Bombers, Argonauts seeking turnaround
Teams underperforming so far, but the season is young
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Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 17/07/2018 (2080 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.
When the curtain opened on the 2018 CFL season, few people would have imagined a Week 6 matchup between the Winnipeg Blue Bombers and Toronto Argonauts wrought by an air of desperation.
But the Bombers — who finished 12-6 a year ago, second only to the Calgary Stampeders for the best regular-season record in 2017 — and the defending Grey Cup champions the Argonauts — are off to slow starts this season and in need of getting out of a current rut.
Barring an unlikely tie when the two meet for the first game of a home-and-home series at BMO Field in Toronto on Saturday, only one team will be able to walk away victorious. A loss for either club would mean falling deeper into an early-season hole.
Winnipeg (2-3) is coming off a 20-17 loss to the B.C. Lions last weekend in which they squandered a 17-zip lead at halftime. The monumental collapse currently has the Bombers in last place in the West Division.
As for the Argonauts, nothing has been particularly easy this year. The team has only one win in four games. At 1-3, they, too, are looking up at their peers in the East standings.
Still, Bombers head coach Mike O’Shea said neither team should have their hand over the panic button.
“Neither team is desperate. We don’t ever talk like that, I don’t believe that,” he said. “Both teams want to win and both teams are preparing to win. Both are going to compete extremely hard, I’m sure, to get a win. I don’t think desperation creeps into it at all.”
Both teams have had to deal with injuries this season, including the loss of their starting quarterback. But while Bombers quarterback Matt Nichols has since returned from a right-knee injury that sidelined him the first three games, it’s unlikely future Hall of Famer Ricky Ray will be back for Toronto.
Ray suffered a serious neck injury midway through a Week 2 blowout loss against the Stampeders, and multiple reports suggest his season, and perhaps career, has come to an end. That leaves James Franklin, the high-profile signing by Toronto this off-season, to take over the controls.
Franklin spent his first three seasons in the CFL with the Edmonton Eskimos before a trade just prior to his contract expiring last year led to a new deal with Toronto. Asked if he felt any added pressure from being the guy most responsible for turning the season around, the 26-year-old Oklahoma native admitted he wasn’t feeling the pinch just yet.
“That’s something that I’ve really tried not to do too much. You don’t want to have a losing record and then, being the quarterback, who is seen as a natural leader and a big face on the team, there is a lot of pressure from other people,” Franklin said. “You can just feel that, but you really try not to think about it and take it one game at a time.”
The Bombers have certainly enjoyed their share of winning in recent years. Through the 2016 and 2017 seasons, Winnipeg had a combined record of 23-13, though each of those years ended with an early exit in the West semifinal.
Victories have been harder to come by this season; Winnipeg has yet to win in consecutive weeks.
The Bombers also don’t have the luxury of playing in a weaker East Division and, once again, it’s shaping up to be another tight race in the West. Last year, Calgary led the group with a 14-4 record, while Winnipeg and Edmonton finished second and third, respectively, with identical 12-6 records. Saskatchewan earned the crossover spot with a mark of 10-8.
Calgary is unbeaten through four games this year, Edmonton is 3-2 and B.C. and Saskatchewan are both ahead of Winnipeg at 2-2. A loss to the Argonauts would make it that much harder to keep pace, especially with the schedule getting tougher as the season moves on.
Nichols doesn’t believe looking at the standings will do anyone any good in his locker room. The adversity they’re facing is also nothing new, he added, as the Bombers were able to rally from a 1-4 start in 2016 to finish 11-7.
Last year, in what were almost identical circumstances in Week 5, with the Lions clawing back in the fourth quarter to defeat the Bombers 45-42, Winnipeg went on to win the next five games.
“You always put enough pressure on yourself as a player that you want to go out and perform well and play good every single week and get wins. Adding that extra desperation-mentality, that’s not what’s going to help you get over the few bad games that we’ve had here,” Nichols said.
“Obviously, it’s not the start that we wanted, but it’s a long season. There’s a sense of urgency, I think. It’s not desperation in the way you’re going to go out and change the way you play, but obviously, you understand how important it is to get back to a winning record and being in good position come Labour Day, which is always the goal, to be in the hunt (by then).
“Every week is important in professional football. It’s not easy to win and that’s the way we attack it, whether you have a great record or a terrible record.”
jeff.hamilton@freepress.mb.ca Twitter: @jeffkhamilton
Jeff Hamilton
Multimedia producer
After a slew of injuries playing hockey that included breaks to the wrist, arm, and collar bone; a tear of the medial collateral ligament in both knees; as well as a collapsed lung, Jeff figured it was a good idea to take his interest in sports off the ice and in to the classroom.