No rewards for giving up air miles

MONTREAL -- The number screamed off the page -- 407.

That's a phenomenal score in fivepin bowling and a very busy highway in the Toronto area. But what it is not is the number of yards through the air that you want to have registered against the defence of your football team in their opening pre-season game.

And yet there it was in black and white in the final statistics of a 27-15 loss by the Winnipeg Blue Bombers to the Montreal Alouettes at Percival Molson Stadium Thursday night.

Now, to be absolutely clear, pre-season games mean nothing. If they did mean something, the Bombers wouldn't have gone 4-14 and the Alouettes wouldn't have won the Grey Cup last season after the Bombers pounded them 34-10 in the first pre-season game.

What's more, the Bombers defence that played here Thursday night did not even remotely resemble the one that will be on the field when the Bombers play their first regular season game in Hamilton on July 1.

There was no Doug Brown and Odell Willis breathing hot breath on any quarterbacks, there was no Clint Kent and Joe Lobendahn striking fear in any receivers who dared tread across the middle and there was no Jovon Johnson or Jonathan Hefney matching receivers step for step.

There's also the fact that Montreal came into the game seemingly determined to audition their passing game no matter what happened, running the ball just 15 times all night for a measly 35 yards -- which is to say that anytime you throw 44 times in a game you're going to put up some big yards.

And finally, for all those passing yards, Montreal scored just 27 points -- and one of their three touchdowns was gift-wrapped in the form of a Perry Floyd punt return fumble on the Winnipeg nine-yard-line.

So all that's true and all that needs to be taken into account as you ponder that 407-yard figure.

But what is also true is that Montreal did not exactly have their first team out there either.

For starters, Anthony Calvillo -- the hall of fame bound QB who is likely to break every major CFL passing record worth mentioning this season -- was nowhere to be seen among the trio of Als quarterbacks who put up all those yards on the Bombers defence.

So there's also that.

Now, the Bombers defence was not without its bright spots. The defensive line recovered a fumble -- Kenny Mainor -- and registered a sack -- Remond Willis, while the secondary picked off two passes -- Deon Beasley and Leslie Majors.

And then there was Johnny Sears, who registered nine tackles -- more than any other three Bomber defenders combined. You can look at that last statistic one of two ways -- Sears was a major presence on the field or he had to pull down a lot of receivers who caught balls on him, including the Als Brandon Loudon, who beat him for a 41-yard touchdown.

Sears said a lot of little things Thursday night combined into the big Montreal passing numbers.

"We've just got to polish up a few things," said Sears.

"If we can take care of those little things, the big picture is going to look a lot better."

That was, in essence, also the assessment of the head coach.

"Here's what I liked -- I liked that in the first quarter, when Montreal played a lot more veteran players, I thought we managed OK," said Paul LaPolice. "But I didn't like our overall execution -- I wish our execution had been better."

Put it together and what you had here Thursday night was an uneven effort by a defence that should be a lot better -- has to be a lot better -- this season than that screaming '407' number might at first suggest.