The late stages of last weekend’s Grey Cup was a comedy of errors for the Winnipeg Blue Bombers, but arguably the most significant mistake came midway through the fourth quarter when Nick Arbuckle hit Dejon Brissett for a 17-yard touchdown, which gave the Toronto Argonauts a 24-16 lead.
When watching the play back, Winnipeg’s defence only had 11 players on the field. Playing a man short in the preseason might be understandable, but those types of mistakes aren’t supposed to happen in meaningful games. For such a blunder to occur in the fourth quarter of the Grey Cup is inexcusable.
Mike O’Shea, Winnipeg’s long-tenured head coach, fell on the sword during his season-ending media availability on Friday, taking the blame for the oversight at such a critical juncture of the most important game of the year.
“That’s completely on me. I should just see that there’s some confusion with a substitution and the easy thing, especially when they’re in the red zone, is I should just stop it (with a timeout),” said O’Shea. “Let’s get set up and live to play another day. Hold them to a field goal or take the ball away, hold them to a single or a miss — whatever it is. Zero, one, or three and live to play another day.”
Redha Kramdi was injured three plays before the touchdown occurred, making him ineligible to take the field. Brandon Alexander moved to Kramdi’s spot at strong-side linebacker with Nick Taylor replacing Alexander at safety.
The same adjustment happened when Kramdi got banged up in the West Final, which resulted in Kian Schaffer-Baker making the biggest play of the day for the Saskatchewan Roughriders, hauling in a 37-yard catch from Trevor Harris, which set up a one-yard touchdown run by A.J. Ouellette. Watching the play back, Winnipeg’s defence was badly beaten, though it at least had 12 players on the field.
Nick Arbuckle (@arbuckle_QB9) wires it to Dejon Brissett (@ooh_Canada) to extend the lead.#CFL #Argos #PullTogether #GreyCup
pic.twitter.com/kLFnDMqRmU— 3DownNation (@3DownNation) November 18, 2024
This past weekend, Brissett ran a hitch-and-go behind Alexander and Taylor appeared a step slow reacting to the throw. It’s possible that he was drawn to the boundary side of the field where his team appeared to be missing a linebacker.
“The wrong guy gets hurt, the substitution is off there at the far end (of the field). I don’t get the count over the headset as quickly as I probably need to,” O’Shea explained. “We can’t count — as I’m seeing a guy come off, that’s the right time for that timeout that I should have used. That’s what I’m talking about.”
Brissett’s touchdown forced Winnipeg to press while playing from behind. Toronto’s defence gobbled up three interceptions from an injured Zach Collaros over the next five minutes to build an insurmountable 41-16 lead. The Blue Bombers added a touchdown in garbage time, but the damage was done.
O’Shea also regrets not using his challenge flag earlier in the game and wishes he had checked in on his players more throughout the contest. One area in which he wouldn’t change anything, however, is his decision to reinsert Zach Collaros at quarterback following a deep laceration he suffered to the index finger of his throwing hand.
“That’s not even something I’ve really thought about,” said O’Shea, who indicated he had a full understanding of the injury. “Watching him throw (on the sideline), I thought, ‘Yeah, this is something he’s going to be able to work with.’ He absolutely deserves every opportunity to lead this team. From what I saw and from chatting with him very briefly, I felt really comfortable with that.”
The 54-year-old native of North Bay, Ont. has a history of allowing injured players to take the field in the playoffs. Chris Streveler had a distal tibia fracture and a severe high-ankle sprain during the team’s Grey Cup run in 2019 and Dalton Schoen and Adam Bighill were nowhere near 100 percent for last year’s Grey Cup loss to the Montreal Alouettes.
O’Shea defended this practice on Friday and seemed to suggest that players aren’t given enough opportunities to play through injuries in the modern game.
“I’ve seen the greatness guys achieve if we let them. I’ve seen what happens over time, especially as football has gone the way it’s gone, how we refuse to let players be great in big moments. I go back to (Chris Streveler) and just giving him the opportunity to strap it up go and what that does for a team. I am a firm believer that we have to give our players the opportunity to be great.”
