August 29, 2016

Steinberg’s MMQB: Return to relevance in Winnipeg

THE CANADIAN PRESS

It’s been a rough go for fans of the Winnipeg Blue Bombers in recent years. Since playing for the Grey Cup in 2011, the Bombers haven’t even sniffed a .500 season let alone qualified for the CFL post-season. Things finally seem to be coming around, though. After a 32-18 win in Montreal on Friday night, the Bombers have won four straight games for the first time since the aforementioned 2011 campaign. They’re full marks for this hot streak, too.

On merit

Sometimes a nice streak can be chalked up to good luck or can be blamed solely on bad outings from the opposition. In the case of the Bombers, though, it’s tough not to give full credit. All facets of Winnipeg’s game are clicking right now and the Bombers look like a team set to be competitive for the remainder of the season.

Let’s start by tipping our helmets to this defence because all it does is take the ball away. Since their Week 6 win over Edmonton to start this nice little run, the Bombers have racked up 13 (13!) interceptions in four games. Included in that mix is their four spot on Kevin Glenn and the Als on Friday which was one fewer than they managed against Logan Kilgore’s Argos two weeks ago.

Winnipeg’s turnover numbers get even more stupid when you start to compare them with the rest of the league. With 18 interceptions, the Bombers have at least 10 more than any other team and it gets even more staggering when you expand the scope. Adding 13 forced fumbles, Winnipeg has forced 31 turnovers this season. The next best total is Montreal’s 20 combined turnovers. This is video game stuff!

» RELATED: O’Shea keeping Bombers humble

THE CANADIAN PRESS

Ian Wild comes in for a tackle on Als returner Stefan Logan (The Canadian Press)

Matt Nichols has gotten the job done, too. Despite objections from some observers around the league (including this column), Nichols has injected a much needed dose of stability into the offensive proceedings and has proved the naysayers wrong in the process.

Under Nichols, the Bombers have gone from an explosive offence prone to mistakes to a reliable one predicated on managing the game. Mistakes were far too common with Drew Willy at the helm and Nichols has been exactly what the doctor ordered in that regard.

Finally, the impact of Justin Medlock is being felt exactly the way Winnipeg hoped it would. There is absolutely no coincidence the Bombers have seen things turn around dramatically at the same time as Medlock got things back on track.

The first four weeks of the season saw Medlock miss four field goals. Since that time, though, Winnipeg’s kicker has been perfect. Medlock has nailed his last 19 consecutive field goals, including all six against Montreal on Friday night. He’s not the only reason we’ve seen a dramatic turnaround for the Bombers, but automatic accuracy like Medlock’s is a huge factor.

There is still a lot of football left this season so I’m definitely not proclaiming Winnipeg as home and cooled for a playoff spot. In fact, it looks like the Bombers are going to be in a dogfight with BC and Edmonton over the next 10 weeks to secure their first playoff birth in five years. What the Bombers have done, however, is win four straight games and they’ve deserved to win every single one.

According to plan?

With Winnipeg’s recent resurgence, a quick glance at the West Division standings piqued my interest this morning. For a good chunk of this season I’ve been somewhat disappointed with the West because I felt it was falling short of the highly competitive expectations I had for it. Thanks to recent results, though, it turns out those expectations really are being met halfway through the 2016 season.

The only team that has truly disappointed in the competition category is Saskatchewan. We’ll get to them more in depth a little later but suffice to say their 1-8 mark is not what I was expecting for them this year. The rest of the division, though, has gone according to plan or at least pretty darn close to it.

The other slight surprise is the dominance of the Calgary Stampeders. I was anticipating a tightly packed group of five teams this season with very little separating them, at least through the first half of the season. I didn’t see two teams straying from the pack so early, but the Stamps have not disappointed in the competition category, that’s for sure.

Calgary has won six straight games and hasn’t lost since Week 1, but isn’t blowing teams out on a regular basis, either. The Stampeders’ 30-24 win over Hamilton on Sunday night was a grind as were both of their wins over Saskatchewan a few weeks back.

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» Photos: CGY at HAM

 

In fact, other than their 37-9 pasting of the Lions in week nine, and maybe their Week 5 win over Winnipeg, the Stamps have had to scratch and claw for every win this season. Calgary is the class of the division and the league right now and deserves every accolade being thrown its way right now. That said, the Stamps are still in competitive games which makes their remaining intra-division contests quite intriguing down the stretch.

The middle of the West Division is where things have really gone according to plan. BC has taken a noticeable step forward and bounced back nicely from a loss to Calgary by handling Ottawa nicely on Thursday evening. The Lions have been very strong defensively and man can they get after a quarterback, while Jonathon Jennings has spearheaded a fairly dynamic attack.

We’ve already touched on the Bombers and their recent hot streak has them right back in the thick of things, too. With all of the splashes the Bombers made in free agency, I was expecting a much more competitive team in 2016. It took some time to get there, but that looks to be very much the case right now.

That leaves us with the defending champs. With so much turnover on and off the field, I thought the Eskimos would come back to the pack a little bit this season. While they’ve done that, Edmonton is still not a team to take lightly.

As the Esks head into their annual Labour Day doubleheader with Calgary, they do so with the league’s most powerful offence. While they rely too much on their attack right now, and while they still have a number of bugs to work out defensively, Edmonton is still a team capable of beating any other opponent.

So yes, perhaps seeing the Stamps run away with things and having the Riders fall way back of the pack is not 100 per cent consistent with what I envisioned for the West Division this year. That said, we’re talking about three teams getting set to fight tooth and nail for two playoff spots in the second half of the season. A crossover is extremely unlikely this season, which should make the next 10 weeks an absolute battle. I’m excited to sit back and enjoy the ride.

Disappointing response

I was pretty disappointed with the Riders this weekend. I thought it was gut check time after an embarrassing loss to Hamilton last week and a pretty impassioned response against Edmonton was what I was looking forward to. That didn’t end up materializing.

Yeah, Saskatchewan ended up making Friday’s showdown at Commonwealth Stadium a one-possession game, but that doesn’t really speak to how the game was played. The Eskimos carried a 22-3 lead into halftime before letting off the gas a little bit. Sure, I’ll give the Riders some credit for making things interesting in the second half, but that doesn’t excuse their lackluster start.

 

I guess I was just looking for a little more fire from Saskatchewan to start this game. Instead, they allowed Edmonton to put up points easily on its first three possessions while being totally unable to move the ball for the vast majority of the first quarter; it took the Riders more than 13 minutes to pick up their first offensive first down.

Saskatchewan is a rebuilding team right now, so I’m not going to be too critical of its 1-8 record. That said, after taking a 53-7 loss on the chin like they did last week, the Riders’ start to Friday’s game in Edmonton was definitely a letdown.

Quick hits

We’ve talked a lot about the West Division this week, so what exactly is happening out east? That’s an interesting question, actually. With Ottawa, Montreal, and Ottawa all losing in week 10, nothing really changed in the East Division, as it remains totally wide open. No one has grabbed the reins as the front-runner but no one is out of it, either.

The recent struggles of the REDBLACKS are a cause for concern, though. Even with their switch to Trevor Harris at quarterback, Ottawa was unable to get the win it needed against the Lions to kick things off this week. The defending division champs have now lost four of their last five games but there is a silver lining or two.

First off, it’s not like Ottawa has been torched in all of its losses. Other than a 43-19 setback to Montreal in Week 9, this stretch has seen the REDBLACKS hang close in all of their losses going into the fourth quarter. With a little more late game execution we’d be looking at a team with a little more cushion on top of the division.

The other good news is they haven’t been surpassed even while they’ve struggled. Despite their slump, Ottawa still leads the East thanks to their Week 3 tie with Calgary. The REDBLACKS will be, and should be, disappointed with their lack of results in recent weeks. However, they look like a team ready to get back on track in an East Division still totally up for grabs.