2 days Ago By Paul Friesen
On a perfect November day for football, the Winnipeg Blue Bombers played a near-perfect game. The result: They’re going to the Grey Cup for a fifth straight season. In weather belying the time of year — it was a balmy 10C at kickoff time — the Bombers did what they usually do at this time of year, throttling the Saskatchewan Roughriders 38-22 in the CFL West Division final.
“Man, we prepared so hard,” running back Brady Oliveira said in a raucous dressing room. “It showed out there. We played a very high level, we played clean.
I’m just proud of the guys. People counted us out, and now we’re going back to another Grey Cup.” The win capped an unlikely comeback from a 2-6 start to the season and gives coach Mike O’Shea’s crew a chance to redeem last year’s Grey Cup loss to Montreal, not to mention the one to the Argos the year before that.
Riding the red-hot arm of quarterback Zach Collaros and the league’s stingiest pass defence, the home side jumped on the Riders early and refused to relent, sending a raucous sellout crowd home happy and setting up a championship showdown with the Toronto Argonauts — minus star quarterback Chad Kelly. Kelly’s broken ankle in the East final ensures the Bombers will be favoured in the 111th edition of the Grey Cup. Collaros’s accurate arm helped ensure they got there: he hit on 19 of 26 passes for 301 yards and four touchdowns.
As importantly, he avoided the turnovers the rival Riders thrived on all season. The only ball Collaros threw away was into the crowd after he took a knee to end it — and even that one landed in friendly arms. Instead of short, underneath routes to Oliveira, No.
8 went over the top. “They had a plan for that, and our plan was to throw behind it,” receiver Nic Demski said. “We saw some holes that we needed to take advantage of, and we did that early.
” This was supposed to be what they call a grinder, dominated by the defences, with every yard hard-earned and paid for. Instead of trying to establish the ground game early, though, Bombers offensive coordinator Buck Pierce had another idea. He came out throwing.
“Buck did an incredible job calling the game,” Oliveira said. “We had them off-balance. We took our shots.
The guys up front did a heck of a job just being physical every single play. I don’t need to get the ball. As long as we win the game.
” Nine of Winnipeg’s first 10 calls hinged on the arm of Collaros, who completed eight of them for 156 yards and a pair of touchdowns for a 14-0 Winnipeg lead. At the other end of those throws, Kenny Lawler was doing his thing. No.
89 put his personal stamp on one drive: Two catches, 89 yards and one of his two first-half scores. Much of the damage came on play-action, as the Riders defence bit on fakes to Brady Oliveira and watched Collaros gobble up the yardage. By halftime, Collaros was 16 of 19 for 228 yards and three majors, Demski collecting the third.
“It’s an amazing feeling to accomplish what we’ve done,” Demski said. “The job’s not done. Don’t take the pedal off the metal and just keep going.
” With the lead and the Riders off-balance, Oliveira went to work, winding up the opening 30 minutes with a cool 50 yards on eight typically physical carries. The biggest run play of that first half, though, came from an unlikely source. Backup quarterback Terry Wilson turned a third-and-one sneak into a 48-yard burst around the outside, leading to Demski’s score.
The only major blemish on the Bombers’ first half was a blocked Jamieson Sheahan punt, setting Saskatchewan up in Bombers territory. The Winnipeg defence held the damage to three, though, a moral victory and a key part of a 24-9 Bombers lead at the half. The Riders didn’t come to Winnipeg to fold up the tent at the first sign of trouble, though.
A successful fake punt to start the second half sparked a drive capped by a one-yard A.J. Ouellette touchdown, cutting the Bombers’ lead to eight.
But their defence continued to cave. Two series later, Lawler got behind it for a 57-yard touchdown, boosting his gaudy totals to 177 yards on just four grabs. Apparently the Riders didn’t game-plan for him.
And their plans to stop Oliveira began to crumble under the weight of the 222-pound Winnipegger, each carry chipping away at their resolve. It was Oliveira who pounded the final nail in the coffin, following up another 21-yard gainer with a three-yarder that put him over 100 and put the Riders under for good, 38-16, in the fourth quarter. They tried to shove one arm above ground when Lucky Whitehead fumbled a fourth-quarter punt deep in Winnipeg territory.
But the Bombers defence stomped it back down, hammering home its uncanny ability to shut down the league’s quarterbacks. A touchdown pass in garbage time boosted Trevor Harris’s numbers to respectable status: he finished with 283 yards on a 25-for-44 night. But that was the 38-year-old’s only end-zone strike.
Winnipeg rolled to 482 yards of net offence, more than 100 better than the Riders. They have one more week to cap an imperfect season with a perfect ending. paul.
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