It all started to go horribly wrong immediately after the Bombers beat the Eskimos in Edmonton on Sept. 30, to improve to 10-3 and seemingly lock up home field advantage in the playoffs.
The first domino to fall came right after the bye week in September, with the Winnipeg Blue Bombers sitting at 8-3 and feeling great about their season.
Jamaal Westerman, one of the vocal leaders on the team, was not taking part in practice and was later revealed to be out for the season with a reported torn triceps muscle.
It was the first real sign of adversity for the Bombers but one they felt they could handle, with strong depth on the defensive line and an offence that could churn up enough yards and put up enough points to take a lot of pressure of the defence.
For two weeks everything looked OK, but it all started to go horribly wrong immediately after the Bombers beat the Eskimos in Edmonton on Sept. 30, to improve to 10-3 and seemingly lock up home field advantage in the playoffs.
That’s when they let their collective foot off the gas.
The Bombers have not played a complete game since and have a 1-3 record, with two of the losses coming at home against non-playoff teams.
They are perilously close to losing their home playoff game, with an offence that has come completely apart, a defence that can’t stop anybody and a sporadic kicking game.
They lost two more star players to devastating injuries — linebacker Moe Leggett (torn Achilles) and wide receiver Darvin Adams (arm) — and completely lost the mojo that had them looking like the second best team in the league and legitimate Grey Cup contenders just four weeks ago.
Suddenly, the dominoes are falling rapidly, and Saturday’s performance against the 7-10 B.C. Lions was the worst yet.
If the Bombers can’t beat the 13-3-1 Calgary Stampeders on Friday in Alberta and if the 11-6 Edmonton Eskimos beat the 10-7 Saskatchewan Roughriders on Saturday, Winnipeg will have to go on the road to open the playoffs in Edmonton.
Could you even have imagined that to be possible after that 28-19 Winnipeg win in Edmonton exactly a month ago?
Quarterback Matt Nichols, once a strong candidate for the league’s most outstanding player award, has been knocked out of two of the last four games — once with a torn finger nail and once with an apparent calf injury.
His backups, Dom Davis and Dan LeFevour, don’t look at all capable of getting the job done when he’s out.
Bombers coach Mike O’Shea said Nichols’ latest injury — suffered in Saturday’s 36-27 loss to the Lions — is not that serious but it could cause him difficulty as the team prepares for what is now a huge game in Calgary.
Not that the offence has been any great shakes with Nichols in the lineup lately.
In the last five games, the Bombers have not hit the 300-yard passing mark once. They’ve been held to net offence totals of 241, 303, 232, 343 and 333.
Before they started sliding, their offence was averaging 400 yards per game, the best total by a Bombers team since 2002.
Without an efficient offence, the Bombers are doomed because the defence has been getting torched.
In the last five games they’ve allowed yardage totals of 543, 572, 356, 484 and 436. Though they are 2-3 in those games, the Bombers have not been close in the yardage battle in any one of them.
The bright side, of course, is they are still 11-6 and do still have a chance to right the ship.
A solid performance and a victory in Calgary and another the next week in the playoffs would likely make fans forget all about this ugly stretch.
Many a CFL team over the years has stumbled into the post-season and rediscovered the magic in November. As bleak as things look, this season is still salvageable.
It’s hard to imagine that working for the Bombers right now, with the way their defence is getting picked apart, but stranger things have happened.
Perhaps O’Shea said it best, when he was asked what it will take to get the good feelings back for this slumping squad.
The Stampeders have nothing to play for Friday and could rest key players.
They’ve also just lost two games in a row for the first time since 2012.
A win will be there for the taking for the Bombers, warts and all.
And perhaps the good feelings won’t be far behind.