Bombers have a lot to prove
Need win against a top team
By PAUL FRIESEN -- Winnipeg Sun
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Doug Brown and his Bomber teammates want to prove they're among the CFL's elite with a win over Ottawa on Friday. (Winnipeg Sun file/Greg Laychak) |
Raise your hand if you were impressed with the Winnipeg Blue Bombers last week against Saskatchewan.
Didn't think so.
Sure, the previously winless squad pulled themselves off the mat long enough to muddle through a 32-15 victory over the 1-2 Roughriders, a team that gave the ball away seven times on a night only a duck could appreciate.
But to say that game was an accurate read on the state of the Bombers would be like using a wheelbarrow as a rain gauge.
No, this team still has plenty to prove before it's removed from the endangered species list of CFL contenders, beginning tomorrow night in Ottawa.
We're still waiting for soon-to-be millionaire quarterback Khari Jones to click with his supposedly new-and-improved receiving corps, for instance.
Playing a solid half doesn't get that shaky offensive line off the hook, either.
And as good as that new-name Bomber defence looked, let's take them out of the rain and put them on a fast track and see what happens. Against a team as good as ... Ottawa?
That's right, the Bombers are about to measure themselves against the former expansion doormats from the nation's capital, and how's that for role reversal?
"I can't believe it's coming out of my mouth -- playing Ottawa is a good test for us," defensive lineman Doug Brown was saying yesterday. "We know they really handed it to us Week 1, and if we don't play our best game they're a lethal opponent, really. If we pull this one out, it shows we'll pretty much be playing with the front-runners."
Has it really come to this?
"I even saw (Ottawa coach) Joe Paopao in the paper," Brown continued. "Saying, 'Winnipeg, they're improving.' Joe Paopao's talking about us getting better? It doesn't sound right at all. We're aspiring to get to their level. As funny as it sounds, it's true at this point."
So while the Renegades hope to build on a 3-1 start, the Bombers are a team still searching.
WINNING FEELING
At least, they now know what they're looking for.
"We can now officially differentiate between winning and losing in this locker-room," Brown said.
That's a start.
Actually, Brown's point was that all the new players hadn't experienced that winning feeling until last week. They may actually have begun to think all that negativity was normal.
Players losing their starting jobs, new ones being air-lifted in, whispers the head coach would be next to go -- it all made for an atmosphere more conducive to bungee-jumping, without the cord, than football.
Brown preferred to use a movie analogy.
"Three weeks of Misery, man," he said, referring to the Stephen King story. "Like lying in bed, hobbled, with Annie Wilkes pounding on our ankles for three weeks. Straight-up misery."
To recap, the movie had Wilkes, played by Kathy Bates, rescue her favourite novelist from a car crash, only to keep him captive by smashing his ankles with a sledgehammer, all the while forcing him to come up with a satisfactory ending to his next book.
It made for some desperate writing in the movie, and some desperate play a week ago.
And nothing has changed, really.
"Desperation II, the sequel," is what Ritchie is calling tomorrow's game. "Next week will be Desperation III, and then Desperation IV . I hope we can get to Desperation 16. It means I'll still be screamin' at 'em."
This is what it's come to for the six-year coach: a weekly survivor competition. One that will continue until his team has a respectable record again.
So keep on writing, boys.
And try to forget that hammer is just around the corner.
