Nash00

Again, he made the plays he needed to when the situation arose. We scored TD's on 2 of the first 3 drives. Game was over effectively at that point. Nichols wasn't great in the 2nd half, he didn't need to be. He was very efficient in the first half, you can't really argue otherwise. Good team win all around. Nichols was bad in the 2nd half and the D gave up 300+ yards to Masoli who was hot garbage all night. The teams were the real superstars.

This statement is based on the assumption that Wiecek watches the games and/or knows what he is talking about. I would argue otherwise on both counts.

I'm not suggesting that MOS shouldn't be breaking down the 2nd half and making corrections, absolutely he should and he will. He isn't going to pat Nichols on the back and say he played a perfect game when he didn't. I'm saying as a fan, I look at it as we took advantage of our opportunities in the 1st half and protected the ball in the 2nd. The turnovers didn't just fall into our laps either, we have to make the plays when they come. You referenced earlier the dropped INT from Hamilton, well CJ Roberts didn't drop his chance and we scored. Loffler didn't drop his and we scored off that too, ditto the Cole forced fumble. Plays made by the D led to points by the offense. Fan perception has no bearing on team performance, I'm fairly certain.

I thought we seemed to get away from what was working in the first half, short to intermediate throws on first down and getting the ball out quick. We also had success with hurry-up in the first half as well. You aren't going to run hurry-up with a lead in the second half but the quick hitters seemed to stop. We could have ran a few screens to Harris too but he was in pass pro for those longer passes.

Not suggesting you are actively wanting the team to lose because of Willy, more so genuinely interested to see what the priority was. You mentioned that you were happy Willy was exposed. Willy has started under 30 games in his career, that equates to less than 2 full seasons. He has shown flashes but injuries have derailed his career. Nichols has had similar opportunities in Edmonton with similar results and the talent he had to work with in Edmonton eclipses what Willy had here by a mile. I think Nichols should be the starter here until his play warrants otherwise, but to say Willy isn't a winner based on 30 games is premature. Who was Willy throwing to compared to the rest of the league? How about his o-line play? It's generally accepted that both those issues have dogged this team since Willy got here, doesn't that affect the bottom line?

That is probably the most frustrating aspect of the 2nd half. The major fouls are all things that can be controlled and it was a lack of discipline across the board. Bryant's penalty took us from 2nd and medium to 2nd and long and if it wasn't for Maher not knowing how to loft a kickoff the Westerman penalty could have had larger implications. Those are easy things to clean up and they need to be. We won't always have a 26 point cushion.

He still needed to make the play on a tip drill against a sure handed receiver in Fantuz. Full mark to Loffler for awareness and outworking Fantuz for the ball. No argument on Fogg though, he was brilliant. (He does need to work on those hands though)

Based on the wording of this post, you seem to take as much if not more joy in Willy failing than the Bombers winning. You even mention it first before the fact the team is winning. Again this logic drives me nuts. If Nichols were to be injured next game and Willy comes in and rides the wave of momentum we have right now and plays well, will you be as satisfied or will that damper the excitement? Willy may not be a world beater but he hardly seems like the kind of player you would actively wish failure upon ON YOUR OWN TEAM. Save the vitriol for domestic abusers like Rainey in BC or when Greg Hardy ends up playing in Sask.

Meh, I'm not going to moan about lost opportunities in a game we won by 26 points. Maybe there will be a time when it matters but no point labouring over hypotheticals. Willy was put in similar situations this year with less results, and I am a Willy fan. You can argue he didnt have the best circumstances in the first few weeks but can anyone say what Nichols had to work with last night was ideal? I don't understand why the fanbase has to be fractured over the starting QB. If Justin freakin' Medlock is the starting QB and we win I don't care. Wins are rare in these parts, hopefully one day we can dissect every missed opportunity but right now I'm going to enjoy the win for what it was.

The drive where Mayo scored was a 67 yard drive.

There was one really nice catch by Tolliver on the sidelines where Fogg played perfectly and forced him out of bounds. I didn't think he had a chance in hell of catching that ball but sure enough he did. One of those ones where you have to tip your cap to the WR. Masoli was extremely lucky he didn't have more INT's. The one where he threw off his back foot to the sidelines to Watt I believe where Johnson and Frederick(?) were in the area should have been picked.

Yeah the last few plays leading to the half they panned the Ticat sideline and those guys looked defeated. They had nothing going for them at that point, halftime was the best thing that happened to them. One has to wonder now, does this get Winnipeg any respect across the league as a legitimate threat? Last week in Edmonton, no one expected us to win and that was warranted. Not only did we win but we did so in convincing fashion. This week, we had 3 new receivers in and hadn't beat HAM at home, hadn't won 2 in a row since 2014 etc. and we blew the doors off of them. This one was over after Masoli's first throw. So after pounding two pre-season favourites back to back, does that buy us a little respect?

Me as well. I guess his rationale is that Collaros will be back next week so let Masoli get as many reps as he can before he is relegated back to the bench? Maybe he thought Masoli could pull of a miracle in back-to-back weeks and by the time they realized it wasn't going to happen there was no use putting Mathews in?

Banks was dancing and going backwards all night. I didn't hear Rod Black say Speedy B once, how refreshing.

Yeah I agree. I remember when Don Matthews used to run it up on us and as much as I hated him for it, you are professionals. Don't want them to score? Stop them. I can understand Fantuz was probably more frustrated than anything else and his frustrations manifested into the punt, but the backup QB who scores on the 1-YD sneak to bring the game to within 3 TD's? Check yo-self, son.

I`ll agree to disagree on this one. Maybe my eyes are fooling me but he always seemed to be getting decent yardage on punt returns.

The drive where we kicked the FG to go up 37-11 comes to mind here. 2nd and short and we run a toss to Harris that was doomed from the start. We stacked the left side and I was really hoping we would run a corner route to the endzone or at least use levels to force the DB to pick and worst case we find the guy underneath for the 1st down.

Maybe I'm in the minority here but I think McDuffie has done a nice job of speeding past first contact and getting upfield. Don't get me wrong, Fogg has been outstanding in relief but I think McDuffie is still a good use of the DI spot.

I didn't see it. I think that the refs are being reactive on some of these occasions. They see a big play and they look for anything at all to warrant throwing the flag. Knox was guilty of looking like he might have done something so there goes the flag. I think a ref would sooner call back a good return than let one score when there actually was a hold/illegal block.

Sure they COULD. But for whatever reason refs like to call the ticky tack stuff on returns, and then the league has to add new rules to allow the returners to score more often. There's an easy fix in there somewhere.

The holding call last night yes, but the hands to the face call on Green was obvious. Just a stupid decision on that one.

Get Eric from BomberBuzz who PDF'ed every play for the Bombers/Stamps game a while back to do it!

I'm not familiar with the CBA but does the commish have Goodell-like authority to impose whatever he feels like for fines or is it mandated by the CBA? It would be nice to see any illegal hit to the QB to be subject to a possible heavy fine/suspension.

MOS the special teams coordinator is no slouch. Once we let Tracey go, the performance on teams have been night and day different.

It's also a bad look on the Riders in general. For a team that brands itself as "Canada's team"* it doesn't reflect well on them to not employ the correct number of Canadians. *Maybe it's just Rod Pedersen, but he's an employee so that counts.