Pat Neufeld has pulled on his shoulder pads, slapped on the knee braces and buckled up his chinstrap for some 168 regular-season games across 13 years in the Canadian Football League — with the majority of that action coming in a decade-long run here in Winnipeg with the Blue Bombers.
And while he knows his finish line is inching closer on the horizon the veteran right guard has signed a one-year contract extension to remain with the club for at least one more championship push — especially with the 2025 Grey Cup game here in Winnipeg — because his fire still burns, and the 36-year-old still has some quality miles left on his treads.
“Obviously, I’m not getting any younger, but my body still feels great and I’ve always taken the approach that I’m just taking this one year at a time and I’m going to do what’s best for myself and my family,” said Neufeld in a media Zoom call on Monday. “But ultimately, I’m just really excited to be back in the Blue and Gold for another season. Having Stan (Bryant) back, having Zach (Collaros) under contract and knowing that a large contingency of guys want to be back, and you never know with this business what’s going to happen, but I think the draw of the Grey Cup in Winnipeg is huge too.
“So, really excited to be back and looking forward to it.”
Neufeld was limited in training camp last year and then missed a stretch of four games in August. Yet, despite those physical setbacks when he was at his post, he was part of an offensive line unit which helped Brady Oliveira capture a second straight rushing title while Collaros established a new career high in passing yardage.
Asked what percentage of his game he’s at now, Neufeld said he was ‘probably still in my 90s, honestly.’
“I feel great. I still feel like I’m playing really good football,” he said. “I still feel like I can contribute positively to the team, the organization, so I think I have a pretty good sense of when I won’t be at that level is when I’ll probably step away, but I don’t feel like I’m there.”
One of the locker room’s most respected voices, Neufeld will be looking around the room at a number of new faces come this spring — as is always the case in pro sports — but there will also be change in the offensive meeting rooms with Buck Pierce and Kevin Bourgoin having left for the B.C. Lions and with the club yet to name an offensive coordinator.
“It hurts, losing Buck like that and losing Bourgs, because it’s consistency, and a huge part of this game is consistency and trust in what you’re doing,” Neufeld said. “But ultimately, I have faith in our football operations to get quality people in — great teachers, great football minds that are going to put us on the right path — and when that happens, we’ll get right into our scheme and start learning it as quick as possible so we can hit the ground running in training camp.
“… Depending on the scale of change I think it can be a little daunting,” he added. “But I think ultimately change is a good thing because it doesn’t allow guys to be comfortable. And it forces you to re-learn things or learn new concepts, schemes. Even just learn kind of the new thought process of what our coaches are thinking and wanting.
“So, if we go in a new direction, I’m going to be excited about it like I said it’s going to challenge me, it’s going to challenge our guys to learn new things and adapt the things that we’ve done in the past to what’s going to be new. And if we bring someone in who is close to the system or is the same system that we’ve had, then I’m sure they’ll have wrinkles and we’re going to try and learn those wrinkles and execute them.”
Neufeld, like everyone in Bomberland, is still stinging from the Grey Cup loss last November — the third straight championship defeat after wins in 2019 and 2021. He said his exit meeting with head coach Mike O’Shea after the loss focussed more on visiting on a ‘human level’ — touching on his health, offseason plans and desire to keep playing and remain in Blue Bombers colours.
“You go through that season that we had, playing the way we did and not winning that game and I think guys were just… the last thing we wanted to do was talk about this, about the game and talk about the season,” he said. “There was a mutual understanding that we had gone through a lot of s–t that year and still fought our way to that game and unfortunately didn’t win it and that roller coaster of emotion was like, ‘OK, that’s enough.’ I spoke with teammates about it but, to be honest, it’s been pretty quiet in regard to talking about that game.
“Now the focus is on who is going to come back, what our coaching staff is going to look like and making sure we’re training and preparing for training camp.”
All that said, Neufeld conceded this: losing the last three Grey Cups will force the Blue Bombers to revisit everything. It’s not just about what went wrong in the final games of 2022, 2023 and 2024, but unearthing solutions and trying to find the fix that will have the team playing its best on the final Sunday of the season.
“Now it’s a new year, he said. “(You) have to be a little bit more courageous and look at that film more intensely, and maybe talk in our position groups, talk with coaches and just be a bit more honest about what’s going on.
“It’s not blaming people, it’s not sticking the finger. It’s, ‘How do we fix this? Why did we get to this? Why did we play like this?’ I think that’s probably the bigger question, is why did we play like that? It’s not who did what, it’s why.”
Neufeld’s signing leaves the Blue Bombers with 24 pending free agents:
Quarterback: Chris Streveler
Running backs: Johnny Augustine, Bailey Feltmate
Receivers: Kenny Lawler, Dalton Schoen, Lucky Whitehead
Offensive line: Liam Dobson, Eric Lofton
Defensive line: Willie Jefferson, Jake Thomas, Miles Fox, TyJuan Garbutt, Celestin Haba
Linebackers: Adam Bighill, Brian Cole, Shayne Gauthier, Kyrie Wilson
Defensive backs: Brandon Alexander, Tyrell Ford, Evan Holm, Noah Hallett, Jamal Parker, Nick Taylor
Specialists: Mike Benson
