ShyGuy

If the team from the first half last week shows up it should be a good game. If they Jekyll and Hyde it again or only the team from the second half shows up it will be a long night.

Reality has a negative bias 🤣

2nd down play calling was... Questionable at best in the second half 2nd and 4, BO gets them second and manageable and Demski tries to run it up the middle but ends in a 3 yard loss 2nd and 10 after a 16 yard down field incompletion that Collaros sailed and it's a sack 2nd and 4 after a short pass to Wilson on their own 22 and Collaros launches a 37 yard bomb to Wilson that leads him out of bounds 2nd and 8 after the most telegraphed run ever, which Willson had called out before the snap and it's a short pass to Nield who turns it up field for a first down! 2nd and 10 two plays later and Collaros launches it 50 yards down field for a pick 2nd and 9 after Collaros got flushed on first down and a sack and the Bombers don't see the ball again

No need to use hyperbole to get your points across. It wasn't something ridiculous like 35, it was 14. You more than doubled it! Drives went 3 yards, -8 yards, 1 yard (this might be 6 yards because the game stats seem conflicted if the time count counts), 13 yards, and 5 yards. 2 first downs if you are keeping track at home, at 5:12 and 2:43 in the 4th quarter

So I guess the thesis here is statistically, the Bombers are poor in high leverage situations? Last game was bad for that stat (2nd and long conversion rate) for the Bombers, Elks were 6/11 and the Bombers were 1/7... but Football is such a low event game you are for sure going to remember the plays with the negative outcomes. Look at the 4th quarter... play #104, Fajardo gets 14 yards on 2nd and 10 to the 27, Elks are driving into the end zone after scoring 16 straight points (and the Bombers don't have a 1st down in the second half at this point); incredibly un-clutch. But wait, 3 plays later 2nd and 11 Fajardo gets flushed by the d-line and coughs up the ball, the boys locked in and came up with the clutch turnover. Bombers proceed to do nothing with it (again un-clutch but on the offense this time) and give it back to the Elks with a 2 and out and with a short field Fajardo dips and dunks it into the 30 for the go ahead field goal. Bombers finally get a first down but then Collaros arm punts it down to the 7. Short run by Rankin gets a 2nd and long and the Bombers force an incompletion 2nd and 8 to get the offense the ball back inside the 3 minute warning (again, very clutch). The Bombers burn a whole 62 seconds getting the tying field goal. Elks have 1:41 to win the game and probably the most frustrating play here is the 2nd and 3rd when Rankin catches the ball at the 40 with 4 Bombers between him and the first down, and Woodbey just goes flat footed and then Major Williams just kind of inexplicably blows up BOO (note: not the ball carrier at this point) and Rankin sneaks through all those bodies for 16 yards... and Ceresna (not one of the 4 games in the picture at the time of the catch) is the one who chases him down. And then 2nd and 10 the defense plays it pretty well and Luther catches it at the 43 (well short of the first down) and Moxey just whiffs on the tackle and instead of Blanchard kicking a 50 yard field goal (which is still inside his range) he is now kicking a 40 yarder which is much easier. If the Offense could have done almost anything more than the... 5 net yards they got after that 2 and out we are probably talking about how the defense bailed out the offense after that disaster class of a 2nd half. It's probably useful data that of the 4 games so far this season where the winning team had less than 25 points, 3 of them involved the Bombers. There is really no reason for me being argumentative about this other than I deal with Statistics quite a bit and the overall... attitude in general towards them is always quite amusing. If you want to use statistics to make the Bombers defense as currently constructed seem underrated, we can probably do that. If you want to use the same statistics to show that the Bombers beating the RedBlacks twice were the 2 games in 100 that should have happened we can probably show that as well.

It would seem counter-intuitive to hire a guy to turn around the Bombers whose last winning season was during Jake Thomas' rookie year

Bombers practicing today and their opponents aren't! Brady continues to sit practice out. Sticking with the Ankle designation so probably nothing new. Nichols (Ankle) and Bryant (Ankle, same as last week but he made 2 practices) join him on the sidelines. Kramdi a full participant

If you want to actually be optimistic. Playing the Als twice you might catch them with their pants down in one of those meetings and catch lightning in a bottle and play a whole game like they played the first half against Edmonton. Riders look like a mess right now They've already beat the Argos They've split against Calgary and they are Jekyll and Hide anyways They've played Edmonton strong twice now and two weeks out of the playoffs they could be in coast mode BC they played well for 56 minutes and who knows what level of competition there could be in the last week of the season. We've got 3 teams on the West who all look extremely flawed, and one team whose recent play just busted that out of that moniker. Things are wide open.

You are in luck! Going into Week 12 the Bombers opponents were 39/110 for a success rate 35.5 percent at 2nd and 7+, which was good for 3rd in the league behind Saskatchewan and BC. The 2nd and 14 you mentioned wouldnt count as a success in your stat, and the Bombers were 13/15 on 3rd and 0-2 which is 7th in the league. 35.5% is historically better than average for a defense, back to 2023. FWIW the Bombers are above average in preventing TDs in the red zone, below average in preventing TD drives overall, and exactly average at forcing 2 and outs (although they are RiGHT THERE for a 3 way tie for 3rd)

Dillon Mitchell out here catching strays... that was Tim Hortons though I guess

It seems to be a thing... at least it was pre-COVID https://torontosun.com/sports/football/cfl/cfls-football-operations-salary-cap-throws-wrench-into-coaching-carousel They will get some financial relief from an operations cap rule that allows a team to amortize a fired coach’s salary over five years. Each team is also allowed a free pass on a termination amount once every five years. In general, the cap has received mixed reviews from CFL coaches and managers this year, and a discussion of possible tweaks to its rules will be on the docket at league meetings in January.

That is my reading too... definitely didn't seem out of place out there, especially seeing as he seemed to be around Mack quite a bit. He got a good pop on Rankin too early on.

As someone having no real desire to sift through 27 pages recapping this game... did anyone pick up what changed on defense to get Vaval out there in the second half?

Stats are funny in that yeah the Bombers top receiver is at 15... But then the next two are at 16 and T17. If they all have their average game they will be 10, 11, 12 after tonight. And somehow Collaros is middle of the pack Passer Rating wise which doesn't really pass the eye test Only 2 off Hamilton for 5th in forced TOs too. They are pretty and at keeping the other team out of the end zone though (7th)

Did not expect to be reading a LaTeX document produced by a former CFL player turned analyst today The 35 Second Squeeze: Why defenses are running on empty in 2026 Two things is he blames defensive injuries on decreased rest and the increase in big plays on returns on tired defensive starters. Interesting that the Bombers employ a whole contingent of dudes who only play special teams it's seems, but have the best cover team and are the least injured team right now

I'm deep into my powerlifting program. Put me out there in the Bailey role and have some oxygen waiting for me on the sidelines and I can probably get out there once a drive

Kind of looks like Rolan Milligan is gonna be out for the season in Sask https://www.instagram.com/p/DcPw9GpRktZ/?igsh=b3Y5a2Jvdzlpdm1q&igsi=b3Y5a2Jvdzlpdm1q

No GTD designation for Brady at least? When was the last time that guy had a full practice? Week 8?

Fun fact through their teams first 3 games the Bombers had the TiCats beat in most offensive categories except points scored because the ticats were finishing drives with TDs at an astounding rate.

Whats the old line... Those who can, do; Those who understand, teach. JT is just a few years late on which side of the semicolon he should be on 🤣

Special Teams are important and the Bombers play it very disciplined and have a game breaker of a returner. But even with that going into Week 11 they were 7th in the league in average start position behind only Hamilton and BC and were dead last in opponents start position. It seems to me being able to move the ball on offense and stop the ball on defense should be a higher priority than filling the special teams. Obviously the analytics in the CFL are sparse compared to the NFL but a yard of field position is worth about 0.05 points in the NFL. The difference in opponents average punt return for the Bombers and the last place team in that space is roughly 5 yards per return... napkin math bombers had punted 44 times, so that is 220 extra yards, Bombers opponents have had 106 possessions, so lets move the ball up for them an average of 2 yards a possession because our special teams stink now. 106 drives with an extra 2 yards per drive means they would be expected to give up about... 11 extra points over those 9 games. I'm sure if you were to focus scouting and drafting on impact skill players you could find one or two that would give you a better return of just over a point per game than a potpourri of teams players who will never (or should never) play on offense or defense. The aggregate defensive ranking for the Bombers in the stat package is what it is... they are pretty high because they have a bunch of sacks and knockdowns and are good on 2nd down... but it gets balanced out a bit because they much more horrendous against the run than they are good against the pass. EDIT As a counter point to why special teams are important... The Chargers in 2010 finished first in total offense and first in total defense and still missed the playoffs because their special teams were historically trash. So as with everything... it depends

Taking a closer look there are some BIG increases next year too. 140-141 going from $428 to $636 They've sectioned off the bottoms of P5 so that the one closet to the end zone are going from $465 to$ 636 and the one past that is $825. P4 in the lower deck is going from $620 to $825 and in the upper deck the lower section is going from $805 to $1125 and above that it's been split soo the first part is $825 like the lower deck. Also looks like ticket swap is moving to choosing between the last 2 games to just the last game.

Blue Bombers 2027 Season Tickets page is up and clearest indicator yet that the field dimension changes are full speed ahead https://www.bluebombers.com/2027-season-tickets/ My seats in 225 looks like they are moving from straddling the goal line to back of the end zone

The Wheatfall narrative continues to baffle. By all accounts he was a reasonable dude when he was here, but if you are going 3 NIs which the Bombers did, you aren't going to take him over Wilson or White so where does he fit in? If the Bombers went 3 Imports he would be a serviceable 3rd guy (which he really is behind Smith and Lawler in Hamilton) but he was here for a season and a half and his production isn't too far off then and now... 2 really nice games, a few games he completely disappeared and a bunch of serviceable games in the middle. As other people are saying... you SHOULD be able to scout another one of those guys and maybe hit a home run. Maybe Singer is that guy but as of right now it's looking like we'll never know. The Elks brought in 2 of them with Luther and Cephus. Argos brought in Kahmann.