Grey Cup Loss to Montreal Alouettes to 'Fuel' Winnipeg Blue Bombers in Future
The Winnipeg Blue Bombers were close to completing their dynasty status, but fell short to the Montreal Alouettes 28-24 in the Grey Cup on Sunday night.
Winnipeg finished with 363 total net yards of offense in the game, which included 157 yards on the ground. Veteran quarterback Zach Collaros threw for 236 yards and one interception. Despite some good things to take away from the game, Collaros was blunt in saying he couldn’t find any.
"Not right now," he said. "You played to win the Grey Cup and we fell short."
Montreal found success throwing for 290 yards on the Winnipeg defense. For Bombers coach Mike O’Shea, there wasn’t anything surprising to him regarding how the Alouettes offense functioned.
"No, they are the same," he said. "They run to the ball, they try and take the ball away. Once again they came in pretty hot and they stuck to it. There's always going to be a wrinkle with an old fork, but they made a few more plays than us."
There were two turnovers by the Blue Bombers, including the one interception Collaros underthrew Kenny Lawler in the end zone. He acknowledged that he made a mistake throwing the ball where he did.
“Yeah, just probably missed the read," Collaros said. "Probably could have gave that one to Brady there up front. They were in a different front than they had been playing and pulled it and thought the corner was playing man against I think it was Wally out there at Z and just thought I had a corner to kind of felt the defense all down and thought of the corner ball there to I think it was Kenny.”
Winnipeg finished the season with a 14-4 record before winning in the Western Final to play in the Grey Cup. The Bombers missed out on winning their third Grey Cup in four years. Collaros said the team will work through the loss and use it as motivation in the future.
"Yeah, right now we're just all upset right now, I think, and it's certainly something that you want to fuel you," he said. "You don't want to go the other way with it. And I think we're all professionals in there and people that will use it to fuel them, but right now it's hard. It hurts."
Alouettes Prove 'Haters' Wrong, Upset Bombers
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Anthony Miller has been covering professional spring football since 2019 including XFL, USFL, and CFL. He was a local news reporter in Texas before transitioning to sports. Other sites he writes for includes College Football Network and NTZ Network.