The Winnipeg Blue Bombers saw their season come to an end in the East Semi-Final on Saturday with a 42-33 loss to the Montreal Alouettes. With the team’s streak of five-straight Grey Cup appearances now over, franchise quarterback Zach Collaros spoke to the challenges that plagued the offence this season.
“From a playing standpoint, I am disappointed. I’m frustrated. I don’t think we played good football this year on offence, and that starts with me,” Collaros told the media at Princess Auto Stadium on Sunday.
“There was a lot of ups and downs this season, many times where I did not think we played up to our standard and just good football. That can’t be just directed in one place, and it’s very hard for me after games to point the finger at anybody but myself. No matter what situation we’re put in, what the call is, or how the preparation was for the week, I always revert back to, ‘I could have done something to make this play right to help the team.’ It’s very hard for me to really expound upon that.”
Winnipeg’s passing game finished last in the CFL this season as part of an offensive attack that ranked fifth in net offence, fifth in yards per play, and seventh in scoring.
It’d be easy to point to the departure of Kenny Lawler, the ACL tear sustained by Dalton Schoen, and the ineffectiveness of free-agent addition Dillon Mitchell for the team’s aerial struggles, though Collaros felt the team had the players it needed in order to be successful. Instead, he spoke to challenges that started all the way back in training camp with an insinuation that the passing game lacked an overall plan or identity.
“I think reps matter a lot, trying to figure out what you’re good at and kind of honing in on that and growing that. We need to get better in passing, for sure. I think that’s not just this season, I think the last couple seasons — not just last year, but the year before, too — it’s gotten tougher, for sure,” said Collaros.
“(In training camp) we repped a lot of things that we didn’t rep during the season. I didn’t get a lot of reps with the guys who were playing. My situation put us in jeopardy there with the suspension and trying to manage that. I think it’s getting reps — reps with the players, reps with what concepts do we like? On second-and-six, second-and-five with the game on the line, what are we going to call because we know we can execute the play? I don’t know if we had that this year, so getting good at something, I think, matters.”
The 37-year-old passer threw for 3,048 yards, 17 touchdowns, and 16 interceptions over 13 starts this season, posting a 6-7 record. Outside of the yardage, which was much higher last season, those numbers are essentially the same as what Collaros recorded in 2024.
For a player who won back-to-back Most Outstanding Player awards not too long ago, it seems fair to question if the native of Steubenville, Ohio, is in decline. Though he doesn’t see himself diminishing as a player, he wouldn’t argue with anyone who said otherwise.
“I don’t physically feel that way,” he said. “Mentally, I don’t feel that way, but I’d be hard-pressed to argue with you if you said that I didn’t play good football this season.”
Collaros said his lease in Winnipeg runs through the end of November, an arrangement he and his family made with the expectation of reaching the Grey Cup. Though it appears they plan to spend more time in the city before moving back to their offseason home near Toronto, he has no plans to attend the Grey Cup regardless of which teams are in it.
As for what’s next for him and the Blue Bombers, Collaros not only plans to be back next year, but he wants the supporting cast to remain the same. That might be impossible given that the team has 33 pending free agents, including Brady Oliveira, Nic Demski, and Willie Jefferson.
“I don’t think it’s the end of an era. I don’t even know how to categorize it. If you’re grouping things together, when you make it to five straight Grey Cups and then you don’t, I guess it’s kind of a cut off there, but I think we still have the pieces in place,” he said.
“I’d like to continue to do this. I love this sport, I love this league, I love this organization, first and foremost, and I love my teammates. I want to do it. I want to continue to do it, but I want to play good football, and I want the guys who have been here — Jake Thomas, Patrick Neufeld, Stanley Bryant, Shayne Gauthier — for the run. I’d like for them to be here to do it because I think we can continue to do it.”
“Having high expectations are a great thing. You should have high expectations of yourself, and we should have high expectations of our organization. I think it’s why people want to come play here. I think it’s why those of us who have been here for six-plus years or five-plus years want to continue to come back and keep doing this: it’s because of the expectations. If it was just to make the playoffs each year, a lot of us would have retired by now, but that chase is why a lot of us, I think, continue to want to do this.”
