Toronto Argonauts left reeling after ugly loss to Winnipeg Blue Bombers
The Toronto Argonauts were unable to contain Andrew Harris as the Canadian running back helped propel the Winnipeg Blue Bombers to a win over the Double Blue.
It was clear that the Toronto Argonauts were going to be in for a tough day against the Winnipeg Blue Bombers and all three phases were simply not good enough from the start.
The defence forced a punt on Winnipeg’s opening drive but a fumble from Martese Jackson put the Blue Bombers within striking distance and from there, the Argos were forced to play catch up. Offensively the team could only muster up a single point which should’ve been three if not for a missed field goal by Ronnie Pfeffer, in the CFL that’s simply not going to cut it.
Head coach Marc Trestman was visibly disappointed with the result in his postgame presser as he knows that the struggles don’t just lie on the players.
“But for the most part, we lost this game because we’ve got to coach it better and we’ve got to play better. That sounds very obvious,” said Trestman. “We did neither. We didn’t play well enough to win, we didn’t coach well enough to win.”
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It’s hard to make excuses for a team that’s 1-4 that’s scored 81 points this season (sixth in the league and is near the bottom in most of the offensive categories. The loss of Ricky Ray doesn’t help but the team still struggled with him behind centre.
Trestman did say in his postgame presser that he hopes to lean his strong group of veteran leaders like Marcus Ball to keep the team on track as they get back on the field Monday.
“You got to show the young guys by giving a verbal and visual example by coming to work with a positive in order to get better.” Ball said after the game.
Quarterback James Franklin didn’t shy away from how he felt about his performance in his third start.
“I definitely put this one on me I know the guys won’t say that because it’s a team sport but I’m just going to make some better decisions to help put us in a better position,” said Franklin after the game.
It was clear that there were some decisions that he wished he could have had back but it doesn’t help when the run game was totally shut down which put him in a tough position to try and find ways to move the ball down the field.
At times, it felt like the young quarterback would force a play when another option was available and that’s going to be pointed out when the team goes over game film. There were times where he and S.J. Green weren’t on the same page which is not something you see often.
This is where having a short memory will be important for Franklin and luckily for him, Trestman did say that he is committed to having him work out his struggles.
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They’ll have a chance to return the favour against the Blue Bombers in Winnipeg on Friday.