Yards without points: Winnipeg Blue Bombers can move football but can’t score touchdowns

By
Ben Grant
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Photo courtesy: Toronto Argonauts

The Winnipeg Blue Bombers have played one more game than every other team in the CFL, yet they’ve scored the fewest points and the fewest number of total touchdowns.

The anomaly is that they’ve generally moved the football well. The Blue Bombers lead the league in rushing touchdowns and yards gained on first down, are second in the league in first downs, rushing yards, and overall yards, and have more passing yards than the Argonauts, Roughriders, Redblacks, Elks, and Stampeders.

So why haven’t all these yards and converted first downs generated touchdowns? There’s not one answer to that question, so we’ll dig deep here.

Turnovers have clearly been an issue, automatically ending drives without a score. Winnipeg has five more turnovers than any other team and Zach Collaros leads the league in interceptions thrown with eight. Having over half a million dollars worth of touchdown-makers on the injured list in Dalton Schoen and Kenny Lawler hasn’t helped either.

The biggest contributing factor, however, has been Winnipeg’s pass protection. Taking sacks is part of the equation — they kill drives, and no team has surrendered more sacks than Winnipeg. Collaros has also been getting hurried, hit, and knocked down a lot even when avoiding sacks, which has also contributed to his lack of normal effectiveness and rushed his decision-making.

The issues with pass protection have also limited the scope of the Winnipeg offence in terms of what routes Collaros can throw with confidence. The inconsistent performance across the line has meant that the veteran quarterback never knows from where the pressure will come. Collaros hasn’t finished a season with a completion percentage lower than his current mark of 67.3 since 2018 and Winnipeg as a team has the lowest completion percentage and pass efficiency rating in the CFL. The combination of these different problems has kept Winnipeg out of the end zone in 2024.

What happened to the Blue Bombers this past week in Toronto was a microcosm of what we’ve seen from them all season. Collaros threw for over 317 yards and Brady Oliveira ran for 7.4 yards per carry, logging 96 rushing yards on 13 carries. And yet, their only offensive touchdown came on a Toronto mistake — a coverage bust that left Pokey Wilson streaking down the sideline all alone for a 55-yard touchdown.

Winnipeg had 14 offensive drives in regulation time and five of them ended because of turnovers. There was a turnover on downs, Collaros threw an interception on a tipped ball, Oliveira had a ball punched out from behind, and Demski and Wolitarsky each had a ball knocked out by the helmet or shoulder pad of a Toronto tackler.

Zach Collaros dropped back to pass 37 times and Chris Streveler had one passing attempt. Of those 38 dropbacks, they were hurried nine times, hit five times, knocked down three times, and sacked five times.

In other words, the quarterbacks were disrupted in some way on 22 of 38 called passing plays. That’s 58 percent of the time. Zach Collaros was physically contacted by Toronto defenders on over 35 percent of his passing plays, which is simply too many.

Poor blitz pickup wasn’t the only contributing factor, but it came into play. The Argos blitzed 17 times on Winnipeg passing plays and the Blue Bombers appeared unable to pick up four of them properly. Those four failures led to two hurries, one hit, and one sack.

To be clear, there are times when a defence sends more defenders than the offence has pass protectors, so a free blitzer doesn’t count as a failed blitz pickup in those cases as long as he comes from the outside. Toronto did this just once and Winnipeg picked it up correctly, but Collaros was still knocked to the ground by Robert Priester, the free rusher, as the pass fell incomplete.

Far more concerning for the Blue Bombers than blitz pickup was what happened to Collaros when Toronto only sent a three or four-man rush, which they did on 21 occasions. Those non-blitz rushes led to four hurries, one hit, two knockdowns, and an unforgivable four sacks.

Against a three or four-man rush, Collaros was disrupted 52 percent of the time, sacked 19 percent of the time, and physically contacted 33 percent of the time. By my assessment, none of those plays featured Collaros holding onto the ball for too long, as the pressure was almost immediate.

Inadequate protection generally leads to poor quarterback play. The passer’s decision-making is accelerated, their accuracy is impacted, and they often can’t step into their throws, so their ball velocity is compromised due to poor mechanics. Instead of keeping their eyes downfield, they begin to look for pressure. It alters the thought process of the quarterback, and also of the play-caller, who doesn’t want to watch his or her quarterback repeatedly take hits.

So, how does this affect touchdown passes? Gone are those long-developing concepts with receivers crossing through multiple zones. Collaros has been a wizard with plays like this over the years. They challenge defensive discipline, lead to busts in coverage, and result in long touchdowns. Only Calgary and Toronto have fewer completions of over 30 yards this season.

Of the 32 passes Collaros threw against the Argonauts, 21 of them had a target depth of about 10 yards or less. 12 of them were to receivers at or behind the line of scrimmage.

You can string together first downs with this style of play if you’re in your own end or around midfield, but inside the 20-yard-line, that open space we all love in the CFL begins to disappear as the field shrinks and defenders creep towards the line of scrimmage. Short passes become harder to complete, especially if the defence can generate pressure without blitzing, leaving eight or nine defenders flying around in coverage.

Winnipeg has had 21 opportunities inside the 20-yard-line this season, one less than the league-leading B.C. Lions, and yet they’ve only turned 10 such opportunities into touchdowns. Only Ottawa has a worse red zone conversion rate.

Zach Collaros has 14 fewer touchdown passes than Bo Levi Mitchell. His three touchdowns tie him with Caleb Evans, who has one start, and Tre Ford, who has 17 pass attempts.

Even so, I’d be hesitant to point the finger in his direction. Given the weapons he’s lost and the struggles of his offensive line, he’s played remarkably well. On Saturday night, his 317 yards were hard-earned, hanging in the pocket as long as he possibly could to give his receivers a chance to make a play. The Argos had one bust in coverage and he found it for a touchdown. His lone interception was deflected twice before falling into the arms of a defender who was covering a different receiver.

Zach Collaros, a three-time Grey Cup champion and two-time M.O.P. didn’t suddenly forget how to play quarterback, but the team around him isn’t the same. Though they haven’t been winning, he’s kept them in games, and if the projection improves, those field goal attempts will turn into touchdowns, and those close losses will start turning into wins.

The Winnipeg Blue Bombers (2-6) will host the B.C. Lions (5-2) on Thursday, Aug. 1 with kickoff slated for 8:30 p.m. EDT.

Ben Grant
Ben Grant is the radio colour analyst for the Toronto Argonauts. He has been coaching high school and semi-pro football for 20 years.
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