Game 7: Argonauts (2-5) at Blue Bombers (3-3)

Kickoff: Friday, August 1st, 7:30 p.m. CDT; Princess Auto Stadium
TV/Streaming: TSN 1/3;  CFL+
Radio: 680 CJOB (pre-game begins at 5:30 p.m. CDT); Play-by-play: Derek Taylor/analyst: Doug Brown; Sirius XM (ch. 167)

Scene Setter

So many faces have changed, so many miles have faded in the rear-view mirror and yet so much seems so familiar right now for the Winnipeg Blue Bombers.

They’ve fallen into a hole of late with a three-game losing streak to fall to 3-3 — eerily similar to last summer and the club’s 0-4/2-6 start — and now must dig out of it to get back into the high-rent district of the Canadian Football League’s West Division with the Saskatchewan Roughriders and Calgary Stampeders.

And that arduous climb begins Friday against the Toronto Argonauts with six confirmed changes to the starting lineup including Chris Streveler at quarterback, Joey Corcoran at receiver, Eric Lofton at left tackle on offence with Redha Kramdi switching to safety, Jamal Parker, Jr. moving to corner and Michael Griffin now the starting dime back.

To that end, two conflicting narratives are coming into play out this week — namely can this bunch lean on last year’s experiences to pull out of the nosedive or with the number of changes does this team need to write its own history?

“It’s both,” said veteran defensive end Willie Jefferson. “It is a totally different team, but we have experienced it before taking a couple losses back-to-back. Now we’ve just got to settle in and get it right. Coach O’Shea said it after the game, ‘We’re not going to wait until we hit rock bottom to start to try and get it right.’ We need to get it right right now so we can go on a roll and go 1-0 every week.

“Nobody’s down. Nobody in this locker room is counting it out or ‘This is over.’ We just want to get to the next game. Toronto is the next game, and we have it here at home in front of another 30,000 fans. We just want to get into the win column and then next week we’ll try and do that again. We’re just telling (the younger guys) to put their heads down and follow us. We’ve got our hand out, just hold onto it and we’re going to get you out of this and once we get out of this and on the other side of this, fall in line.”

“At the end of the day everyone has their own journey as to how to get success or build upon success,” added receiver Nic Demski. “Yeah, it’s a new team, but the vets that have been in here have been in this position before. I guarantee the other guys (newer players) from other teams have been in this position before. At one point in your career everything wasn’t going as planned.

“Adversity is what makes you who you are today. Adversity is going to be the biggest part of your story, the biggest part of your journey to success. We’ve just got to stick together, play our brand of football, get back on track, and things will go the right way for us. We’ve just got to harp on the details and focus on the small things.”

Critically important for the Blue Bombers now is to clean up three massively important issues:

1 The Turnover Crisis

It’s simply impossible to turn the ball over as many times as the team has in the last three weeks — a whopping 17 in total — and expect to win. As the head coach said a couple times this week, each turnover has its own causes and therefore must be examined individually. Still, included in that horrendous number are seven turnovers on third downs as the club desperately attempted to rally after falling behind, eight interceptions — including three Pick-6s — and two fumbles in the last game, one by Trey Vaval and the other by Brady Oliveira.

“I mean, nine times out of 10 — no matter if you’re playing at this level or high school or college — the team that wins the turnover battle usually wins the game,” said cornerback Terrell Bonds. “Coach Osh always harps on us to play turnover free offensively and defence taking the ball away. That’s something we’ve got to continue to practice and take into the games.”

2 The Explosion Plays Against

Winnipeg’s defence has been ravaged by big plays whether it’s through the air or the occasional run along the ground. Some numbers we used earlier this week in Upon Further Review which bear repeating here: in the recent three-game slide the Stampeders and Argonauts have have converted 37 of 65 second downs opportunities, or a 56.9 conversion rate. Just for comparison: in 2023 Winnipeg’s defence had the best second-down conversion numbers in the CFL at 41.6 percent; last year it was again tops in the league at 42.3 percent.

Even worse is this: over the last two games the Stamps and Argos have converted 17-of-28 second-and-seven-plus situations, for a whopping 60.7 percent conversion rate.

3 All The Other Stuff

We’re lumping a bunch of things into one grouping here with the jump in penalties, the inefficiency of the offence in the score zone, the inability to get ahead early which impacts Brady Oliveira’s usage, receivers helping out the quarterbacks, quarterbacks needing to make better decisions…

All of this has led to a calm approach by O’Shea & Co. in a practice week impacted severely by wildfire smoke. There have been stern words, most assuredly, but no tables flipped over in anger or decisions made without a deep dive into all the facts.

“By him not panicking sends a good message down to us that we’re all going to stick together — which we are in this locker room — and to get through adversity all you have to do is put your head down and work and that’s what we’re doing right now,” said Oliveira.

“Being here last year and seeing how we went 0-4 and everybody wrote us off… then we hit our stride, and we ended up being in the game we wanted to be in,” added Bonds. “This year we started off hot and now we’ve hit a lull. Once I think we get back on track, once we have one of those all-three phases wins, we should be able to get on a roll.”

THE LINEUP: The Blue Bombers depth chart features a whopping six changes this week as mentioned above with the biggest seeing Streveler making his second start of the season at QB for Zach Collaros, who has been moved to the one-game injured list. Terry Wilson will serve as the No. 2 pivot to Streveler, with rookie Chase Artopoeus dressing for the second time this season (including the opener) and serving as No. 3.

Corcoran, the rookie Canadian, will start at slotback over veteran Dillon Mitchell for Kody Case — who has been moved to the six-game injured list — and will be backed up by veteran Canadian and University of Manitoba product Gavin Cobb. Mitchell, interestingly, has been moved to the practice roster after spending the first chunk of this season on the one-game injured list. As well, with Stanley Bryant still out Eric Lofton will now start at left tackle for Micah Vanterpool, who made the last two starts on the left flank but has now also been moved to the one-injured list. The club has also activated RB Quinton Cooley — nicknamed ‘The Shuttle Bus’ — with Matthew Peterson moving to the practice roster.

The biggest change on defence has Kramdi moving from the dime spot to safety, with Parker, Jr. then moving from safety to cornerback where he’ll start for Marquise Bridges with Trey Vaval serving as the reserve DB and Griffin now the dime.

Also activated for more help/depth on defence is Canadian safety Jake Kelly and import linebacker Jonathan Jones, who will make his Blue Bombers debut after signing with the club as a free agent this winter but being stuck behind Kyrie Wilson. Off the roster to make room for Kelly is Canadian defensive tackle Collin Kornelson.

Collaros and Vanterpool join Bryant, long-snapper Mike Benson, RB/KR Peyton Logan, and DT Tanner Schmekel on the one-game injured list. The six-game injured list includes Case, LB Lane Novak, WR Dalton Schoen, DB Enock Makonzo and DT Jamal Woods.

FULL DEPTH CHART