They’ve already kicked the hornet’s nest firmly and repeatedly. And now the Winnipeg Blue Bombers expect to be swarmed by a colony of angry pests this weekend in Vancouver.
The Bombers were back on the practice field Wednesday for the first time since last Saturday’s 41-19 walloping of the B.C. Lions. And while it felt like just another day at the office in Bomberland, the reactions from the west coast over the past couple of days have been entirely different.
Take hall-of-fame head coach Wally Buono who, reacting to Bombers quarterback Matt Nichols‘ praising of his offensive line for not getting touched last week (see below), told TSN 1040 in Vancouver: ‘If I was Matt Nichols, I would be careful about what I said about the opponent.’
There was also this from Lions receiver Manny Arceneaux, who said to Ed Willes of The Province: “We’ve just got to go out, not give a damn and put a whipping on somebody. That’s what we owe some teams, a good, old fashioned ass-whipping. You have pride. Every week you want to make plays and when DBs start trash talking, it’s disrespectful. That’s frustrating because I’m a competitor.”
Some of this is simply a predictable response from a team stinging after getting pushed around. But the Bombers understand it only gets tougher from here. The Lions might have their issues right now, but there is also a ton of talent on both sides of the ball that makes a potential sweep no gimmee.
“I’m sure they don’t feel like they played their best football, and I don’t think they did,” said Bombers linebacker Adam Bighill, the former Leo. “Every team every week doesn’t put a plan together to lose. It’s just a matter of who is going to be better that day.
“We know they’re going to be hungry and from that standpoint we can’t be looking like, ‘We’ve got this one.’”
Winnipeg has three sets of back-to-back games this season – this one with the Lions, a home-and-home with the Toronto Argonauts in the two weeks after this and then the annual Labour Day Classic-Banjo Bowl showdown with the Saskatchewan Roughriders in September.
“It’s always super tough… it’s professional football,” said Nichols. “When you win football games you celebrate with your team because it’s not easy to win at the professional level.
“To play the same team back to back… obviously, it’s very difficult to win back-to-back games, especially going to B.C. I’ve been going there for years now and it’s always been a tough place to go and win. You just approach it like it’s a completely new week except you’re watching the same film you were from last week, plus watching your game from a few days ago 95 times.
“You’re really just trying to get everything ironed out to make sure you play better than the week before and there’s a lot of room for improvement going into this week.”
FYI, the Bombers are 6-2 in their last four back-to-back matchups, splitting with Saskatchewan last year and then sweeping the Riders and Lions while going 1-1 against Ottawa in 2016.
“First of all, we’ve got to go to their place and they’re always going to play harder,” said Bombers Offensive Coordinator Paul LaPolice on what to expect from the Lions this weekend. “And then, certainly, they’ll do a good job of fixing some of the mistakes they had and we had some things they might not have seen. You’ve got to make sure you can still just execute your base offence. They’re going to be very prepared for everything we did last week, so what is our counter?
“Playing a team on the road in a place that’s loud and tough to play… we’ve got to be ready to play.”
More on some of the news and notes on the Bombers first day back at work in this week’s installment of Need to Know…
BIGGIE HOMECOMING:
Bombers linebacker Adam Bighill soared over one hurdle last week in his first matchup against his old squad. This Saturday, he returns to Vancouver for the first time since signing with the Bombers.
“Since we played here and we got the first match out of the way that ‘first’ factor is taken out of the way,” Bighill said. “Going back to B.C. Place and being in front of a lot of fans I once was in front of… a lot of them have wished me well, just not when we play the Lions. That’s great, because I’ve had great support out there and I love them for it.
“It is going to be different after playing so many games at B.C. Place. But playing here first makes it a little bit easier transition.”
Bombers head coach Mike O’Shea was asked what kind of impact having a player like Bighill in the defence allows the club to do on that side of the ball.
“He’s a very active player,” said O’Shea. “I don’t think we’ve even got through the full gamut of what we can do with Biggie yet. But you certainly love what you see so far… he had a whale of a game and if he keeps on doing that on a regular basis it will be fun for everybody to watch, that’s for sure. He’s different in the meetings, too. He’s definitely leading and that’s important; that’s an important piece we wanted to add, too.”
NOTABLE:
The Bombers were without LB Chandler Fenner, LB Shayne Gauthier, DB Brendan Morgan, CB Brandon Alexander and DB Robert Priester at practice on Wednesday. Maurice Leggett was back at his old spot at the strong-side linebacker spot in place of Fenner.
WELCOME ABOARD:
The Bombers made official today the addition of Canadian defensive back Jeff Hecht to the practice roster. Hecht himself hinted at his signing via his Twitter account on the weekend.
The real reason I chose @Wpg_BlueBombers @obbykhan60 @ShawarmaKhanWPG pic.twitter.com/3ODQTR9KmF
— Jeff Hecht (@JeffHecht24) July 9, 2018
Hecht (5-9, 205, St. Mary’s) has eight seasons and 100 games under his belt in the CFL with Calgary, Montreal and Saskatchewan. He played 18 games for the Roughriders last year, with 21 tackles, 11 special-teams tackles and one forced fumble. His addition comes after special-teams ace Derek Jones was injured in the loss to Hamilton on June 29th.
WALLET HIT:
The CFL dished out its weekly supplementary discipline on Wednesday, with Bombers OL Sukh Chungh fined for ‘unnecessary roughness for hitting a B.C. player (T.J. Lee) late and while he was in a vulnerable position.’
NO WORRIES:
Here’s Bombers OC Paul LaPolice on slotback Adarius Bowman, who did not register a catch for the second time in four games last Saturday, and has just eight catches for 70 yards in the first four games of the season:
“One game he’s got five catches for (38 yards, vs. Montreal). This past game we missed a couple of throws to him. One of them he’s wide open for a 30-yard gain and we decide to go somewhere else. I just think he probably would have had four catches for 60 yards if we do things operation-wise. There’s only one ball and we had eight guys touch the ball.
“We just keep trying to operate and mix it in and when the guy has his number called hopefully we locate the ball to him.”
QUOTABLE:
Fullback Mike Miller pulled in his first reception as a Bomber in last Saturday’s win and his first since his days in Edmonton in 2016. Here’s his buddy Nichols on that connection:
“Mikey and I were extremely excited about that one because we were together for five or six years in Edmonton, a couple of years here, so it only took us eight years to finally hook up on the field. That was a big one for us and it was nice that it happened on a great diving catch by him.”
