MONTREAL — It’s July, it’s early in the season but the Winnipeg Blue Bombers are faced with this very real possibility if they don’t take care of business tonight against the Montreal Alouettes: dropping into last place in the CFL’s East Division.
The Bombers, 0-1, meet the 1-0 Als at Percival Molson Stadium here in downtown Montreal and — after the Hamilton Tiger-Cats surprising mauling of the Argonauts in Toronto on Thursday — need the win to avoid falling to 0-2 and becoming the only winless team in the division.
What will be critical for the Bombers is to improve their efficiency in the score zone after last week’s loss to Toronto. Winnipeg was able to pile up some decent offensive yardage totals against the Boatmen, but also settled too often for field goals instead of touchdowns. As well, quarterback Kevin Glenn was intercepted three times.
“Teams are doing a lot of different stuff against us in the score zone in terms of the types of coverage they play,” said Glenn. “They’re doing a lot less man (coverage) and a lot more zone. And when you get into the scoring zone and teams are playing zone it’s tougher to throw the ball. We have to come up with ways to get touchdowns and we’ve addressed that and I think you’ll see a difference (tonight).
“It’s like an ongoing process as far as working out the kinks because you’re never perfect, you can always get better. Coach Berry stresses this after every game: you take one thing out of the game and you work on getting better. That’s how you become a better player. We’ve taken that approach as an offence: every week isn’t going to be perfect, but we’re going to try to strive to be better.”
Tonight’s game is not only the home opener for the Alouettes, but the regular-season debut of new head coach Marc Trestman, who has impressed everyone with his quick adjustment to the Canadian game. A career assistant in the U.S. who was the offensive co-ordinator in the Oakland Raiders Super Bowl run of 2002, Trestman’s Alouettes were impressive in a Week 1 victory over Hamilton, especially offensively.
But Trestman said at his press conference on Thursday he’s still got a long way to go to be comfortable on the sidelines.
“I don’t think I’m going to be comfortable for quite some time because there’s going to be something new that is going to happen (tonight) that hasn’t happened for me yet,” admitted Trestman. “You’re always trying to envision those situations, but you really can’t because you don’t know when they’re going to come up. I’m trying to stand in there and do the best I can with each and every minute of the game. I’ve got coaches talking to me about situations, I’m asking questions throughout the game in trying to anticipate some things. It’s just going to be a learning process... it won’t just be tomorrow or next week, it’s going to be a yearly thing.”
The Bombers and Als kick off at 6 p.m. with Winnipeg’s next home game a week from today against the B.C. Lions.
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