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News June 26, 2026

Game Recap | Edm 23 Wpg 18

Trey Vaval returning a kick in Thursday's 23-18 loss to the Edmonton Elks; photos by Cameron Bartlett

@EdTaitWFC

They are hard lessons to learn, Painful ones, too. And as a result, the Winnipeg Blue Bombers will be sporting the scars from a series of mistakes — many of them as grotesque gaffes straight from a football horror film — for the next week or so.

The Blue Bombers dropped their second straight home game in front of another capacity crowd of 32,343 at Princess Auto Stadium Thursday night, falling 23-18 to the Edmonton Elks in a game that was absolutely all over the map for the home side.

Yet, having said all that, after trailing 17-0 late the first half, the Blue Bombers did get up off the mat to take an 18-17 lead in the fourth quarter, before the Elks got a late Cody Fajardo-to-T.J. Luther TD with 53 seconds left — and the subsequent last-second gasp ending at Edmonton’s 11-yard line as time expired.

And so, the main takeaway here — the hard, painful lesson mentioned at the top — is this: it’s virtually impossible to walk, let alone put one foot in front of the other in a full sprint, after blasting off your toes with a series of self-inflicted wounds.

“First and foremost, you can’t turn the football over,” said quarterback Zach Collaros, who finished 24-of-33 for 290 yards with TD strikes to Tim White and Brady Oliveira in the loss. “You’ve got to play a clean game as we always talk about and stay on the football field, as we always talk about.

“Our defence, I thought, was unbelievable all night with respect to us (the offence) putting them in bad situations and them battling, giving up three points (after a fumble), a goal-line stand, causing turnovers — they battled all night long.

“We have to be better for them, especially for field position.”

The Blue Bombers had six fumbles in the game, losing three, gave up three sacks, missed two field goals… and still had a chance to author an unorthodox victory before Fajardo & Co. pieced together a 10-play 57-yard drive that took 3:29 off the clock late for a win and the Elks first 3-0 start since 2017.

Winnipeg, meanwhile, is now 1-2.

“We made way too many mistakes,” said Oliveira, who finished with 77 rushing yards on 13 carries and six catches for 45 yards and the score through the air. “And then when we turn it on a little bit it was too late.

“Again, this happened to us a few weeks ago, too (in the win over Calgary). We hurt ourselves, shoot ourselves in the foot, too many mistakes and then we finally start playing some good football in the second half there’s just not enough time.

“Offensively today we just made way too many mistakes. Our defence did what they needed to do to allow us to win that game and we just didn’t do enough, which sucks, because there’s a high standard in this room, especially for our offence, and we didn’t make enough plays.

“… It simply just wasn’t good enough. It came down to the wire again and we’ve got to be better. Another sold out crowd and we want to go out there and put together good performances and win a game at home, man.

“Yeah, I’m pretty rattled about this one.”

More on the Blue Bombers second straight home loss from our view in the press box…

INSTANT TAKEAWAYS

Some key takeaways to munch on in the immediate aftermath:

-One of the main focal points for the Blue Bombers heading into the week was finding a solution to shore up their run defence after giving up 171 yards in each of the first two games and facing CFL rushing leader Justin Rankin this week.

Rankin was a force in the first have with 95 yards on 11 carries, but in the second half was limited to 11 yards on four rushes.

-Winnipeg took some huge hits to the lineup during the game, with Pokey Wilson injured while trying to track down Brock Mogensen after he scooped up a Oliveira fumble. Mogensen then lateraled to Tyrell Ford, who was knocked out of bounds by Collaros at the Winnipeg three.

The Blue Bombers defence then forced the Elks into a field goal in what could have been a significant moment if the home side had held on to win. Wilson was in civvies later in the game, for what it’s worth.

As well, defensive tackle Jake Ceresna also left the game with an undisclosed injury. Blue Bombers head coach Mike O’Shea had no updates on either player after the game.

-The Blue Bombers announced just prior to the game that guard Pat Neufeld was moved to the reserved list due to a personal matter. Tyler Elsbury slid over from centre to guard to replace him, with Tui Eli stepping into the middle and Ethan Vibert added in Neufeld’s place.

-The Castillo misses came from 49 and 50 yards away and he did recover to hit a 53-yarder in the third quarter. And as much as those kicks were from distance, they have been sort-of automatic for the veteran kicker and the points left on the field were critical in the end.

THE OPENING 58 MINUTES AND CHANGE

The Blue Bombers first half, well, 58 minutes and 39 seconds of it, could best be described as sloppy. Or atrocious. Disconcerting, astonishing, unacceptable and shocking would also fit.

Winnipeg trailed 17-0 after spitting the ball up all over the park but found some magic in the final 81 seconds when Collaros pieced together a solid drive that led to the White TD with four seconds left. That momentum carried into the second half as Edmonton’s first eight possessions in the final 30 minutes featured seven punts and a Rankin fumble.

All that was stained by the late TD drive that gave the Elks the ‘W.’

“We adjusted well and played that second half really well against the run and the pass and we were getting a lot of pressure, too,” said defensive tackle Cam Lawson. “But we have to play like that right from the start.

“I don’t know what to attribute that to. That’s a film thing. It could be a play call thing; it could be mental errors; it could be both.

“But we’ve got to bite down now. Big game to play, big game to win going into Hamilton and playing and getting a win in their house to get us to .500 would be huge for us.”

BRAVO… ENCORE… ENCORE!: The Blue Bombers announced about an hour or so before kickoff they had sold every single ticket for a 16th consecutive game — extending what is already a club record for capacity crowds. Merci beaucoup to all the Blue Bombers faithful who continue to make game night so special in south Winnipeg.

Take a bow, Bomber Nation.

The game ended with the Blue Bombers last drive ending with a pass to Nic Demski at the Elks’ 11, but the critical moment came in the game-winning drive before that by Edmonton capped by the Fajardo-t0-Luther heroics.

In that drive Fajardo went six-for-seven for 58 yards, including the TD.

Six — as in the number of fumbles the Blue Bombers put on the ground, three of them lost. Those three gaffes led to 10 Edmonton points.

The Blue Bombers are in Hamilton for a rematch with the Tiger-Cats on Sunday, July 5th with a scheduled start of 6 p.m. CDT.