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The Winnipeg Blue Bombers have had one of the CFL\u2019s best defences for many years, often picking up the slack for a sluggish offence.<\/p>\n
On Thursday night at Princess Auto Stadium, there was a Freaky Friday-like role reversal as the offence roared for 27 points and 459 net yards, while the defence offered little resistance against a dominant Hamilton Tiger-Cats attack.<\/p>\n
Bo Levi Mitchell threw the ball at will, completing 19-of-24 pass attempts for 287 yards and three touchdowns. His numbers would have been even better had he not overthrown a deep shot to Kenny Lawler at the end of the first quarter, which would likely have resulted in a 102-yard touchdown.<\/p>\n
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Free. Unsubscribe anytime. By signing up you agree to receive daily emails from 3DownNation, The outcome was a 37-27 win for Steeltown, sending the sold-out crowd of 32,343 home feeling disappointed. It was just the team\u2019s eighth regular-season home loss since 2021.<\/p>\n After the game,\u00a03DownNation spoke to over a half-dozen defensive starters about the unit\u2019s performance.<\/p>\n \u201c(Our performance was) horrible. We\u2019ve just gotta play better. As a whole defence, we\u2019ve just got to do a better job, and give us a chance to win the game. We just couldn\u2019t stop anything,\u201d said Jake Ceresna. \u201cThey played a great game, kudos to them. They had a great game plan, but we have to watch the film and see what the issues are, but a lot of times I feel like we\u2019re just shooting ourselves in the foot.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWe didn\u2019t play well enough,\u201d said Redha Kramdi. \u201cMental mistakes, three levels \u2014 from the line, to the second level, to the back end \u2014 we didn\u2019t execute at a high level, and when you play a good opponent, you get exposed, and we played horrible. We need to take ownership in that loss. The offence did amazing and it\u2019s a team sport, but the offence put enough points for us to win the game easily, so we need to do better as a defence.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s just small mistakes \u2014 alignment, assignment. It was not at our standards. It was way off our standards, and it\u2019s killing me that the offence put up great quality football, and we couldn\u2019t on defence give us a chance to win \u2026 I think they had a beat on what we were doing, but even if they had a beat on what we\u2019re doing, if we execute at a high level, we can cover. There\u2019s rules in this defence, and we didn\u2019t execute \u2014 we didn\u2019t read our keys, and that\u2019s what happened.\u201d<\/p>\n Last year, Winnipeg\u2019s defence allowed a league-low 34 touchdowns and 21.4 points per game. The unit accomplished this without relying on an elite pass rush, which ranked ninth with only 23 sacks. Instead, it disguised eight and nine-man coverages to create tight passing windows, and consistently contested catches.<\/p>\n The numbers clearly illustrate this. In 2025, the CFL\u2019s other eight defences allowed completion percentages between 68.5 and 72.4. Against the Blue Bombers, quarterbacks completed only 62.2 percent of their passes.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019ve gotta do better. You\u2019ve seen it, you know. Ain\u2019t nothing to talk about, it ain\u2019t no secret. We gotta hold ourselves to certain standards,\u201d said Deatrick Nichols. \u201cIt\u2019s only the first two games. We got 16, 17, 18 more games, so we\u2019ll be all right. Go to the drawing board. We did some good things, bad things, but we\u2019ve just gotta fix and continue this marathon that we\u2019re trying to run.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s basic stuff. Nothing too crazy, just play old-school, eight-year-old football. Line up right to the ball, tackle, cover, all of the basic things.\u201d<\/p>\n The defence\u2019s lack of fundamentals were certainly a problem.<\/p>\n Larry Rountree III rushed 23 times for 124 yards, many of which came after contact with defenders in his wake. The 27-year-old was playing only his second career regular-season CFL game but looked like Mike Pringle ripping through would-be tacklers.<\/p>\n For context, Winnipeg was relatively strong against the run last year, tying for third league-wide with 5.0 yards per carry allowed.<\/p>\n \u201cWe played young, didn\u2019t tackle well enough,\u201d said head coach Mike O\u2019Shea. \u201cAt some point, you just gotta make the decision to wrap up and tackle somebody. I thought we could have got off the field a couple more times just by cleaning up the tackling.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI just think we fell short sometimes of our gaps. I don\u2019t think we were getting pushed around, actually, it didn\u2019t feel like that. It just felt like there was loss of gap integrity and some tackling. Better tackling was needed.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYou have to give credit to Hamilton. They\u2019re well-coached, it\u2019s well-designed (on offence), and it\u2019s run by a hell of a good quarterback.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt was a tough game,\u201d said Cameron Lawson. \u201cWe\u2019ve just gotta play better at the end of the day. We gave up too many explosions. We didn\u2019t stop them on the run when we needed to. Just overall, it wasn\u2019t a great performance from us, and we\u2019ve gotta get better off of it.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI think we played a little better in the second half. First half, we just gotta come off the ball early, and we gotta be lights out early. We can\u2019t start slow like that and let teams get ahead that much, because then it\u2019s just an uphill battle. It opens up their playbook, it closes down ours a little bit, and you\u2019re kind of had a disadvantage, like in a chess match.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019ve got some young players in, and we\u2019ve gotta get their IQ up, and knowing more, and getting them more reps, and just coming together and working on what we need to work on. There\u2019s clear things that obviously we need to fix.\u201d<\/p>\n The defence has now started slow in both of Winnipeg\u2019s first two regular-season games. The unit allowed three touchdowns on Calgary\u2019s first five possessions in Week 1, then three touchdowns on Hamilton\u2019s first four possessions in Week 2.<\/p>\n Obviously, this is unsustainable. For a team to win games consistently, its defence can\u2019t give up 21-plus points before halftime each and every week.<\/p>\n \u201cWe just didn\u2019t do a good job,\u201d said Evan Holm. \u201cI didn\u2019t do a good job either as a leader out there, but Bo and Scott (Milanovich), they do a good job over there. They have a lot of things that kind of schemed us up. We missed some ones where we were in good calls, we missed some plays, missed some tackles. We\u2019ve just got to play better, but they did a great job, so I don\u2019t want to take anything away from them. They made their plays.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI think we just kind of let it compound from the first half. We didn\u2019t have a good first half, it seemed like everything was working. We had adjustments, just make the plays after half, and we didn\u2019t do that. We kind of just let it compound. Everybody\u2019s taking turns making mistakes, or we\u2019re making multiple mistakes \u2014 missing tackles, too, and I feel like we missed a lot of tackles as a defence, myself included. We kind of let it compound. We didn\u2019t kind of flush it, it just kind of carried into that second half, in my opinion.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019ve gotta be better,\u201d said Jonathan Moxey. \u201cWe still had a way to come back and in the end and have a chance, but we\u2019ve got to do better, starting off in the first quarter, second quarter as well \u2014 just first half, in general. Give ourselves a better opportunity to win.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cEvery team in the CFL, just in football in general, they\u2019re gonna come out with new stuff that you haven\u2019t seen. The stuff that you might see on film, the first 15 to 20 plays is gonna be something completely different \u2014 something they scheme us, the way we scheme them. We just gotta find a way to scheme back and to execute defensively to do better.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI felt like, as a whole, there was plays we left out there on the field,\u201d said Tony Jones. \u201cAt the end of the day, for us to be an elite defence, all 12 of us are going to have to do our jobs at our best ability. I felt like as a whole, we didn\u2019t play our best defence. We know we\u2019re way better than that.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m not sure (why we weren\u2019t able to bounce back in the second half). I felt like throughout the week we had good prep and whatever it was. I just felt like, as a whole, we just weren\u2019t as sharp as we were supposed to be.\u201d<\/p>\n Points have skyrocketed through six regular-season CFL games in 2026, averaging 59.0 per game. Last year, which was higher-scoring than most, saw an average of 52.9.<\/p>\n It stands to reason that offences won\u2019t be able to keep up such a torrid pace as the year progresses, which seems like good news for all nine defences.<\/p>\n As for how the Blue Bombers will get better on defence, one veteran defender offered a plan for how to get back on track.<\/p>\n \u201cTake the corrections from (defensive coordinator Jordan Younger), learn from your mistakes, make your plays. We\u2019ve just got to make our plays \u2014 when we\u2019re one-on-one, we have a job to make,\u201d said Holm.<\/p>\n \u201cSometimes it\u2019s going to be me, sometimes could be someone else. We\u2019ve just got to do our job, do what we\u2019re asked to do. It\u2019s game two, so there\u2019s a lot to correct, a lot to go over, which is good. We can\u2019t dwell on it, but we can\u2019t take this lightly either, because since I\u2019ve been here, we haven\u2019t played like that in a while.\u201d<\/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 and curling reporter for Rock Channel.<\/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
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