![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/IMG_3864-scaled.jpg\")
\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tSamantha Keen\/3DownNation. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n
The Winnipeg Blue Bombers are probably only going to go as far Zach Collaros can take them this season, which is why it was alarming to see how many hits he took last week.<\/p>\n
After sitting out four games due to a neck injury, the soon-to-be 38-year-old reentered the lineup against the Ottawa Redblacks, though his return momentarily seemed short-lived.<\/p>\n
Collaros took a hellacious blindside hit from linebacker Lucas Cormier, who blitzed free off the edge. The veteran quarterback received attention from medical staff on the field, then sat out five plays before reentering the game.<\/p>\n
\u2191 what lands at 3 p.m. daily<\/p>\n
3DownNation Newsletter<\/p>\n
\t\tLatest news, exclusive analysis, and more daily at 3 p.m.<\/p>\n
\t\tLatest news, exclusive analysis, and more daily at 3 p.m.<\/p>\n
\t\t\tFree. Unsubscribe anytime. By signing up you agree to receive daily emails from 3DownNation, There was an eery silence at Princess Auto Stadium when Collaros initially went down. Moments later, there was a collective sigh of relief when he trotted back onto the field.<\/p>\n Patrick Neufeld, the team\u2019s longtime right guard, told 3DownNation postgame that Collaros was hot on that particular play, meaning Ottawa rushed more players than Winnipeg could block. Collaros had to throw the ball immediately to beat the blitz but didn\u2019t, seemingly unaware Cormier was rushing.<\/p>\n \u201c(It was a) great call, great pressure by (Ottawa),\u201d said Neufeld. \u201cThey caught us in a protection that we had to squeeze down.\u201d<\/p>\n Collaros told the media postgame that he merely had the wind knocked out of him. He finished the contest 21-of-31 on his pass attempts for 222 yards, though Ontaria Wilson dropped what should have been an easy touchdown catch early in the second half.<\/p>\n The Blue Bombers allowed four sacks in the 33-21 victory, which set a new single-game season-high. Collaros addressed the issue postgame, and bore his share of the responsibility.<\/p>\n \u201cA\u00a0lot of (our issue with pass protection) is all-encompassing,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s 12 guys, and a lot of it has to do with the quarterback, so I\u2019ll take the blame for that.\u201d<\/p>\n Offensive coordinator Tommy Condell gave a similar assessment on Tuesday, reiterating that protecting the quarterback is a team effort.<\/p>\n \u201cI think it\u2019s always a team thing, it\u2019s never one guy,\u201d he said. \u201cZach\u2019s always going to take accountability like any leader should.<\/p>\n \u201cThe biggest thing \u2014 it\u2019s not from the naked eye and seeing pressure, it\u2019s not just the offensive line \u2014 it\u2019s the receivers getting separation, it\u2019s the tailbacks making sure we\u2019re on the same page, it\u2019s the quarterback understanding where the weaknesses in the defensive structure is, and the protection areas.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s not just one guy. You might just see the outcome, but there\u2019s a lot of things that go into it, where maybe the receiver didn\u2019t get to his depth, or we didn\u2019t have the right call up front, or it was an individual mistake.\u201d<\/p>\n Quarterbacks tend to get too much of the credit when things go well, and too much of the blame when things go poorly.<\/p>\n With that said, Collaros needs to do a better job of protecting himself.<\/p>\n As per\u00a0Pro Football Focus, the veteran passer has the second-highest average time to throw in the CFL this season at 2.82 seconds.<\/p>\n The only two other quarterbacks above 2.70 seconds are Tre Ford (3.20) and Davis Alexander (2.77), both of whom are a decade younger and considerably more agile than Collaros.<\/p>\n Collaros took a sack on Winnipeg\u2019s first possession on Friday night after holding onto the ball for more than four seconds. The team\u2019s offensive line has to improve, sure, but waiting that long to throw against five-man pressure is going to result in a sack more often than not.<\/p>\n The Blue Bombers have now allowed 21 sacks this season, only one shy of the Calgary Stampeders for most in the CFL. 12 sacks have come with Collaros at the helm with Dru Brown (six) and Taylor Elgersma (three) accounting for the others.<\/p>\n However, despite being sacked twice as many times as Brown, Collaros has attempted two fewer passes than his counterpart this season. He\u2019s been more effective than Brown, but he\u2019s also getting sacked essentially twice as often.<\/p>\n \u201c(Our offence) is still growing,\u201d said Condell. \u201cAnytime when you have a switch of quarterbacks, and playing with different quarterbacks, it\u2019s a different flavour with what that quarterback does properly or well, and then you mould it that way.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s not something that you just come out here and you\u2019re gonna try to fit a square peg in a round hole or anything of that nature. You\u2019re gonna do what they do best, and each quarterback\u2019s different, how they handle situations is different, and what they like is different.\u201d<\/p>\n When asked if taking fewer hits during the second half of the season was a priority for him, Collaros answered wryly.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019d love to do that, but that\u2019s just not really my style.\u201d<\/p>\n The Winnipeg Blue Bombers (5-4) will visit the Edmonton Elks (7-3) at Commonwealth Stadium on Friday, August 21 with kickoff scheduled for 9:30 p.m. EDT. The Blue Bombers are coming off a win over the Ottawa Redblacks, while the Elks blasted the Toronto Argonauts by a score of 42-12.<\/p>\n The weather forecast in Edmonton calls for 26 degrees and sun. The game will be broadcast on TSN in Canada, CBS Sports Network in the United States, and CFL+ internationally. Radio listeners can tune-in on 680 CJOB in Winnipeg or 880 CHED in Edmonton.<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t John Hodge is a longtime Canadian football reporter, insider, and podcaster for 3DownNation. Based in Winnipeg, Hodge is also a freelance television and radio broadcaster.<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\tas well as our terms of service<\/a> and
\n\t\t\tprivacy policy<\/a>.
\n\t\t\t1900 Rose St, Regina SK S4P 0A9.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/1787170028_602_0818-Hodge-600x600.jpg\")
\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n![](\"https:\/\/3downnation.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/3DownNation-Wordmark-v3-3.svg\"\/)
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Samantha Keen\/3DownNation. All rights reserved. The Winnipeg Blue Bombers are probably only going to go as far Zach…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":174557,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[349,350,1894,1895,351,352,354,38754,12837,12838,55560,31370,84,16157],"class_list":["post-174556","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-winnipeg","tag-3down","tag-3downnation","tag-blue-bombers","tag-bombers","tag-canadian","tag-cfl","tag-football","tag-protection","tag-qb","tag-quarterback","tag-sack","tag-tommy-condell","tag-winnipeg","tag-zach-collaros"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/174556","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=174556"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/174556\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/174557"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=174556"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=174556"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=174556"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}