Captain Blue

Two biggest concerns for me tonight remain the same from last week - defensive secondary is falling apart and the offensive play calling is garbage.

Streveler's first big mistake of the night. Game over. That'll get all the press and not the multitude of other errors by everyone else.

Whitehead is useless at receiver. Just a fast guy.

This offense needs more runs up the middle, they're great at wasting downs.

Literally been passing the ball fine all night but the answer is definitely to call more QB draws!

They need to replace Hecht mid game.

Running is so much more inefficient than passing. Emphasizing it way too much right now. Get the pass game going again.

Defense carried this team most of last year and a good chunk of this year early on. People made up their mind on Hall many years ago and never bothered to update their opinions when they were legit good.

Popular to blame Hall but his players have been missing tackles left and right. Bighill and Hecht are too slow.

Said it before and will say it again: I feel awful for Matt Nichols both on a professional and personal level. This is an absolutely terrible break for the guy. As it relates to the Bombers though, I think the bigger loss is Nichols as a backup. I would have loved to have him backup Strev the rest of the way. It sucks being one Strev injury away from going to our third stringer. Even before the injury, I thought Streveler gave us the best chance to win each week. Ultimately I think its best for the Bombers to continue to build the offense around him, hope LaPolice doesn't make him a glorified running back, and see where it leads us. I think we are still very much a Grey Cup contender.

Hate on Hall all you want, but he didn't call the "let the guy run free 50 yards down field" play. It was a breakdown, a mistake, whatever you want to call it. Somebody in that secondary blew it.

Thing is, Montreal never really did end up stopping our offense that much. It wasn't like they shut down Streveler at all. We could throw and run mostly successfully, except at the end of the game when it was far too obvious.

Watching the game again, it doesn't feel nearly as bad as I thought. Streveler was really good. This is someone we can really build around. He made one mistake all day and it cost us big time. LaPolice needs to let him throw more though. Once the aerial attack is going then you sprinkle in his running and he can't be stopped. LaPo called a QB run on 2nd and long when the Als desperately needed a stop and brought a blitz. Classic LaPo. Defense was also mostly really good, until about halfway through the fourth. The secondary had way too many breakdowns. Blitzes couldn't get anywhere on the last few drives so combine that with the secondary falling apart you get the quick scores from Montreal. I have concerns with the late game management, but ultimately we let them score a TD when they started at their own 16 with 1:03 left on the clock. Then we still had them on their own 30 with 30 seconds left. Secondary blew it on the chunk play again, which was really the only way to let them in it.

LaPo continually gets less out of the players he has. Inexcusable.

Gainey and the Riders sure do love to talk and get into faces despite getting absolutely destroyed.

He continues to get better and continues to reinforce that the Bombers should really try to stick with him and see where this goes. Completely changes the offensive potential.

Learned a lot about this team today. Very, very impressed. Streveler played well. Finally gave him an offensive design that helped. He isn't JUST a runner - we let him play QB today and it worked. You can have him on designed runs and still let him air it out a bit more. Inches away from a few more big plays too. If he can continue to build on this we'll be just fine going forward. This team is so much more dangerous when the offense doesn't completely stall for large parts of the game. I think we also learned today that we need to do a better job involving the talent we have on offense. Petermann steps in and looks fantastic. He just gets open and catches the ball - he needs more snaps even when Demski is healthy. Bailey steps in and makes a couple plays. Augustine is great in space. Maybe we need to spread the ball around more in the future. Defense and special teams remain championship calibre. Not much more to say about them. Jefferson continues to be dominant. Richie Hall has his group on fire.

I think Streveler is so far coming along just fine. We knew there were going to be more ups and downs than with Nichols. Whereas Nichols is consistently mediocre, Streveler right now fluctuates more between good and bad. I think when he's given time in the pocket, he does just fine passing the ball - we need to give him a better chance to succeed. Our protection has become a major issue lately. I honestly think if Nichols had played we would have been blown out. Sure he won't throw the interceptions, but he will also take way more sacks. Streveler is easily the best chance we have right now of developing a good QB. I'm more than willing to see how this plays out. Also: LaPo gotta go. Watching literally every other CFL team have more pass success despite worse talent, its hard not to think we could sub in Generic CFL Playbook and get more production than from LaPolice's gameplan.

First down, run up the middle with a RB that is better in space...short gain. Killed me every time (though they did get some nice gains). Follow that up with a Streveler rollout that cuts the field, giving him 1-2 reads only, leading to a throwaway or QB pressure. Classic.

Our coaches realized too late that Saskatchewan was (a) gaining yards easily and (b) running enough clock out to kill us.

We treat first down plays like they're free downs, like they're not concerned with making plays. Happy for a few yards and 2nd and 6 each time.

I hope LaPolice leaves after this season because he called a freaking brutal game today. Completely embarrassing for the defense to get torn up right at the end of the game. Barely made them work for it.

I never expect us to win this game any season, but after this week its even harder to predict a Bombers' win. Hope I'm wrong and we get a surprise W.

I wouldn't believe his excuse if any other player said it, so I don't believe Harris. Sucks for the Bombers, especially going into Labour Day. Lot more pressure on Streveler and that Sunday match up looks pretty bleak. Harris deserves his suspension.

My favourite Suitor moment from last night was listening to him go on about how Maas will be sure to speak to his team about discipline. I figured Maas was much more likely to just whine and complain after the game. This morning I woke up and saw his post game interview. Nailed it.