Red Bull at 11:30 before we went back out and so I probably won’t even sleep tonight,” began running back Andrew Harris. “But I’m tired, man.”
“That was crazy,” added linebacker Jovan Santos-Knox. “I’m trying to find the energy because I’m just beat right now just as most of the guys are. But we fought out there. Given the conditions, I couldn’t be happier with my guys.”
Yes, the CFL’s opener Thursday night-Friday morning offered up a whole lot of drama in between forced time outs brought on from a pair of lightning delays from Mother Nature that totalled two hours and 55 minutes.
There was the Bombers rally from a 19-7 deficit that included a 110-yard missed-field-goal-return touchdown by Kevin Fogg. There was the encouraging performance from rookie quarterback Chris Streveler, who threw for three touchdowns.
And, in a repeat of a movie fans across the CFL have seen so often, there was Mike Reilly being Mike Reilly as the league’s Most Outstanding Player hooking up with Derel Walker for a 101-yard TD, throwing for over 400 yards, rushing for two short scores and slipping through tackles to extend plays, occasionally making Bomber defenders look like they were trying to grasp a wet bar of soap.
“There was a time when I was coming off the edge and he was getting ready to throw and I swiped at it and hit his throwing arm, and yet he still gets it off and gets a first down,” said Santos-Knox. “You’ve got to tip your hat to those guys. Mike Reilly is an amazing player.”
That was also a common theme in the Bombers clubhouse afterward, but so too, was a sense of lament at an opportunity lost. The Bombers held a 30-22 lead into the fourth quarter before Reilly rallied the Eskimos with more magic.
“It’s a loss. There’s no way to cut it other than we lost our first game,” said Harris. “Obviously we wanted to win this game because it was tough and it was one that came down to the wire and we could have won.
“But… everyone said (Edmonton) was the best team in the West and we hung with the best team in the West when we were ranked seventh, or whatever the power rankings are. We try not to look too much at that stuff but at the end of the day that’s what’s out there.
“We fought hard, we fought back under the circumstances and just fell short. There are a lot of positives to take out of the game. We fought back. We were able to make some big plays… offensively and from our quarterback’s standpoint, I think he handled the blitz well. It was a weird game with all of the weather and the breaks and how we handled it was a positive.
“We didn’t win the game, but it’s a long season, we’ll just keep truckin’.”
More on the Bombers season opening loss to the Eskimos in our weekly installment of UPON FURTHER REVIEW…
THERE’S A TEMPTATION TO LOOK AT THIS… and not help but lament about what might have been with a healthy Matt Nichols at the controls of the Bombers offence. After all, Streveler has only been a pro for a few weeks after signing May 4th; Nichols was in his first camp back in 2010 with the Dallas Cowboys before heading north to Edmonton.
But the kid was alright, throwing for the three TDs – one each to Weston Dressler, Darvin Adams and his buddy from his days at the University of Minnesota, Drew Wolitarsky.
Facing a horde of media after the game, Streveler was asked what might have been the difference in a three-point loss.
“It was just one or two plays there at the end,” said the 23-year-old product of Crystal Lake, IL, who had his parents in the building for his pro debut. “We had the ball back with a chance to win… I threw two incompletions. You want to be able to put the ball in play there. It’s tough. We put the defence in a tough position there. But there are always things that are positive and things that are negative after a game like this.
“We’ll get in and watch the game tomorrow, learn from it and get better.”
THAT LAST ANSWER, BY THE WAY, IS A BIG PART… of why the Bombers coaches and players are impressed with Streveler. He admitted his mistakes, but processes quickly. And with his ability and eagerness to learn, there’s a sense he could take more steps next week in the days leading up to Game 2 next Friday in Montreal.
“I started to get more and more comfortable as the game went on,” said Streveler. “There’s obviously a different speed between a regular season game and a pre-season game. I felt like I was starting to settle in there.
“It’s kinda crazy, but with everything being relatively new it seems like every single rep I get I can learn something new. So, as the game’s going on I feel like I’m almost still learning. It’s the same thing with practice. Every single practice rep I take, I really have to learn.”
REMEMBER THIS, IN CASE STREVELER… manages to carve out a long professional career: his first TD pass was a 16-yard strike to veteran Weston Dressler in the first quarter.
“It’s a good feeling. It felt really good, there’s no doubt about that,” said Streveler. “But I’m not really thinking about that right now, I’m thinking about maybe the couple of passes that I could have made that maybe would have given us a better chance to win.”
“I thought he did really well for a guy that’s been in the CFL for what is it, two-three weeks now,” added Dressler. “He kept his composure. He didn’t pout about any mistakes that were made and I thought he saw the field pretty well. Obviously, there’s lots of room for improvement there, which there is for everyone that’s on the field for their first game.
“He’s got a bright future ahead of him and he’s going to continue to improve. The guy works hard. It’s fun playing with him.”
KUDOS TO THOSE BOMBERS FANS WHO STAYED… to the very end, but also those who were listening to CJOB in their cars or on the bus as they headed home due to the two delays. Ditto for the fans who stayed up late to watch it on the tube.
Chris O’Leary of CFL.ca has an excellent piece here on the league’s handling of a weather delay game and some of the Bombers spoke of what they did to stay ready during the breaks.
“We just kind of hung out in here,” said Dressler. “Guys put music on and each break we talked about what was going on in the game for a little bit and then you just try and take a break from it.
“It’s difficult, because you don’t know for sure when you’re going to be back out there. It’s not like, ‘Alright, we’ve got 20 minutes and then we’re going back out there.’ It’s, ‘It might be up to an hour this time, it might be 30 minutes.’ And then you’ve got to refocus when it’s time to get back out there.”
CHANDLER FENNER, WHO WAS SENSATIONAL… in his Bomber debut, echoed Dressler’s thoughts on how to handle the lightning delays. Athletes are all about routine, after all.
“The breaks really weren’t that difficult,” said Fenner, who had four tackles, two special teams tackles and a tackle for a loss. “It was just a matter of staying focused. You come out, you have 45 minutes to an hour and so you get yourself back into your rhythm. Calm down, meditate, whatever you do, stretch your legs and with 10-15 minutes left then you get your music going and get back into your routine and get revved up and ready to go on the field. That’s something we did a really good job of as a team, making sure everybody was ready to hit the field again.
“Me, I came in and took my shoulder pads and cleats off, I went into the sauna about 30 minutes before I came out and with 15 minutes left I put my music on and started jumping around and getting ready. That’s what I did both times because the first time it worked well because that’s when we started doing well as a defence and we started scoring points. The second time I made sure I was diligent and consistent with it.
“I’ve never dealt with anything like that,” Fenner added. “I just put it in the back of my mind because it’s happening. There’s nothing I can do to change it so how can I put myself in the best possible situation to succeed.”
SOME NUMBERS THAT ARE GOING TO HAVE THE BOMBERS DEFENDERS CURSING… courtesy the Esks Reilly:
Not only did he complete 32 of 46 passes for 408 yards and the 101-yard strike to Derel Walker, he was massive when it matted.
Get this: with the Esks down by eight and 5:46 on the clock, he completed a 14-yard pass to Walker on a second-and-15 and then converted the third-and-short-himself; connected with D’haquille Williams for 18 yards on a second-and-seven; ran for three on a second-and-four and then kept for two yards on the third-down play; hit Walker for 11 yards on a second-and-10 and then scored on a one-yard plunge before hitting Nate Behar for the two-point conversion. All that on ONE DRIVE.
He also teamed up with Walker one more time for 15 yards to set up the game-winning field goal.
Put it this way, it was exactly the kind of performance that should give the sculptors at the Canadian Football Hall of Fame the green light to begin carving his bust – if they haven’t already got a head start on the thing.
“There are about five to six plays that change a game and you don’t know when they’re going to come,” said Bombers defensive halfback Brandon Alexander. “We’ve got to go out and execute a bit better. It’s the first game and there’s no telling what’s going to happen between now and the end of the season. Right now, we’ve got to get some things corrected.
“There are flashes of us being a really, really good defence. Now we’ve got to turn those flashes into every day, every play flashes. With that being said, 30 points is just too much for us to be giving up. There are some positives. We’re not happy we lost, but there are some things to build on.”
AND, FINALLY… Kevin Fogg was the centre point of one of the game’s true highlights when he gobbled up a short and wide field goal attempt on the last play of the first half and then weaved 110 yards for a touchdown that gave the Bombers their first lead.
I’m blurting out ‘Just go down’ as Kevin Fogg begins to return that FG miss. Seconds later @Ted_Wyman says as Fogg is about to score… ‘Or do that.’#Bombers lead 20-19 at halftime.
— Ed Tait (@EdTaitWFC) June 15, 2018
It was Fogg’s second career kick-return TD and first on a missed field goal.
“It was good, it was fun, but none of it means anything because we didn’t win,” said Fogg, who also had an interception. “I don’t think I’ve ever run 110 yards. Never.”
