And the skinny from our man Tait:

 

Scene setter: 

The Blue Bombers (7-2) and Stampeders (3-6) reached the midway point of the season last week moving in opposite directions. Winnipeg is on a three-game heater since the shocking collapse in Ottawa, including last week’s 38-29 win in Edmonton in which Dru Brown came off the bench to throw for 300 yards and four TDs – erasing a 22-0 deficit in the process. The Stamps, meanwhile, have lost three of their last four, including last week’s 37-9 mauling by the B.C. Lions.

The big news heading into this one is Brown getting the start for Zach Collaros, who did not practice all week.

The Basics

Kickoff: Friday, 8 p.m. CDT; McMahon Stadium, Calgary
TV: TSN; RDS 2
U.S. and international live streaming: https://www.cfl.ca/plus
Radio: 680 CJOB
Last meeting: July 7, 2023, at IG Field: Winnipeg 24 Calgary 11. Winnipeg has won four straight against the Stamps dating to 2021 and eight of the last 10 meetings. The Blue Bombers are 3-1 on the road this year. Calgary is 1-3 at home this season.
PlayNow odds:  The Blue Bombers are favoured by six points. For more betting options on this game, click here.

 

More in link

https://www.bluebombers.com/2023/08/17/game-preview-wpg-at-cgy-2/

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Let's. *******. Go.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited August 18, 20232 yr by Wanna-B-Fanboy

Gotta say, the football gods were very, very kind to us.

1 minute ago, bustamente said:

Sheehan punts the ball like he is playing Aussie Rules, short and low kicks get you killed in the return game

I'm leaning more toward our cover team not really getting it done.  Lots of opportunities tonight.  Good spot for Parker to get on and play teams all the way around to give us a spark.

3 minutes ago, bustamente said:

Sheehan punts the ball like he is playing Aussie Rules, short and low kicks get you killed in the return game

Yeah people think he shanking them, but it's purposeful. He's going for bounces and hard to catch balls. Doesn't always work unfortunately,  but he's placed a few very well. Kudos to the cgy returner on that last one who read his mail and caught a angled punt in the air. Which is the worst thing that can happen there.

Edited August 19, 20232 yr by Bigblue204

2 minutes ago, Wanna-B-Fanboy said:

Gotta say, the football gods were very, very kind to us.

Today was one of these days.

2 minutes ago, rebusrankin said:

Today was one of these days.

No kidding...  lol

Just going over all the bullets we dodged...  and hoo-boy, the ball bounced our way A LOT. 

 

 

Was the Holm penalty challengeable?

Sometimes you just need to grind a win out.

3 minutes ago, bryan35 said:

Was the Holm penalty challengeable?

No.  Very similar play in Edmonton/Hamilton game which Jones challenged for DPI (was opposite they didn't call the roughing that should have been) and he couldn't challenge the hit.

4 minutes ago, Jpan85 said:

Sometimes you just need to grind a win out.

True, but at some point you need to stop self sabotaging and playing down to bad teams. Other wise you become a bad team. 

Paging JuranBoldenRules....  Dru Brown looked like how he did in the pre season this year,   very tenative and he was extremely lucky that he had 2 sure fire ints dropped and could of had another ball easily picked off.      The guy is a work in process but had a terrible outing tonight,  I wouldn't blame Buck or the o-line for his telegraphed throws.   

That being said... Dakota Prukop WTF are you doing out there tonight?   Seriously this wasn't a high pressure game and these mistakes could of killed us.  

Tonight was just weird all around...  Brady is dominating and we get into the red zone and don't even try to hand it off to him?   

The refs were all over the place,  some ticky tacky calls and some blatant big time calls completely missed.  Maier's first long bomb in the game clearly showed Jeffcoat being manhandled and held and yet no call?  

Wilson and Nichols were amazing all night long,   Houston makes two great plasy but gets burned on three other plays for big time gains for Calgary.   

People dump on McCrae for his mediocre returns... on offense however the dude is lightning and great. 

Calgary drops a sure fire TD,   Maier under throws many guys,    Michel over acts on his one big catch despite being invisible for the whole game,   just all around awful performance by them also.

This was ugly,  hopefully this is a one off.  

3 minutes ago, Brandon said:

Paging JuranBoldenRules....  Dru Brown looked like how he did in the pre season this year,   very tenative and he was extremely lucky that he had 2 sure fire ints dropped and could of had another ball easily picked off.      The guy is a work in process but had a terrible outing tonight,  I wouldn't blame Buck or the o-line for his telegraphed throws.   

 

Bleh 35 km/h wind sustained.  No turnovers.  Win.  Easily 4th best QB in this league today.

45 minutes ago, bustamente said:

Calgary is in trouble both on the field and in the stands, I know the weather was bad but they haven't been drawing fans all year

Is the smoke heavy there too? I think this game, many people not attending get a pass.

10 minutes ago, Brandon said:

Paging JuranBoldenRules....  Dru Brown looked like how he did in the pre season this year,   very tenative and he was extremely lucky that he had 2 sure fire ints dropped and could of had another ball easily picked off.      The guy is a work in process but had a terrible outing tonight,  I wouldn't blame Buck or the o-line for his telegraphed throws.   

That being said... Dakota Prukop WTF are you doing out there tonight?   Seriously this wasn't a high pressure game and these mistakes could of killed us.  

Tonight was just weird all around...  Brady is dominating and we get into the red zone and don't even try to hand it off to him?   

The refs were all over the place,  some ticky tacky calls and some blatant big time calls completely missed.  Maier's first long bomb in the game clearly showed Jeffcoat being manhandled and held and yet no call?  

Wilson and Nichols were amazing all night long,   Houston makes two great plasy but gets burned on three other plays for big time gains for Calgary.   

People dump on McCrae for his mediocre returns... on offense however the dude is lightning and great. 

Calgary drops a sure fire TD,   Maier under throws many guys,    Michel over acts on his one big catch despite being invisible for the whole game,   just all around awful performance by them also.

This was ugly,  hopefully this is a one off.  

The offensive game plan and play call was trash. He looked like how collaros looked before he got hurt last week, and in the weeks our offence has struggled. We ran the same calls over and over despite having no crossers for when he has to escape, and few first down options. 
 You can’t blame Dru brown for Brady barely getting touches in the second half right? Or the horrid use of the Poopkup package to disastrous effect twice right? But the archetype of that failure and the horrible red zone play calls isn’t to blame for the passing play call? Cmon man. Buck pierce took us back to the exact offense we used to see with a hobbled Nichols and plop calling the plays. Exactly. Re running the same couple pass plays that didn’t work the first time with piss poor check downs no good usage in the red zone and big gaps in running our tail back. Two and outs with enough drives into fg range and red zone plays with no purpose. 
 One off? I mean if you don’t count Zach before he got hurt last week, or the bc game, the Ottawa game or the other weeks we struggled to score on bad teams I guess. 

1 hour ago, JuranBoldenRules said:

Punt team really cost 9 points tonight.  Call on Holm paved the way for 3 points.

D didn't give up much.

Holm not losing his **** on that call was probably the most impressive play of the night.

59 minutes ago, Bigblue204 said:

Yeah people think he shanking them, but it's purposeful. He's going for bounces and hard to catch balls. Doesn't always work unfortunately,  but he's placed a few very well. Kudos to the cgy returner on that last one who read his mail and caught a angled punt in the air. Which is the worst thing that can happen there.

Some pros to his style but biggest con is the no hang time if he doesn’t get that bounce he wants.

9 minutes ago, wbbfan said:

The offensive game plan and play call was trash. He looked like how collaros looked before he got hurt last week, and in the weeks our offence has struggled. We ran the same calls over and over despite having no crossers for when he has to escape, and few first down options. 
 You can’t blame Dru brown for Brady barely getting touches in the second half right? Or the horrid use of the Poopkup package to disastrous effect twice right? But the archetype of that failure and the horrible red zone play calls isn’t to blame for the passing play call? Cmon man. Buck pierce took us back to the exact offense we used to see with a hobbled Nichols and plop calling the plays. Exactly. Re running the same couple pass plays that didn’t work the first time with piss poor check downs no good usage in the red zone and big gaps in running our tail back. Two and outs with enough drives into fg range and red zone plays with no purpose. 
 One off? I mean if you don’t count Zach before he got hurt last week, or the bc game, the Ottawa game or the other weeks we struggled to score on bad teams I guess. 

You can't blame wind,  Buck Pierce,  ZC,  Prukop ,  whatever else with the times Dru locked in on his first read and telegraphing his throws.     It looked to me that he was over thinking tonight rather then just trusting his instincts like he did last week against Edmonton.    He wasn't Crum level bad but he definitely looked the same way as he did in pre season when he struggled to make routine throws.    

I'm not sure if I heard right on the broadcast as I had the volume on low for parts of the game, but did they quote Brown saying that he will follow Zach's advice on where to go to next season to start?   I'm hoping that I completely misheard that because if that was indeed what was said then clearly Brown needs to get his head back into the game and needs to check that ego because one game doesn't make a guy a desired free agent.   If that was not what was said then disregard this last sentence.  

 

 

It was cold as **** tonight. The wind was nasty. Getting to my truck and the heated steering wheel was one of the highlights of the night.

I don't know enough to know, but to my eyes, Sheehan is a great punter with a lot of different weapons and it's the cover teams that are just ******* awful. I don't know if Miller and Hansen make that much difference, but maybe??

Really would have liked to have seen Brown run more... Ya had chances and just never took off. 

Prukop on 1st down is just baffling.

Ugly as **** win, but I will take absolutely take it and hope they correct things for Montreal next week....

Special teams were ****, the offense was ****, but the D was quite solid. 

Honestly I don't think the wind was as significant as some people are making it out to be. Yes there were periods it was a factor (like a couple calgary kicks and throws) but for the Bombers it was mostly about calling a stupid game.  Calgary had no answer for the run game so of course they get brown to try throwing into coverage because they weren't even trying to go downfield at all. And don't get me started about putting prukop in notnonce but twice to put us in 2nd and long. 

Just a stupid game. Brown really had no chance given what they were calling for plays. 

Wondering if they spend entire games on offence deliberately not showing things on film? 
3 or 4 games this year, it’s looked like preseason O. 

Is it just execution? 
OL play? 

Re: Punting

Am I crazy or does Sheehan line up closer to the LOS than most punters?
Not all his punts are awful, I’ve just never seen a technique that looked like that. Consistently low, and at extreme angles. 

6 hours ago, 17to85 said:

Special teams were ****, the offense was ****, but the D was quite solid. 

Honestly I don't think the wind was as significant as some people are making it out to be. Yes there were periods it was a factor (like a couple calgary kicks and throws) but for the Bombers it was mostly about calling a stupid game.  Calgary had no answer for the run game so of course they get brown to try throwing into coverage because they weren't even trying to go downfield at all. And don't get me started about putting prukop in notnonce but twice to put us in 2nd and long. 

Just a stupid game. Brown really had no chance given what they were calling for plays. 

Brown did look tentative to me, however your point is well taken with respect to play calling.  The first scoring drive was what I expected to see more of with maybe a few shots down the field.  Instead it was a lot of short passes to the wide side of the field hoping for a WR to break a tackle.  Quick passes more towards the middle of the field seemed effective early and then they just went away from it.  Have to give some credit to the Calgary D, however.

Ongoing text with a buddy during games, here’s some of the gems from both of us. 

“Maier is too fat to hit the deep ball.” 

“ ‘All he does is score touchdowns’, except ‘all he does is eat Funions’ ”

”I’d forgotten Alfalfa Exhumed came back.”

“****** Jamie Lee Curtis is a pretty good returner” 

“Yeah Willy.
Willie. ****. 

Should have gone with the traditional Y over the radical awkward IE.

Johnnie Augustine 

Bradie O

Buddie Hollie”

”W/e, I’ll take an ugly win. Anything to see Dave Dickie cry”

 

 

9 hours ago, bustamente said:

Sheehan punts the ball like he is playing Aussie Rules, short and low kicks get you killed in the return game

It works when it dribbles out of bounds or at the very least corners the returner close to the sidelines. If not, coverage team is hooped.

Couple of his punts late were just God awful decisions. Kick it proper and get some depth on it. 

Bombers were into the wind in the 4th.  Sheahan was booming punts with the wind.  Flipped the field a couple times.  Pinned them inside 10 twice and on one of them was kicking from our 40.

Bobby C kicking into the wind spoiled me.

58 minutes ago, HardCoreBlue said:

It works when it dribbles out of bounds or at the very least corners the returner close to the sidelines. If not, coverage team is hooped.

Yeah but 1 out of 5...and with 2 usually illegal kicks...not worth it...the other guy has trick punts like that...plus punts with major hang time..I think he's the better all.arlund punter...we been getting killed on the field position game within the game...and with Grant out and the reluctance to swap out a shitty returner.......it will continue and cost us a game....and prob the game we can't afford to drop a deuce on