Saskatchewan Roughriders defensive lineman Malik Carney (11) strips the ball from Winnipeg Blue Bombers quarterback Zach Collaros (8) during the first half of CFL football action in Regina, Sunday, Aug. 31, 2025. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Heywood Yu
A day later — a day after the string of curse words had come to a halt and blood pressures dropped back to normal following the Winnipeg Blue Bombers four-point loss in the Labour Day Classic — two options are now facing this team squarely in the mug:
1 Moan and groan about the mistakes, the penalties, the missed opportunities and second-guess some of the play-calling so much that the negativity feeds itself all week leading up to a rematch with the Saskatchewan Roughriders in Saturday’s Banjo Bowl.
Or…
2 Moan and groan about the mistakes, the penalties, the missed opportunities and second-guess some of the play-calling but use it as motivational fuel all week leading up to a rematch with the Roughriders in the Banjo Bowl.
“It’s not complicated,” began veteran receiver Nic Demski inside the Blue Bombers locker room at Mosaic Stadium Sunday night after the loss. “They made one or two more plays than us. Period.
“It was a battle for both teams right down to the wire. They’ve got a good team over there and we know we’ve got a good team, too. The best part about it is we know we’ve got a lot of fight in this room, and we battled right to the end.
“There’s always positives, always negatives that you can take out of a loss, of course, but the positive is we fought. I’m proud of that. We’ve got to fix some things to be on the winning side of it.”
The film study sessions won’t be pleasant this week, what with the eight penalties really costly, with two fumbles leading to a pair of Roughrider touchdowns, with a handful of sacks hurting the pass protection and meaning Zach Collaros took far too many shots, and with a vaunted ground game never really given an opportunity to get on track with just eight rushes and only five by workhorse Brady Oliveira.
And yet given all that — and that’s a lot of what-ifs — the Blue Bombers rallied from a two-touchdown deficit late and were in position to tie the game on a two-point conversion inside the final minute.
“We know we’re a good team in here, so we’re not surprised we played (the Roughriders) close,” said Demski. “There’s a bunch of pride on this team and we know we’ve got a good roster. We’ve got heart. We played right down to the end of this even with some bad bounces and mistakes — and don’t get me wrong, they had some, too — that’s the game of football.
“At the end of the day that was a great matchup against two great teams in the West. We’ve just got to find a way to clean some things up and come out on top of a game like this.”
Again, the Blue Bombers can have this loss burn negatively into the weekend, or have it fuel their own fire.
“You should play with a chip on your shoulder and a little anger and aggression. I’m pissed off. This group’s pissed off,” said Oliveira. “We work so damn hard, we were prepared well, and we fought to the end, so to not get a win is brutal.
“We’ve got to channel this energy, use as fuel in the next week and then we’ve got to go off.”
ICYMI, here’s our Game Recap story from Sunday’s loss in Regina:
And what follows is the rest of this week’s UPON FURTHER REVIEW…
THREE NUMBERS WHICH STOOD OUT… after a second glance at the stats package, which can be found here:
1 The five carries for Oliveira is a shocking and disturbing number and part of a perplexing offensive performance.
On the one hand, Collaros completed 26-of-37 for 326 yards with TDs to Nic Demski, Keric Wheatfall and Dalton Schoen. On the other, the team had just 25 yards rushing on just eight attempts.
Not including this year’s season opener in which he was injured on the first series and had only two carries, it was the lowest total lugging the ball for Oliveira since three carries in a game in mid-October 2022 in which the club had already secured top spot in the West and replaced him early with Johnny Augustine.
Credit the Roughriders defensive front for taking the run away early, but to abandon it as the club did raise eyebrows especially given the production he had in last week’s win over Montreal. Oliveira had one carry in the second half — a rush for eight yards and then a fumble — on a second-and-29 situation.
He did have five receptions, but on half of Winnipeg’s 16 possessions he didn’t have a touch as the Blue Bombers were boom or bust on offence, using the arm of Collaros for big chunks but then converting just 8-of-21 second-down situations.
“Probably every single person in this locker room has a number of plays they’d like to have back. That’s football,” said receiver Dalton Schoen, who had five catches for 58 yards and a TD on his return to the lineup. “As an offence we’ve got to be a lot better. I think we left ourselves in second and long way too much and that leads to a low conversion percentage on second down and then it’s really hard to win a game when you can’t put drives together.
“That being said, I thought we made a lot of great plays. I thought Zach made a lot of good throws — I mean, his throws to Wheat and to Demski were incredible — and then we pieced that drive together, ultimately we didn’t get the two-point conversion, but we stayed in the fight and gave ourselves a chance.”
2 There seemed to be some confusion on the two-point convert attempt which would have tied the game but instead resulted in a Tevaughn Campbell interception that was returned for a safety. The Blue Bombers offensive players were motioning at the coaches on the sidelines and almost took a time-count penalty before the attempt to Schoen.
Said Collaros: “I’ve just got to throw a better ball.”
Collaros was exceptional given the protection issues and lack of ground game and he led the late rally when everyone in the building was writing the obituary on the Blue Bombers.
Consider this, too: over the last two games Collaros has completed 53-of-68 (77.9 percent) for 589 yards with four touchdowns against one interception.
He also moved into third spot on the Blue Bombers all-time passing TD list with 122, behind only Dieter Brock (187) and Khari Jones (139); moved past Michael Reilly and Dieter Brock into 15th spot on the CFL’s all-time passing yardage list.
On the milestone front, Demski pulled in seven catches and is at 410 in his career as a Blue Bomber — four back of Clarence Denmark and a spot the franchise’s Top 5 all time behind Stegall (854), Murphy (573), Poplawski (549) and Edwards (469).
3 Winnipeg’s defence was vulnerable against the run, giving up 133 yards along the ground — 5.8 yards per game. That became an issue as the game went on with three Canadian defensive tackles dressed but Tanner Schmekel injured in the first half. He was spotted on crutches post-game, FYI.
Winnipeg moved Devin Adams to the practice roster for the LDC so he would be an option, as would Jamal Woods, also on the PR. Both are Americans, FYI.
HERE’S HEAD COACH MIKE O’SHEA… on the two first-half decisions that became talking points: settling for a 10-yard Sergio Castillo field goal on third and goal from the Saskatchewan two-yard line that put Winnipeg up 10-0 early and then the sack Collaros took late in the half on a second-and-inches from the Roughrider 35-yard line that resulted in a 50-yard attempt that sailed wide and meant no points and a 14-10 Rider lead at the intermission.
On the short field goal:
“We’re two yards… it’s third and two. They turned the ball over and we’re going to take points. All points are good points at that point. It puts us up 10-0. If we get it to the one, but not two.
“… This is a good team we’re playing against. It’s two yards vs. inches. There’s aggressiveness and there’s stupidity. It’s also at (certain) points in the game and what the score is.”
And on the late sack on second and inches:
“We’re second and one, inches, we’re going to be aggressive.”
AND FINALLY… thanks for reading this far and for those who have made it to the bottom and want to see the video evidence of the LDC loss, we have it here with the condensed game:
