This segment is going to have a number of hard-hitting truth bombs. We are going to get right into it.

Penalties Penalties Penalties, Look At All The Lovely Penalties…Not!

There is no way you should take a procedure penalty at home! Winnipeg took two procedure penalties.

A usually disciplined Winnipeg took 6 penalties for 57 yards (Montreal took 5 penalties for 60 yards).

Other Winnipeg penalties included a pass interference in the second quarter which game Montreal the ball on the 2 yard line – and then Montreal scored a touchdown, and some holding calls. However the the worst penalty of all – offside on Winnipeg’s defence which allowed Montreal another try for a touchdown when Winnipeg had already stopped Montreal quarterback Davis from sneaking it in. The offside was by a toe! It did not impact the play at all. Winnipeg would have walked off the field with 2:36 left in the fourth quarter up 17-10.  

There is a big white line called the goal line. All you have to do is make sure your body is not over that line! Bad penalties at bad times help the Bombers lose!

Get It Together Stadium Crew!

Ok, not the whole stadium crew. Just the people that are running the “make some noise,” and “more cowbells,” videos. The “more cowbells,” was put on the screen and through the p.a. system at least once while Winnipeg was on offence.

I fee like the stadium crew needs a bye week to regroup. Or, maybe there has been so few home games so far that the stadium crew is not in mid-season form yet!

My Son Bringing Some Truth Bombs!

My 7 year old son stayed home and watched the whole game. I asked him about it the following morning. He said, “Well we knew the Bombers were going to lose at some point.”

And he is right. There were talks of 18-0 but that is something very hard to do in professional football. Anyone that was banking on an 18-0 season, had blue coloured glasses on, now they are off. Sure. It would have been nice to see the Bombers go 18-0 but the reality is that the end goal for the Bombers is to win the Grey Cup, and they are still positioned at 1^st in the West.

Tell me one team that in a millisecond would not trade spots with Winnipeg. I will not hold my breath. BC is still 3 games behind Winnipeg and Calgary is still 4 games behind Winnipeg. One of those teams will get a win this week as they face each other. However, Calgary still faces Winnipeg one more time and has already lost the season series against Winnipeg.

For their part, BC has already lost against Winnipeg and must play Winnipeg two more times.

Winnipeg Is Not Getting Rid Of Liegghio!

People calling for Liegghio’s head need to relax! Yes, Winnipeg lost. Yes, Liegghio missed two crucial field goals. Yes, Liegghio earned the jock and I explained why I say he lost the game.

All of that is true.

What is also true is that prior to this loss Liegghio was making 90% of his field goals – second in the league only behind Rene Paredes!

Remember when everyone was calling for Richie Hall’s head a number of years ago? Are you glad the Bombers did not fire him? Do you perhaps recall when the Bombers signed Zach Collaros late in 2019, and many people including myself thought it was a bad idea? (I had to Truth Bomb myself on that one). Were you wrong like I was about Zach? Since Zach joined the Bombers, the Bombers have won 25 of 29 regular season and playoff games.

Do you think the coaches know what they are doing? I do!

Going For A Field Goal At The End Of The Game Was 100% The Right Call!

I thought about this one after the game, but have concluded that the Bombers made the right call!

Some people will look in hindsight and ask, “Why did they not just kick for a single?” Here is why. Liegghio is expected to make that field goal. Liegghio expects himself to make that field goal. Before the game he was sitting around a 90% success rate on field goals.

If the Bombers were going to try for a single, Liegghio would have had to kick it about 52 yards to get the single. Why? Winnipeg had the ball on the Montreal 24 yard line. Field goal attempts are usually kicked eight yards behind the line of scrimmage. That means that a field goal attempt was going to be about a 32 yard try.

In order to generate the single, Liegghio would need to kick it through the end zone. So then you would be asking Liegghio to kick a 52 yard ball, in the air.

Why in the air? Why could it not bounce through the end zone? Well it could. But if the ball hits the ground in the end zone, you are hoping now for one of two things. Either the ball rolls through the end zone before a returner can bring it out, or that the coverage team tackles the returner for a safety.

In that moment, knowing that earlier in the game Liegghio hit a field goal from 45 yards, what do you think is less risky?

The obvious answer is a 32 yard field goal attempt.

That is why you do not try for a single. Hindsight is not 20/20. Hindsight is misleading because it assumes we knew the outcome before the event occurred!

Montreal Celebrated Mediocrity!

Yes, Montreal beat Winnipeg. Yes, Montreal was the first team to beat Winnipeg this year. But really, Montreal you won your third game and you are celebrating like you did something great!

Here’s what you did:
*You got a win against a Bomber team that was on their 10^th game in 10 weeks, with many road games.

*You got a win because Winnipeg duffed a field goal attempt at the end of the 4^th quarter. If that one is made, we are not even talking about overtime.

*Dominique Davis could not punch it in from the one yard line on multiple efforts. In fact it took a toe nail of the Bombers’ to be offside for Davis to get a fourth or fifth crack at it. Then when he punches it in, he does the leap to the Blue Bomber fans. That is an idiotic move!

Then when Davis comes back to the bench I tell him that it took him 5 tries and a penalty to get it in, and that is why Winnipeg cut him. You just miss it as TSN goes to commercial break, but Davis decides to blow me a kiss and mouth off to the TSN camera.

At the end of the game, Montreal players are tossing their helmets in the air like they did something great. To me it seemed like Winnipeg could not stop tripping on themselves for most of the game.

Yes a win is a win. Yet Montreal, you barely did enough to walk away with a win. I mean, the real question is, did you win the game or did Winnipeg lose the game – and you happened to be the team on the schedule that night?

I think a very strong case can be made for the latter.

“I just don’t know that we had a ton of energy across the board,” said head coach Mike O’Shea after the game. “We still went into halftime 7-7 and in the first quarter it looked like nobody wanted to win it. Once again, early on in the game we just didn’t have a lot of ‘pop’. I think that’s par for the course maybe this week.”

Asked if the loss would impact the club’s first breather since training camp, O’Shea quipped:

“Yeah, I’ve cancelled all their plane tickets home and everybody’s going to be staying here grinding. No… there’s nothing like that. It’s not punishment.

“We lost one game. What I need them to do is not punish themselves. I need them to move on very quickly and make sure they have a bye week that they can relax and get refreshed so they come back in a good frame of mind ready to go.”

If you still think Montreal won more than Winnipeg lost come on! Seriously, I picked all Montreal players for my CFL Fantasy roster, as I suck at fantasy football. I was trying to give them the fantasy jinx. Even though Montreal won, look how few points I received.

Sure. If you think beating a very tired Bomber team is an amazing feat, fine.

I think it is just your third win in nine games and you need a reality check!

If you are looking for a longer postgame analysis I suggest you check out my favorite post game show!

What did I get right? What did you disagree with? Let me know in the comments.

Find all my articles here.

Written by a Bomber fan, for the Bomber fans.

Stay with CFL News Hub for the 2022 season.