The Tiger-Cats shut up the partisan Winnipeg crowd on Thursday night’s opening drive, but Hamilton’s offence went silent the rest of the night.
Starting quarterback Jeremiah Masoli went up-tempo on the first possession of the game, and it appeared as though the Ticats were going to light up the Blue Bombers’ home scoreboard. However, Masoli’s 37-yard touchdown connection with Jaelon Acklin accounted for the only points for the Black and Gold in a 19-6 loss to begin the 2021 CFL season.
“I’ll have to look at the tape, but I’m not even sure that we won one phase of the football game here this evening. You’re just not going to win any football games the way we played tonight. There’s no moral victories, we didn’t get it done and very disappointed,” head coach Orlondo Steinauer said.
“I think it could’ve gotten out of hand, but I’m not questioning the effort at all. Our execution was not good enough at the professional level. This won’t define us, we’ll bounce back, but not if we don’t clean a lot of things up. It’s not the start that we wanted, but it’s reality, so we’ll deal with it and move forward.”
Masoli completed five straight passes for 84 yards on the Tabbies’ TD march, but was forced to try and operate with intense pressure for most of the game. Even though Masoli was only sacked once, the Bombers pass rush consistently forced him out of the pocket quickly, due in large part to the play of Willie Jefferson and Jackson Jeffcoat. The pair of pass rushers have dubbed themselves the best defensive end tandem in the league.
“We had a couple mental errors all around, it wasn’t just one guy, one group,” Masoli said.
“I thought our o-line did a hell of a job hanging in there and doing what they could, but when we are in pass only situations, there’s only so much you can do.”
Jefferson and Jeffcoat wreaked havoc and kept winning against inexperienced Hamilton tackles on the opposite sides of the offensive line. Trevon Tate made the second start or his career at left tackle while Kay Okafor was starting for the second time of his career at right tackle. The issues caused Masoli to throw two interceptions and complete less than 60 percent of his attempts.
Even though the time of possession was slanted heavily in the Bombers favour, Hamilton’s defence, led by captain Simoni Lawrence, held the Ticats in it. Although, two touchdown strikes from Zach Collaros to Kenny Lawler were enough for Winnipeg to celebrate the banner-raising night at IG Field with a win.
The former Tiger-Cat quarterback was efficient and mistake-free, Collaros completing 18-of-28 passes for 217 yards and two touchdowns with no interceptions. Collaros was helped by a breakout starting debut by Canadian running back Brady Oliveira.
After a season-ending broken ankle in the second game of the pro career in 2019, Oliveira proved he’s fully healthy, rushing 22 times for 126 yards. The Winnipeg native was selected by the Bombers in the second round, 14th overall during the CFL Draft. Oliveira was the main ball carrier with Andrew Harris sidelined due to a calf injury.
Without the 2019 Grey Cup Most Valuable Player and Most Valuable Canadian in the lineup, Winnipeg used a similar ultra-physical style from the CFL championship to send Hamilton home with an L.
