TheSource

Getting punished physically now. Streveler time!

I know Ottawa is just treating this like a practice now, but they should really be going for 60. This could be their coming out party.

Bombers just playing for the stats in GARBAGE TIME since that fumble by Nichols. Not really playing in a way to seriously threaten to win this one.

There's your top Canadian in the league right there...

They area a bottom third team this year and have not shown they can beat the top third teams in the league yet. It remains to be seen if the team that Walters has assembled has the necessary talent to beat a good team.

How about 60?

Will Ottawa be able to put up 50 tonight?

Now THOSE are some talented receivers. It's the CFL you have to have guys with speed that go more than 10 yards down field.

Bombers getting destroyed in this one.

Nichols has never really had a good long ball, including previous years. Most of the time he comes up short, and when he is long enough, he just doesn't have the accuracy of a Mike Reilly, Trevor Harris, or BLM. Not sure if he is having mental issues though - it could equally be that the teams in the league just have his number now and/or have Lapo's number and know how his offence can be controlled. Bomber O has a huge weakness in that they can't go vertical down the field the way the good teams can.

At the most important position, Trevor Harris is a young star, while Nichols truly is a game manager because he does not have the arm or accuracy. Andrew Harris is better than Powell, but it is quite close. At receiver, the Ottawa receivers are better at every position by a long shot. On Defense, Bighill is better at LB, but after that, across the board Otttawa has better players at every position. Noel Thorpe only picks great players and knows how to use them.

Bombers on life support in this one... won't be long now until the defense is gassed Ottawa just has a better talent level on field than what the Bombers have amassed.

This is exactly how I view it. Yes, last game Bombers went deep perhaps more than they should, although I believe this was because Hamilton was playing man, staying close to the line and blitzing alot, which makes going deep a preferred option in that situation. Normally Bombers do not go deep enough so I hope they continue with more than just 2 attempts per game even if it does cause some 2 and outs, just don't go overboard with trying it on every series of downs. You have to have a deep game for a good balanced offence that is hard to stop and that is the one big flaw in Lapo's current system.

Yes It was.

At this stage we still cannot be sure 100% that the lack of productivity from Bowman was due to Bowman. In the offence that Lapo has been running they really don't target Bowman very much or send him down field more than 10 yards very often, and the same is true of Wolitarsky. That offence is more about sending out 3 or 4 running backs and/or short yardage receivers on every play. Harris and Demski get the ball 80% of the time and the only one going down field more than 10 yards is Adams, who they only target every once in a while as the token long ball attempt. This has its pros and cons in my opinion, but apparently, the majority of teams in the league still have trouble stopping it, and as long as its effective, it is all good. Regardless of the reason for lack of productivity, it is not a bad move to drop Bowman to save cap space, although I will point out that this reflects poorly on the off season efforts, and is another knock on Walters to go along with the Faith Ekakitie and Addison Richards debacles. I will still maintain my comments from before the start of this season that the verdict is still out on what Walters has been doing over the last 2 years. Are we on track to move forward, or regress? I think that will be decided over the next 8 weeks. It will be interesting to see if Kenbrell Thompkins has any better production than Bowman when he is inserted. If not, I'm more inclined to think that the lack of productivity at that position is by design in the Lapo offence, and not a shortcoming on any given player. If so, effectively two of the receivers are being used as decoys and blockers, not targets, which is pretty weird to see at the pro level.

Didn't get to see the game yet, but did see the highlights. General comments are: The D is playing well enough now to win some games and despite its flaws, Lapo's offence is capable of putting up enough points to win against most teams in the league. Andrew Harris is definitely the Bomber star, the key to the offence, and is good enough to still be effective even though every team in the league knows he is the key. The Oline is consistently good, and although I thought the DLine started slow this year, it seems to be coming on now.

Didn't get a chance to see the game today, but did watch the highlights and read the summary. Sounds like a very good day for the Bombers and Nichols shows that he is still the guy, if anyone was ever questioning that. Bombers need to follow this up with a sweep of Toronto in Winnipeg. Anything less will drop the team in the rankings generate more questions around whether they are as good as the last 2 years.

Could be. In as much as Lapo is creative and on most nights the Bomber O is good, the two weaknesses in his schemes seem to be that: 1) On most nights he doesn't use all the weapons in the offence and tends to overuse certain guys (Bowman seems to be that guy this year who doesn't see the ball while Demski is the guy being over-targeted) 2) He likes to go laterally on most plays too much and his offences don't take shots down the field enough Plenty of upside with Lapo, but for me those are the two bug drawbacks, and the reason why sometimes the Bomber offence looks terrible against certain teams who are good at taking away those things he likes to do.

Agreed. This is a 2-3 team not a 4-1 team. Record reflects exactly what this team is at this point. However, improvement is always possible. In as much as the offence has a real limitation in going more than 10 yards down field at a time, they are still better than how they played on Sat. Similar to how the defense was after getting cranked by Hamilton, they will rebound against Toronto, but the only thing is, Toronto has a great defense, so it could still be a tough one to win.

Really hard to tell whether Bowman is done or whether Lapo and NIchols are just not utilizing him right. Worst case is that it is these three things combined: 1) Walters was dumpster diving for Bowman who was cut by the Esks, who always know what they are doing. Bowman is not the player he used to be, although should be still better than he is playing. 2) The biggest weakness in LaPo offences of the last 10 years is that he does not go vertical enough, preferring to stretch defenses from side to side rather than down the field. In the CFL of today if you play against a good defense this is not getting the job done. 3) Nichols has a quick release but is not a long ball QB. This is why LaPo and Nichols are a good fit, but Nichols is never going to be top tier because he cannot consistently exploit deep threats like BLM, Reilly, Lulay, Harris, and Franklin, who I would all rate as better QBs than Nichols. Nichols is much more like a souped up version of Kevin Glenn. Nothing wrong with that, but probably not going to ever lead a team to a Grey Cup without alot of help from a really good defense. I called this as a distinct possibility before the season started. At any rate, over the last 3 years it is very clear that the Bombers do not have the same deep threat offence as most of the other offences in the CFL, and teams are now defending the Bombers by not worrying about any passes going downfield more than 15 yards. Basically, to beat the Bombers if you can shut down Harris and Demski in the flats and up the middle, then you do not have to worry about anything else other than the occasional big play that Adams makes, who is good, but cannot do it on his own. With guys like Dressler and Bowman basically only making one catch a game at most, the rest of the Bomber receiving corp is a joke, and it makes for really boring games.

I called this before the season started. 11-7 is not going to be possible and I will be surprised if they do better than .500. All the other teams in the CFL have improved and Bombers are not keeping up - definitely regressing from last year or the year before.

Not sure Bombers have ever stopped Lulay. Bomber D and O both need some more talent to be in the top 3rd of the league. They let every team in the league go vertical on them so easily and yet can never go vertical against any other team.

Wally showing why he is still the better coach. Lulay is still a top 3 qb in the league while Nichols is still the game manager in comparison. Nichols can't go vertical in the CFL and that is the Bombers biggest weakness on offence.

I wouldn't put money on the Bombers winning, but it should be an interesting game. Ginger-snaps will definitely be a problem for the Bombers and the defense is going to have to play even better than last game to win it. Wally is still more of a coach than OShea, Lapo, and Hall combined, so I wouldn't count his team out.

I think that Bombers will have as good a chance as the defense allows. If the defense plays well, and limits the BC offence to less than 350 yards total and/or 21 points, then Bombers will win for sure. To me, this goes for any game this season. If Ginger-Snaps starts for BC at QB then chances of that happening will go down somewhat, because even a broken down Ginger historically has been able to beat any D Bombers have ever been able to field. Ginger just seems to always know how to destroy the Bombers.