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News June 21, 2026

“We got hit in the mouth. Now it’s about how well we respond.”

Tony Jones and the Blue Bombers hope to tighten up on defence, especially against the run; photos by Cameron Bartlett

@EdTaitWFC

They took some shots — a series of jabs, crosses, hooks and uppercuts — and have had almost two weeks to deal with the pain, heal from it and then come up with some plans to counter-punch.

And the timing of the bye week might not have been more perfect for the Winnipeg Blue Bombers defence, what with the unbeaten Edmonton Elks and heavy hitting running back Justin Rankin about to climb into the ring against them next for Thursday’s home date at Princess Auto Stadium.

Rankin, FYI, leads the Canadian Football League in rushing after just two games with 281 yards and a stellar 8.9-yards per carry average. He’s already scored three times in the Elks’ 2-0 start and has added 10 catches for 145 yards.

This matchup for the Blue Bombers comes after the Calgary Stampeders and Hamilton Tiger-Cats each rushed for 171 yards in Winnipeg’s first two starts of 2026, including a 112-yard effort by Dedrick Mills of the Stamps, with Larry Rountree III rumbling for 124 yards in the loss to the Tabbies.

Defensive end Kydran Jenkins at practice this weekend

“You sit on that for a little bit over the bye week,” said linebacker Tony Jones. “And you’re not necessarily thinking about the good plays you made, it’s the ones you left on the field or messed up. You sit on that for a few days and then after that you’re looking forward to the next game and how we can beat a good team in Edmonton.

“As a whole defence we weren’t on point or as sharp as we need to be. We know what we have and what we bring to the table when all 12 of us are clicking at an elite level as far as communicating and doing whatever our job is. I just felt it was more so dull than anything. Kudos to them — they came out ready to play the game, but we all felt we weren’t as sharp as we needed to be. We’re still trying to play elite as one. On defence, all it takes is for one person to hop out of a gap or miss an assignment and it can create an explosion play and then that momentum change is huge. You make it 10 times harder on yourselves.

“That’s why we’re fired up to get back out here. It’s almost like a learning curve.

“We know how we can play. We got hit in the mouth. Now it’s about how well we respond.” — Tony Jones

The 100-yard games by Mills and Rountree III against Winnipeg’s defence marked the first time they have given up triple-digit rushing totals to a single back since Weeks 14-15 of 2024. The backs that hurt them then? Rankin, who had 157 yard and 109 yards rushing against the Blue Bombers defence. In his four career games against Winnipeg, he has posted three 100-yard games and holds an 8.3-yard average.

Hello.

Jake Ceresna

“Great talent and he really works at being a good teammate,” began defensive tackle Jake Ceresna, who played with Rankin in Edmonton. “He’s a phenomenal athlete and the offence really runs through him. We’ve got to make sure we do our best job to contain him and make sure he doesn’t get those big explosion plays.

“No defence wants to give up 100 yards rushing. None at all. And they’re going to continue to run against us until we can show we can stop it. That’s a big emphasis is showing we can stop the run and we can plug it up. We’re really focussing on that this week.”

Winnipeg’s defence allowed a league-low 34 touchdowns against last season and ranked third in lowest net offence against (344.3 yards), second in passing yards allowed (261.4) and third in yards rushing (94.1).

And the Blue Bombers were just 2-7 in the nine games their opponents eclipsed the century mark in rushing last year. Head coach Mike O’Shea said this weekend the mistakes made on defence can be “solved with one or two words of communication before the snap — just checking in with guys to make sure they know what they’re assignment is so they could execute at a higher level.”

As for the matchup with the Elks — and corralling Rankin — O’Shea had one serious answer and one not so much after Sunday’s practice.

“They’re good,” he said of the the Elks. “They’re dialled in, they’ve got a couple wins and I’m sure they’re feeling confident and they should. Rankin is one of the best players in the CFL. I don’t know what his yards per play is but I’m sure it’s extremely high whether he’s running the ball or catching the ball out of the backfield. He’s making a lot of people miss and when he does that, he’s got enough speed to run by guys and he’s got enough shift that he’s very hard to bring down.”

And how do you contain that, he was asked?

“The usual,” he said. “You play 13 guys. Hopefully they don’t notice.”

“We were just shooting ourselves in the foot out there (against Hamilton) by not being where we were supposed to be and not executing the call,” added Ceresna.  When we rewatched the film, it was really us not doing our jobs and if we were in the right places we’d have played a lot better. We know that. We know we’ve got to be more assignment sound.

“It’s just getting used to a defence. It’s trusting that the guy next to you is going to be where he is supposed to be so I don’t have to worry about trying to make his play; I just have to do my job. And if we all do that, all 12 of us doing our job, we’ll be OK. It’s like we’re trying to overdo things and when we do that, we create holes and seams.”

QUOTABLE: Ceresna will be facing his old squad on Thursday. We started to ask him if he gets fired up for a matchup like that before recalling he’s also suited up for Ottawa and Toronto and then suggesting it would be exhausting if that happened before every game he played against his old squads.

“Yeah, no kidding,” said Ceresna with a chuckle. “All of a sudden it’d be like Kevin Glenn or Shawn Lemon and you’ve got seven or eight teams you’re getting more fired up for. Every damn week you’ve got someone to get fired up for.

“For me, it’s just another game. I don’t try to get into that. It’s just stay with my process and it’s another team this week and another team to prepare for. I really just try to be where my feet are.”

OUCH REPORT: The latest from Sunday’s practice session: