5 Quick Hits from Monday – Day 1 of the Blue Bombers practice week leading up to Friday’s meeting against the B.C. Lions in Vancouver:
1. HEALTHIER, REFRESHED AND ORNERY: The Bombers were back on the practice field Monday after a bye week and still sporting the best record in the Canadian Football League at 6-1. Bodies are also starting to exit sick bay, with DT Steven Richardson, LB Kyrie Wilson and WR/KR Janarion Grant all back working with their units and inching closer to a return to action.
On top of all that, tempers flared near the end of Monday with the offence and defence getting after it, with DE Thiadric Hansen needing to be held back from going after an offensive linemen and both Willie Jefferson and Brandon Alexander shouting at their offensive teammates at the end of the session.
As it was suggested near the end of the session, healthy and ornery isn’t a bad combination coming off a bye week.
“They ran around today, we’ll see what they feel like tomorrow morning when they show up,” said head coach Mike O’Shea when asked if the returnees would be available for Friday in Vancouver. “On the personal level, some of these guys have been rehabbing for quite some time. I know they’re very excited and their teammates are very excited to see them out there.”
Following their days off the Bombers were tested again on Saturday. O’Shea said that the team will be 98 percent vaccinated with the first dose and 88 per cent fully vaccinated. Asked about potential travel restrictions coming next month with players possibly needing to be fully vaccinated to board the team’s charter flights.
“These are things we certainly think about and we keep in house,” he said. “As much thought as you put into it, you also still have to wait and see what exactly happens to make good decisions based on the information you’re given.
“A firm date would be nice, other than that you’re throwing darts.”
2. GRINDING AWAY: New Bombers kicker Ali Mourtada spent his bye week in Winnipeg working on his craft after missing on all three of his field-goal attempts in the 37-22 win in Edmonton.
“I’m disappointed, for sure,” he said. “I left points on the board that would have helped my team out. Understanding point differential we could have been up two scores. It’s those things that are important to me, so moving forward I’m making sure I do my part to execute those kicks for the team.”
Mourtada said he made the necessary angle adjustments and was ‘dialled in’ at practice on Monday. And, yes, he also wondered if he’d get another chance to show his stuff after the struggles against the Elks.
“The thoughts can definitely go through your head, but you learn what you can control and what you can’t control,” he said. “I can control learning from those mistakes and then getting right back to work and so if the opportunity is there I’m ready and I’m prepared. There’s not really a lot of time to feel back for yourself. You look at it objectively, learn from it and then make the necessary adjustments and changes and move on from there to the next week.
“(The bye week) came at the perfect time because it gave me a full week to make those minor adjustments that I needed to make. Honestly I felt like I struck the ball well. I know that might sound crazy when you miss kicks. But the ball came off my foot great and this bye week gave me the opportunity to practice that for a few more days and really understand what those angles should look like.”
3. JUST A SHADE UNDER 5-11: Bombers DT Steven Richardson spoke on Monday about using his leverage to be an effective run stopper. That term — leverage — has also followed him around through his playing days back to high school.
“It’s followed me literally everywhere,” he said. “Everybody asks me, ‘You look like you’re six feet.’ I’m like, ‘No, it’s 5-10 3/8ths and it has not changed since high school. It’s 5-10 3/8ths and I don’t know what I can do to make it go up, at least to 5-11… 5-11 would make me so much happier, like a significant amount happier. But, no, it’s 5-10 3/8ths.”
4. JUST CHILLIN’: Bombers DB Nick Taylor, a proud product of Miami, spent some of his bye week in Pinawa. “I was just on the lakes relaxing, chilling in the woods, in the forest just enjoying it,” he said. “I had a cabin and just relaxed, cooked some food out on the grill, ate… just relaxed. For me, I didn’t want to go back and forth to the States and then if I go home I probably spend more money. I said I might as well go relax out here and the weather was perfect. It was 80 degrees one day, like 25 Celsius, so I don’t have to go to Miami for the weather. I can just relax out here. I have water and that’s all I need is some water to look at and then jump into the lake. I’m good. That’s all I need.”
5. WORK, WORK, WORK: Here’s Coach O’Shea when asked what particular area of the team will be focussed on in the second half of the season:
“Special teams/return game. We need to generate field position for our offence. Our coverage units are doing well, we just need to make sure we have better sustained blocking and a clearer picture for the returners. I don’t know that we’ve given them a real clean picture that we’ve missed. They all know that, all the guys know that. They’re not squeezing the stick too hard, though. They just know they’ve got to keep working and keep seeing pictures and keep doing the drills and apply it on the field come game day.”
And when he was asked if Janarion Grant could provide a boos to the return game, he added:
“I don’t know if he’s available. Charles Nelson is a good returner… as I just said, it doesn’t matter which returner is back there. If we don’t give them a cleaner picture to look at I don’t know what changing the returner would do yet.”
