Upon Further Review | B.C. 35 Wpg 19

It was Brady Oliveira who used the term first inside a muted and stunned Winnipeg Blue Bombers locker room after their complete meltdown in Thursday’s loss to the B.C. Lions.

And then Nic Demski spit out essentially the exact same words, followed by a handful of others. Lumping all their answers together their responses all had the same theme:

“It’s all a blur.”

That’s one way to describe the Blue Bombers loss to the Lions. Probably the most polite way, too, for most in Bomberland who witnessed it would surely add a few curses to that, because the fourth-quarter collapse of the guys in blue and gold — again, on home turf — was, yes, ‘a blur’ but it was also shocking, frustrating, discouraging, appalling, alarming, ugly, maddening and cut and paste your own descriptor here.

“We fell apart. We didn’t play good football,” said Demski. “First half we put together some drives but, again, we’ve got to do a better job of scoring touchdowns. Second half… we fell apart and it slipped away.”

What made it all such a blur was how quickly it slipped away.

Say what you will about the Blue Bombers conservative approach offensively — there was no risk in the game in an effort to not turn the ball over while facing a rookie quarterback — but it did have them in a position to close this one out when it mattered. And what happened instead was an epic collapse.

Cover your eyes here as we revisit some of the gory details…

First, the Blue Bombers led 16-10 heading into the fourth quarter and after the teams traded field goals, held a 19-13 lead with 6:10 remaining. If they had held, the narrative today would be about the team’s pedestrian effort in improving to 5-3.

Instead, most people in the locker room, the 31,509 who watched in person left the building asking the same question: ‘What the (bleep) was that?!

The Blue Bombers were out-scored 25-3 in the fourth as the Lions rumbled for 206 yards rushing — all part of a record 377 yards along the ground — and had four explosion plays including TD runs of 58 and 35 yards by Zander Horvath.

Kaiden Salter, B.C.’s rookie pivot making his first start, was 4-of-4 in the fourth for 70 yards and a 24-yard TD strike to Jermaine Jackson.

The Lions ran 15 plays in the fourth quarter, got three touchdowns, a field goal and a two-point convert. The only negative play was a Jake Ceresna sack that forced B.C. into that field goal.

All totalled, the Lions had 262 yards of net offence in the final frame. And the 377 yards rushing by the Lions was both a team record for them and a team record for most surrendered along the ground by the Bombers, one that had stood since 1956.

There’s more on the 377, for context:

-It’s the most yards rushing surrendered by a team since the Blue Bombers had 393 yards along the ground in a win over B.C. on August 21st, 2009 — that’s the night Fred Reid established a new Winnipeg record with 260 yards rushing.

“Any time those massive runs take place you’ve got more than one error — it’s not a one-on-one miss,” said head coach Mike O’Shea. “It’s usually a combination of two, probably three, errors or a missed tackle and a couple of errors.

“Those big runs, especially near the end, we’re just not where we’re supposed to be. It’s a combination, I imagine, of guys being tired near the end and also trying too hard, which is a bad combination.

“They were out there for a bit. I don’t know what the time of possession was (the Bombers actually had more time of possession overall at 31:55, but the Lions held it for 8:34 in the fourth) but I imagine that’s it. As soon as you get tired you stop communicating, you stop thinking and start missing and start squeezing the stick too hard and try to make the stop instead of just making the play.”

ICYMI, here is our Game Recap from Thursday night:

Game Recap | B.C. 35 Wpg 19

And what follows is this week’s edition of UPON FURTHER REVIEW…

THREE NUMBERS WHICH JUMPED OUT AFTER… a second glance at the stats package, which can be found here:

1 The Lions cranked out that 262 yards of net offence in the final quarter and, at the same time, the Blue Bombers offence bogged down.

Winnipeg’s first series in the fourth saw the club put together a seven-play 30-yard drive that ended in a 49-yard Sergio Castillo field goal that put them up 19-13. In that drive, Dru Brown was injured on a seven-yard run, but Taylor Elgersma also completed a pass to Tim White to help put the team into field goal range.

After that, the Blue Bombers then gave up a sack and threw an incompletion for a quick two-and-out with the next possession featuring a sack and an Elgersma fumble before another possession — with Winnipeg then down 35-19 — ending with a turnover on downs.

Add it all up and while the Lions outscored Winnipeg 25-3 and had 262 yards net offence, the Blue Bombers had 37 yards of net offence and two turnovers. That, in a nutshell, represents the meltdown.

2 The Blue Bombers allowed just 99 yards passing — Salter was 7-of-15 for 96 yards and a TD, while Keon Hatcher threw for the two-point convert on a slick play in the fourth. Interestingly, 56 of Salter’s 96 yards came on two completions — a 32-yards strike to Hatcher and the 24-yard TD toss to Jackson, both in the fourth quarter.

3 Another disturbing, big-picture stat: Winnipeg is now just 1-4 at home after posting a league-best 7-2 mark at Princess Auto Stadium last season and going 56-14 from 2017 through last year.

The Blue Bombers have now lost at home by margins of 10, five, 22 and 16 points.

“Uncharacteristic, man,” said Oliveira. “We’re supposed to win at home. We have such a great track record of winning at home and it’s letting down our great fan base.

“They’re the greatest fans in the league and they’re still there continuing to support us even when things are going bad. It’s really a pleasure and an honour, the fact that we get to play in front of the best and loudest fans every single game here at Princess Auto Stadium and they’re still sticking with us through the good and the bad.

“It was loud in there tonight and we just wish the outcome was different for them because they come and support us win or loss and spend their hard-earned money to watch us play. We’ve got to be better for them. We’ve got to entertain; we’ve got to score points as an offence. We’ve got to finish and we didn’t do enough of that.”

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 Thursday’s loss, check out the condensed game here: