The three men stood there – side-by-side-by-side – all watching the Winnipeg Blue Bombers offence at practice late Tuesday morning/early afternoon.
And if the diehards in Bomber Nation had been taking in the proceedings a cold shiver would have been sent down their collective spines while watching the offence go to work without Andrew Harris, Nic Demski and Darvin Adams, and just days in advance of this Saturday’s critical showdown in Edmonton against the Eskimos on the horizon.
That’s not a shot at any of the potential replacements in Kienan LaFrance, Daniel Petermann or Rashaun Simonise – all of whom were working with the No. 1 offence – but instead, a salute to the Bombers’ Big Three on offence.
Each of those three men have exactly 44 catches and have combined for 13 receiving touchdowns, while Harris is the Canadian Football League’s leading rusher.
And that’s a whole lot of weaponry potentially not available come Saturday.
Not surprisingly, Bombers head coach Mike O’Shea would not make a call on the status of either Harris, Demski or Adams – especially this early in the week – offering this:
“We always give those guys the benefit of the doubt. I would think all three of them would be good to go. They haven’t shown me otherwise, so…”
LaFrance has made his name as a reliable spot starter in the past, most notably during his days with the Ottawa REDBLACKS and their playoff push to the 2016 Grey Cup championship.
“I don’t think there are any changes with how you prepare for games, regardless of whether you’re starting or not,” said LaFrance after practice Tuesday. “Any time a player goes down, a teammate goes down, it’s not fun. As the next guy, you’ve just got to be ready and be professional about it and be ready to go.
“The way I prepare every week, every practice going in is the same whether I’m starting or not. For sure you take a little more workload to get the legs ready, but in terms of preparation nothing really changes. You just do your job.”
The Bombers do also have Timothy Flanders as a potential replacement for Harris, but his addition to the starting lineup would mean tinkering with the ratio. And, as O’Shea alluded to, there’s a danger in reading too much into the start of a week, especially in the case of Harris, knowing that his practice reps between games have dropped dramatically in recent weeks.
But if it was LaFrance in the backfield…
“I see Kienan being a guy who can do a lot of things in his own way,” said O’Shea. “He doesn’t have to do it the way Andrew does it, he’s going to do it the way Kienan does it. We signed him for a reason and he’s certainly a guy we feel can play if that’s the way we choose to go. If Andrew’s not healthy, we’ve got options. If he is healthy, we still have rep distribution we can play with.”
More news and notes on the Bombers’ first day back at work in this week’s installment of Need to Know…
GOOD NEWS FROM THE INFIRMARY:
It wasn’t all doom and gloom on the injury front as the Bombers returned to work: linebacker Adam Bighill, who did not finish last Friday’s win over Montreal, was back practising on Tuesday and sporting a brace on his right elbow.
“I’m feeling good,” said Bighill. “It was one of those things where last week was more precautionary. It’s just good to know everything is alright. I just never like coming off the field and not being with my teammates. It’s one of those things where it’s better to be smart than stupid at certain times and it’s good to know everything is all right.”
Also on the mend and not practising on Tuesday were DE Jackson Jeffcoat, LB Maurice Leggett and LB Shayne Gauthier, while CB Kevin Fogg was back working with the No. 1 defence.
SCOREBOARD WATCHING MODE:
The Bombers got some help last Saturday with Ottawa’s win over Edmonton, but a potential Super Saturday – at least, from a Winnipeg perspective – was affected by B.C.’s miraculous comeback against Hamilton and a potential game-winning field goal attempt sailing wide in Toronto’s loss to Saskatchewan.
“I was watching the last couple games of the weekend with about 10 of the guys who got together,” said quarterback Matt Nichols. “And when B.C. got the ball at the end I said, ‘You might as well just turn it off. You know they’re going to win.’
“I’ve been in this league for nine years and anything you want to happen that could possibly help absolutely never does. You’ve got to take things in your own hands. It doesn’t surprise me because I knew what was going to happen. I’ve just been around for too long. You can never hope the other team is going to lose. I mean, we’ve got to win football games to put ourselves in position.”
As it stands now, the Bombers are fifth in the West Division at 6-7, with the Lions fourth at 6-6 and the Eskimos third at 7-6. That’s what makes this week’s trip to Edmonton so massive in the fight for playoff spots. As it stands, sportsclubstats.com has the Bombers playoff chances at 61.2 percent, just slightly ahead of B.C. at 56.9 (the Bombers hold the tiebreaker against the Lions).
The remaining games for the Bombers, Lions and Eskimos:
Winnipeg
Remaining games: 5
@ Edmonton, Sept. 29
@ Ottawa, Oct. 5
vs. Saskatchewan, Oct. 13
Bye
vs. Calgary, Oct. 26
@ Edmonton, Nov. 3
Strength of remaining schedule: .584
Chances of making playoffs: 61.2
B.C.
Remaining games: 6
@ Hamilton, Sept. 29
vs. Toronto, Oct. 6
@ Calgary, Oct. 13
vs. Edmonton, Oct. 19
@ Saskatchewan, Oct. 27
vs. Calgary, Nov. 3
Strength of remaining schedule: .5
Chances of making playoffs: .497
Edmonton
Remaining games: 6
vs. Winnipeg, Sept. 29
@ Saskatchewan, Oct. 8
vs. Ottawa, Oct. 13
@ B.C., Oct. 19
Bye
Vs. Winnipeg, Nov. 3
Strength of remaining schedule: .537
Chances of making playoffs: 83.8
And here was O’Shea’s take when asked if he had watched all three games on Saturday and how it impacted the Bombers:
“That’s why when you asked me a couple of weeks ago if this was a must win the answer was ‘No’ because you just don’t know how these things are going to play out. What our players learned, hopefully, is there’s always time left in a CFL game. You need to make your plays, you can’t leave it up to someone else. The first thought was just how fantastic this league is that the games can go down and change so much in two or three minutes. It’s wonderful. It’s fantastic to see that kind of football being played. It’s very entertaining.”
THE PUSH COMES NOW:
There were a couple of minor disagreements at practice on Tuesday – both involving the always-amped up Jermarcus Hardrick – and it’s a hint to the approach the Bombers have taken since prior to last week’s win over Montreal. The margin for error is too thin to allow any kind of let up now.
“I was just preaching to the guys that one game doesn’t mean anything,” said Nichols. “This is an extremely important game for us and for Edmonton so it’s going to have a playoff feel from here on out. It seems like every year the last five or six games feel like playoffs all the way through with the tight races we’ve been in. This year’s no different. Treat it as a playoff game every week, lay it on the line and do everything you can to get a win.
“… It really comes down to executing and playing team football like we did last week. That’s how you win football games. That’s our goal right now: understanding the situation but not putting too much pressure on it and just going out and playing as a team and see where the chips fall.”
DREAM WORLD:
One more from Nichols, weighing in on the newer, stricter and controversial roughing-the-passer rule adopted in the National Football League:
“It’s pretty crazy. As a quarterback, I would love to never get landed on, never get hit. But I don’t know how you could ever tell Clay Matthews to do anything different in those two scenarios. For me, some of those looked like clean hits, but who am I to say anything about that? They are protecting $35 million a year quarterbacks, so… that’s one of their main focusses and they probably don’t care that it’s a little bit of a blowback from fans or defensive players if their stars are staying healthy because of it. But I would love to never get hit. That would be fun.”
