New names, same Bombers

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 24/10/2014 (3463 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

They changed the CEO, the GM, the head coach and the starting quarterback.

But the net result of all that housecleaning over the last year is just more of the same old — a Winnipeg Blue Bombers team that will watch next month’s CFL playoffs from the sofa.

With their backs to the wall, the bumbling Bombers were eliminated from playoff contention with a 28-23 loss to the B.C. Lions at Investors Group Field Saturday night and will miss the playoffs for the third year in a row — and fifth time in six years.

The loss was Winnipeg’s eighth in a row — and 10th in their last 11 — and drops their season record to 6-11, while the Lions improved to 9-7 and clinched a playoff spot.

With that, a team once 5-1 and the class of the West Division is now effectively done for the year, with the only question remaining to be answered being whether they can avoid ending their season on a nine-game losing streak next Saturday in Calgary.

Centre Steve Morley said after the game it was all hard to believe.

“I honestly thought this was our year. At the beginning of the year, I thought, ‘OK, this is the year we’re going to go over the mountain…’ ” said Morley.

“We came up short again. It sucks. The body hurts and it’s tough on the mind.”

How’d that happen?

The Bombers had leads of 14-13 at halftime and 17-13 at the end of the third quarter, but snatched defeat from the jaws of victory with an epic fourth-quarter collapse. With starter Kevin Glenn chased from the game with an injury, the Lions rallied behind backup John Beck for back-to-back touchdowns to outscore the Bombers 15-6 in the final frame and secure the playoff berth.

It was perhaps only fitting that in a season in which the poor play of the Bombers offensive line has proven to be this team’s undoing so many nights, they saved their worst for the most important game of the season, yielding 10 sacks to a ferocious B.C. pass rush.

Bombers QB Drew Willy took the blame for a few of those sacks on a night he was unusually indecisive with the ball. But at the end of the day, no one in pro football gives up 10 sacks in one game and wins.

“It’s extremely frustrating,” said Willy. “We wish we could have got this in front of our home crowd.”

With the 10 quarterback kills, the Bombers set a franchise record for sacks allowed in a season, at 70 and counting. The old record was 67.

Fast fact: the Hamilton Tiger-Cats gave up seven sacks in 1999. During the whole season.

Was anything good?

The once non-existent Bombers ground game showed some life for the second week in a row behind running back Paris Cotton, who finished with 131 yards and one TD on 16 carries.

The man Cotton replaced in the Bombers backfield a couple of weeks back — Nic Grigsby — made his debut in Hamilton on Saturday. He had six yards on six carries.

It was all cold comfort for Cotton. “There was nothing special I’ve done. Everyone in here played their ass off. We still didn’t get the ‘W’,” he said.

Attendance

The Bombers announced a crowd of 24,223 for their final home date of the 2014 season, bringing this year’s total attendance at Investors Group Field to 254,831.

That works out to an average crowd in 2014 of 28,315. That’s down significantly from the average crowd of 30,637 that attended Bombers games in 2013 during the club’s inaugural season at IGF.

Capacity at IGF is 33,234 but the Bombers sold out just twice in 2014 — both were for games against prairie rival Saskatchewan Roughriders.

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The Riders will not visit Winnipeg twice in a regular season again for three years.

A eight-game losing streak did serious damage to the Bombers at the gate in 2014, with the two worst crowds ever at IGF coming in the last two games. The Bombers drew an all-time low of 22,320 for a 33-23 loss to the Calgary Stampeders last weekend.

With Saturday night’s loss the Bombers finished the 2014 season 3-6 at home. They are 4-14 at IGF through two seasons.

paul.wiecek@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @PaulWiecek

Paul Wiecek
Reporter (retired)

Paul Wiecek was born and raised in Winnipeg’s North End and delivered the Free Press -- 53 papers, Machray Avenue, between Main and Salter Streets -- long before he was first hired as a Free Press reporter in 1989.

   Read full biography