WINNIPEG – The Winnipeg Blue Bombers’ seven game win streak has quickly morphed into a two game losing streak after a 40-26 defeat to the Edmonton Eskimos on Friday at Investors Group Field.
“We’re disappointed.” said linebacker Maurice Leggett. “We want to win every game.”
“We lost to a good football team because they played good football and capitalized on our mistakes.” said head coach Mike O’Shea. “And we gave them too many opportunities with our mistakes. It’s pretty clear and simple.”
What is clear is the Bombers struggled to contain the Eskimos biggest weapons on offence. Derel Walker had 120 yards receiving while Adarius Bowman finished with a 97 yard night and both receivers found the end zone.
“I thought they made some pretty big plays that hurt us.” O’Shea said. “They’re good football players.”
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The Bombers didn’t exactly stymie their running attack either. Eskies running back John White went over the century mark in rushing yards with 104 yards along the ground, while also scoring two touchdowns.
“He managed to get extra yards pretty well on a lot of runs.” said O’Shea. “He finished his runs by pushing hard forward and always managing to get extra.”
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“Our defence didn’t make that many plays as you can see.” said Leggett. “And that’s what we’re built on, so we were very uncharacteristic of our self today and we can’t do that against a great team.”
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The Bombers scored the first touchdown of the game but the Eskimos responded by getting 24 of the next 27 points. Especially disappointing for the Bombers who were focused on getting off to a better start after falling behind by 24 points to the Calgary Stampeders the week before.
“We can’t keep doing that.” said defensive back Kevin Fogg. “We can’t always depend on ourselves to come back.”
“That was a big focus of ours throughout the week, was coming out, start fast.” said receiver Weston Dressler. “Obviously we weren’t quite able to do it throughout the entire first half. Put ourselves in a hole.”
With the loss the Bombers won’t be able to clinch a playoff spot this weekend, but they’re still in the drivers seat.
“I think we’re still a game ahead of Edmonton in the west.” quarterback Matt Nichols said. “The sky’s not falling. We lost to a good football team.”
But they’ll face another good team next week with the B.C. Lions making a visit on Saturday.
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