GAME 11 | WINNIPEG BLUE BOMBERS (5-5) at SASKATCHEWAN ROUGHRIDERS (5-4)

THE 4-1-1

Kickoff: 2 p.m., CT, Sunday; Mosaic Stadium, Regina
TV: TSN, ESPN+
Radio: CJOB
Vegas line: The Roughriders are favoured by 3 points.
Streaks: Winnipeg: 2L; Saskatchewan: 2W
Home/Road: The Bombers are 2-3 on the road; Saskatchewan is 3-2 at home.
Series: The Bombers lead the all-time series (since 1936) 134-102-4.
Recent history: This is the first of three meetings between the two clubs over the next six weeks. After this week’s trip to Regina the Bombers will play host to the Roughriders in next Saturday’s Banjo Bowl and then again on Saturday, October 13^th.
Labour Day Classic history: The Riders will host the Labour Day Classic for the 54^th time since 1949 and has a record of 35-19 in those contests.

3 STORYLINES

1. SILENCING THE CRITICS?

It’s been a crazy couple of weeks for Bombers QB Matt Nichols, who has been at the epicentre of criticism for the play of the offence and then had his post-game comments after the last two losses twisted into headlines, too.

But while the Bombers issues have been many over the last two games – losses to Ottawa and Calgary – many fixate on the play of the quarterback, rightly or wrongly. Nichols, for what it’s worth, has the eighth-best QB efficiency rating of the 10 CFL pivots who qualify so far this season – this after being first in that category a year ago.

Critical to the Bombers is not only re-establishing the run game with Andrew Harris – he had just 13 yards rushing last week on seven carries – but simply piecing longer and more productive drives together.

“I don’t think we’ve done a good enough job of that,” said Nichols on Friday. “As an offence we want to go out and be consistent and move the football. It’s going to be tough. They do a lot of good things on defence and, at the same time, if we come out and play like we’re capable of playing we can move the ball and put up points. That’s our main focus – keep our defence as fresh as possible and when they’re fresh that probably means we’re getting the ball back quicker. That’s how you play great team football.”

Interestingly, in Nichols’ two Labour Day Classic starts for the Bombers – the team is 1-1 – he has thrown for 341 and 364 yards.

“It’s just how loud the crowd is. I don’t know, there’s almost a peaceful-quiet-type thing because it is so loud that you can just be in your own thoughts,” he said. “You’re not hearing all the defensive communication, your O-line communication.

“You can just white-noise focus on your job… it’s actually something I can kind of enjoy and so I hope they’re as loud as possible.”

2. THE BLUE ‘D’: REGRESSION OR PROGRESSION?

Somewhat lost in this week’s storylines has been the play of the defence, which has been torched for 1,004 yards in net offence against in the losses to the REDBLACKS and Stamps. What’s worse is this: the return of the dreaded ‘explosion’ plays of 20 yards or more.

The Stamps had nine of those plays last week – including two that were Bo Levi Mitchell TD strikes – and Ottawa had seven, including a 28-yard William Powell run to paydirt, the week before.

That’s a whole lot of real estate surrendered – 533 yards on 16 plays, to be exact – on just a few snaps.

“We’re at a point where we’ve shown some things that say we can be a great defence,” said linebacker Adam Bighill. “But we’ve also shown that if you make a few silly mistakes you are easily beatable.

“It’s good that we’ve shown some things and that we’ve made some mistakes so that we can learn from them. That’s the key: you have to make sure they don’t happen again. That’s something I always preach: make as many mistakes as you want to, just don’t make the same mistakes twice. By the end of the season, we should be pretty good.”

All that said, the last two weeks have opened a lot of wounds for Bombers fans. During the Bombers 4-1 run before this recent stumble the defence had looked to have flushed some of its evil ways. And then came the recurring nightmares.

“We’re not down on ourselves,” said defensive back Brandon Alexander. “You can’t be, otherwise it’s a lost season. We want to get better. We can take a lot of good things from what we’ve seen in the last couple of weeks, but the only thing we have to build on it and have more good than bad. You’re going to have a couple plays where it’s ‘Uh-oh.’ The other team is going to make plays, too, but we have to minimize that to a certain extent. If we can do that, we’ll be OK.”

3. Labour Day Classic, or Clunker?

There is no uglier number as it applies to this game and this weekend for the Bombers and the fans than this: 1-12. The Bombers have won just once in their last 13 Labour Day Classics, capturing the 2016 edition on a last-play field goal by Justin Medlock.

What makes Mosaic Stadium – and Taylor Field before that – such a difficult place, especially on Labour Day? Good question.

“It’s pretty obvious, if you know anything about the CFL, about how rambunctious the crowd is,” said Nichols. “There’s a reason why it’s called homefield advantage. They do a good job of having smart fans and understanding when to be loud and when to be quiet and that can make it difficult on the opponent coming in

“As long as you have everything ironed out with your communication on offence you can overcome it, but it can also be a big distraction if you’re not ready for it. We’ve got a veteran crew here and guys who, for the most part, have been there and been a part of it. I think we have a good plan to handle it.”

Worth noting is this: the Bombers have 15 players travelling to Regina who have never even participated in the LDC and as head coach Mike O’Shea has repeated a few times this week, this weekend’s history has no bearing on this current squad.

THE QBS

• Winnipeg’s Matt Nichols 33-24 in his career as a starter and 25-12 since taking over from Drew Willy in July of 2016. He is 6-2 in his career against the Riders.
• Saskatchewan’s Zach Collaros is 27-29 in his career, including 3-1 vs. the Bombers. The Riders are 3-2 in games in which he’s started this season.

ROSTER SHUFFLE

The Bombers are making three changes to their 46-man roster. Coming onto the roster are WR Corey Washington, who will make his CFL debut, DE Gerald Rivers, and DB Anthony Gaitor, who comes off the injured list. DE Jackson Jeffcoat comes off and has been added to the six-game injured list, DT Cory Johnson has been moved to the one-game injured list, while WR/KR Ryan Lankford has been moved to the practice roster. Head coach Mike O’Shea did confirm upon arrival in Regina Saturday afternoon that LB Maurice Leggett will not play after pulling up injured during the practice week.

3 BOMBERS TO WATCH

#22 Chandler Fenner, LB: Changes were expected after the Bombers were lit up in the second half by Bo Levi Mitchell & Co. in Calgary. Fenner took most of the reps at practice this week at the strong-side linebacker/Dime spot the Bombers use in place of Maurice Leggett, who admittedly struggled last Saturday.
#1 Darvin Adams, WR: Adams is coming off two games in which he caught 11 passes for 189 yards and three TDs… and yet admittedly wasn’t his best last week. He had eight catches for 162 yards and two scores in the loss to Ottawa, but was targeted nine times in Calgary and managed just three receptions.
#9 Justin Medlock, K: It was Medlock who played the hero the last time the Bombers won on Labour Day, with a last-second field goal in 2016. Medlock has been steady again in the field goal department, connecting on 21 of 24 (87.5 percent). But it’s his punting this season which continues to improve. He has a 44.5-yard average and has placed seven punts inside the 10-yard line – tied for the league lead with Calgary’s Rob Maver and Richie Leone of Ottawa.

X FACTOR

#6 Corey Washington, WR: The athletic and physical gifts are evident every day at practice. Washington is 6-4, 208, with speed, good hands and leaping ability. He’s waited for the chance to crack the Bombers lineup and the club could use another threat in Paul LaPolice’s offence.

CRITICAL NUMBER

3 – The Bombers have not lost three games in a row in the same season since the final three weeks of the 2015 campaign. That’s a span of 46 games, which has featured five streaks of two losses in a row, but nothing longer.

MISCELLANEOUS

• Winnipeg is just 1-3 in the West Division, the lone win coming against B.C. in early July. Six of the Bombers last eight games are against divisional opponents – the three games with the Riders, two trips to Edmonton to face the Eskimos and a home date with Calgary near the end of October.
• The average attendance in the last 11 Labour Day Classics has been 33,391. Dating back to 1990 there have been 22 Labour Day games in which the attendance at Taylor Field or new Mosaic Stadium has eclipsed the 30,000 mark. The smallest crowd during that stretch came in 1996, when 25,876 watched the Riders beat the Bombers 41-23.
• Zach Collaros will be the fourth different quarterback to start for the Riders in the Labour Day Classic in the last four years, following Kevin Glenn (2017), Darian Durant (2016) and Brett Smith (2015). Matt Nichols has started the last two Labour Day Classics for the Bombers.
• Riders DE Charleston Hughes leads the CFL with 12 sacks – seven more than any other player – and has picked up at least one QB kill in seven consecutive games.
• This will be the first meeting between the Bombers and the Riders — and Chris Jones’ defence. Here’s RB Andrew Harris when asked to describe what Saskatchewan does on D:
  “You’ve got to stick with what you’re good at it and dictate the game, don’t let his defence and all the crazy things he does dictate what you’re doing. They just bring a number of different blitzes. A lot of it looks crazy because they move around so much… they’ll move D ends to tackles, tackles to ends, linebackers are all over the place and they’ll bring a lot of different pressures from their DBs as well. They change their personnel a lot from first to second down and it just confuses people… change the numbers, change the positions.
  “You can’t loss in all the smoke and mirrors, I’d say. At the end of the day there has to be a guy that plays in the WIL position (weak-side linebacker), there has to be a guy that plays in the SAM position (strong side linebacker) and the MAC position (middle linebacker). There will be four guys or five guys or three on the line you’ve got to block.”