December 11, 2021

Quote Board: Bombers, Ticats ready for game day

Peter Power/CFL.ca

HAMILTON —  As the countdown to the 108th Grey Cup transitions from days to hours, both the Winnipeg Blue Bombers and Hamilton Tiger-Cats conducted their final walkthroughs ahead of the game.

With a sense of excitement, nervousness, confidence and appreciation in the air during the team’s media sessions, both teams ensured that they are ready for kickoff.

108th GREY CUP
»
Through the lens: Bombers make final preparations for Grey Cup 
» Through the lens: Ticats’ walkthrough puts bow on Grey Cup week prep 
»
Under Centre: 1-on-1 with Sunday’s quarterbacks 


Standout remarks from the Winnipeg Blue Bombers and Hamilton Tiger-Cats 

“With family and stuff being here, you try to escape; we’ve been doing football and stuff like that all week. We’re prepared for the game. Right now, just trying to get away, see family and things like that. Get something good to eat, get off our feet, relax and just try to zone into the game get ready to play some ball.”

Willie Jefferson on how he is going to spend his time before the Grey Cup 

“You just want to be disruptive. We want to get into the backfield, we want to make everything hard for Dane (Evans), we want to make everything hard for the running backs, we want to try to get him off his spot; we don’t want him to be too comfortable back there setting his feet to throw. We also don’t want him to get out of the pocket to extend plays.”

Willie Jefferson on his defensive lines’ mission for Sunday 

“This is a different ballgame and the mindset that we have on our team is that ‘We haven’t done anything yet,’ and what we have done is ‘t good enough, we have to work harder and we have to finish it. That’s the mindset: finish it.”

Willie Jefferson on the Winnipeg Blue Bombers’ mindset 

“I think you always want to start fast. In a perfect world, you always do. But, there’s always ebbs and flows in a game; adversity strikes – our last game is a perfect example of that. So, obviously, the plan is to go out there and execute. When you execute, you start fast, but, we’ll have to weather some storms I imagine at some point and our guys are going to do that.”

Zach Collaros on the importance of getting out to a fast start against the Hamilton Tiger-Cats 

“You try to go into every single game that way; you want to be as prepared as you can and trust your preparation and I think that’s how you execute at a high level. (There’s) a little more fine-tuning before that but, we’re ready. ”

Zach Collaros on the Winnipeg Blue Bombers’ preparation 

“Typically, probably thinking about a play or a situation in the game and trying to visualize success. At the same time, thinking about how lucky you are to have the opportunity to play this game.”

Zach Collaros on what goes through his mind hours before a game of this scale 

“Probably a good thing. I think it’s good because you just have to approach it like whatever the weather is, we have to go out there and execute. The first day, we have some snow, it was a little bit colder and yesterday felt like summer coming from Winnipeg. Being on the field today brought some memories of walking up to practice all the time and thinking, ‘Man, there’s that wind again,'”

Zach Collaros on if the weather will play a factor during the Grey Cup 

“Hamilton is going to play the full 60 minutes and another 60 if we have to.”

Mike O’Shea on the Hamilton Tiger-Cats 

“60 minutes of tough football played in a tough environment: Hamilton-style football. We play the same brand; good defences, offences that can get after big plays and it’s going to be very exciting. To me, it’s the biggest single-day sporting event in Canada every year. It’s celebrated across the country, it’s important to people from one coast to another and I love that part, it’s awesome.”

Mike O’Shea on the Grey Cup matchup and the magnitude of the game 

“I’ve tried to get the guys to use their time wisely. On a personal level, I’ve caught myself just wanting the game to show up, wanting it to be here and wanting it to be here. And you still have a lot of time and if you let that time go by without doing a  few of the things you should be doing, you’re missing out on opportunities.”

Mike O’Shea on how he and the Winnipeg Blue Bombers have been using their time 

“The beautiful thing is that Dane can just play and I don’t think every football team in this league – they kind of hold their breath when their starter gets hurt and we’re not in that situation. If everything goes according to plan, you’d assume Dane would come out. that’s always the plan. There is no leash, is the same as in Toronto. There was no plan for Jeremiah to come out. This was a gut feeling and things that happened in that game, when you’re playing elimination football, what are you waiting on? The decisions you make has to do with winning and sometimes they work out and sometimes they don’t. For us, it did.”

Orlondo Steinauer on Dane Evans 

“That hasn’t come up in motivation for our athletes to go out and perform as far as that because a lot of these players weren’t here; they didn’t have anything to do with it. For the ones that were, I’m not going to speak for them. But you can growl, you can road, you can do media, but the game is to be played not talked about.”

Orlondo Steinauer on if there is a sense of redemption this year 

“Hamilton feels like home to me so anytime you can stay in your own house, sleep in your own bed, there’s always a little bit of an advantage.”

Dane Evans on playing a home Grey Cup 

“The fact that we’ve been through almost everything you can go through as a football team. We’re a completely different team than we were in 2019 – everything was a little bit easier in 2019 wins wise. That’s not our journey this year, but it’s exactly perfect, it’s exactly how we knew it would be and we just got one more game to finish it out.”

– Dane Evans on how this 2021 team is not the 2019 Hamilton Tiger-Cats 

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