The Blue Bombers improved to 4-2 with a crazy OT win over Ottawa Sunday night; photo by Sam Calvert
They were the scenes and pictures many would have thought absolutely impossible earlier Sunday night — the Winnipeg Blue Bombers celebrating inside the visitors’ locker room at TD Place Stadium in Ottawa — as the mistakes piled up and with the offence sputtering.
Yet there was head coach Mike O’Shea hustling the players off the field and into a raucous locker room after a wild and wacky 36-34 overtime win over the Ottawa Redblacks before giving his quick victory speech to the charges with his message traditionally punctuated with a ‘hoo-rah’ — or words to that effect.
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And there was Dru Brown, too, having helped lead the team to a comeback victory in his second straight start and against the team that traded him less than a month ago amidst criticisms of his arm strength and the suggestion his situation — having lost his starting gig in Ottawa to Jake Maeier — had become a distraction.
This one meant something.#ForTheW pic.twitter.com/Xj9UjksxcC
— Winnipeg Blue Bombers (@Wpg_BlueBombers) July 20, 2026
Those scenes captured by our social media team provide just a teeny-tiny snapshot of what a Blue Bombers post-game locker room looks and sounds like after a victory. And as yours truly watched it all unfold before getting to work gathering some sound bites, so much of what happened prior to those moments served as a reminder of how razor-thin the margin is in the Canadian Football League.
Yes, the Blue Bombers got an all-important ‘W’, the club’s third straight to improve to 4-2. Yet, the RedBlacks had a ton of opportunities to squeeze the life out of the Blue Bombers earlier — three failed attempts from inside Winnipeg’s one and two-yard lines and an interception in the end zone after that — but failed to seal the deal in the critical moments by dropping potential interceptions, allowing Brown to find a rhythm and then leaving a couple of receivers wide open in the OT mini-games.
Still, a win is a win is a win and as close as this one was to flipping in Ottawa’s favour, Winnipeg made more plays in the fourth quarter and OT to exit the capital with another crazy ‘W.’ As O’Shea said afterward: “Some guys made some big plays when it mattered; when it really mattered.”
“We didn’t come out in the first half and play our brand of football,” said veteran receiver Nic Demski. “It was like a reset going into the second half where we needed to play to our standards and play better football and we did that as a collective.
“We’ve got to find that all the time. We can’t wait until the second half. But it also does show the resilience of this team when we know we’re never really truly out of the game until the clock says zero-zero-zero.
“It’s a great feeling to get this thing done and comeback and get the win.”
“I feel like everyone talks about complementary football, but Winnipeg embodies that,” added Brown. “I appreciate that the defence and special teams, when the offence is lacking, they know that we will eventually figure it out and they keep that belief. That’s what good teams do.
“Hats off to them (the defence and special teams), that’s three weeks in a row where they’ve played really well and they’re really coming into their own. They’re a challenge to go against every day in practice, so it’s what you expect but they fought their ass off all night and obviously they should get a lot of credit.”
ICYMI, here is our Game Recap from Sunday night:
And what follows is this week’s edition of UPON FURTHER REVIEW…
AN INTERESTING ASPECT TO THE ‘W’… even though Zach Collaros was on the trip — he didn’t dress — his fingerprints are also on the outcome. It turns out the veteran QB was involved in scheming those two two-point conversion scores in OT, the first to Pokey Wilson, the second and final one to Gavin Cobb.
“We have a bunch of stuff where we’re moving and grooving with motion and trying to confuse them for maybe three yards,” said Brown. “It was something that was really well schemed up — one of them Zach drew up during the week. One of them, I believe, Zach drew up a couple weeks ago and we had been repping it and we had run versions of it.
“At the end of the day, those plays just come down to guys being in the right spots, us being able to hold and being on the right people upfront and that’s what we did.”
THREE NUMBERS WHICH JUMPED OUT AFTER… a second glance at the stats package, which can be found here:
1 Brown finished the night 27-of-43 for 317 yards with TD strikes to Demski and Wilson, but it was his numbers late that really popped. The Blue Bombers trailed 26-9 heading into the fourth quarter following a Brett Lauther field goal, and from that point until overtime Brown was an eye-popping 14-of-16 for 181 yards and the two TDs as the Blue Bombers rallied.
“Great work ethic always; great composure always and then when it’s finally over, he’s only human,” said O’Shea. “You’re going to have some elation, some joy and his teammates are really happy for him because they understand how this week could go.
“You’re put under a lot of pressure; put under the microscope and asked a lot of questions you might not even want to answer but he handled himself like a pro. His teammates recognize that and they’re very happy for him.”
2 There were so many critical plays by the defence in the second half as Winnipeg outscored the RedBlacks 17-0 in the fourth quarter before OT.
Redha Kramdi and Tony Jones were in the right place to break up the last play of the game, Willie Jefferson added another sack and knockdown — his four sacks through six games is already more than the three he had all of last year — while Kyrie Wilson was part of the critical goal-line stop, Jake Kelly had his first career interception, Evan Holm had seven tackles and massive pass break up late in the game, Michael Fletcher chipped in with his first career sack, Michael Griffin II was sensational… and so on and so on,
“I’m happy we won, but the thing that’s p—ing me off is if we stick to our rules and play what we see — now, we’re not robots and are going to make mistakes — but we can’t take turns making mistakes,” said Kramdi. “Someone has to say, ‘No’ and make a play to force stops.
“It’s amazing what happens when we hold each other accountable, when the coaches hold us accountable — JY (defensive coordinator Jordan Younger) was pretty heated at the half as he should have been because, excuse my language, but we played s—-y football.
“A lot for us to learn from that game but it’s also good for us down the road winning tight games and in overtime like this. I’m happy we stuck together and got it done.”
3 Jones had eight tackles on Sunday he’s already up to 38 on the season. He had 102 last year and is certainly on pace right now to crack the century mark for defensive tackles in consecutive seasons. The last Blue Bombers player to do that was Barrin Simpson with 110 in 2006 and 112 in 2007.
“When we were down 14 it wasn’t panic mode,” he said. “It was, ‘Let’s just go out here and get one stop at a time, give our offence the ball and let it all play out.’
“We strongly believe in us. We call it ‘we-fence’ instead of defence.”
AND FINALLY… for those of you who have read this far, thank you. And for those who missed the game or want to relive all the highs and lows of Sunday’s win, check out the condensed game here:
