'Pretty shocked': No Bighill means big hole in Blue Bombers defence (2024)

The Winnipeg Blue Bombers haven’t even played a preseason game and already they’ve suffered their first significant loss.

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Middle linebacker and undisputed leader of the defence Adam Bighill will start the CFL season on the six-game injured list, throwing a wrench into the works of a unit already working with a new coordinator.

The news broke late on Wednesday.

“Huge, huge, huge,” is how defensive end Willie Jefferson described the impact the next day.

“He’s basically the quarterback of the defence,” linebacker Shayne Gauthier said.

“It was tough, man,” fellow linebacker Kyrie Wilson added. “We were pretty shocked by it.”

And finally, D-lineman Jake Thomas: “I don’t think anyone’s going to come in here and step in for Adam. You’re replacing a Hall of Fame player.”

After their initial reaction, though, all four expressed another sentiment they hold in common: they’ve got the people to fill the hole left by the three-time CFL most outstanding defender.

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They’ll take the punch, roll with it and get back to work, confident in their well-worn “next man up” refrain.

But even the man leading that chorus realizes there is no replacing the way No. 4 runs things on the dark side of the line of scrimmage.

“There are questions like ‘how do you replace Adam Bighill?’ Well, no one is Adam Bighill,” head coach Mike O’Shea said. “And they shouldn’t want to be. They want to be like him, but they have to be themselves. As a leader on a team, authenticity is important for Kyrie, to lead in his own way, and for Shayne to lead in his own way. That’s all they can do and it’s all that you really want them to do.”

Wilson and Gauthier are at the front of the line to take Bighill’s spot.

And while they might be able to run with the man and bring down ball carriers at a similar rate, they will not be the human computer chip sending out valuable information just before the snap of the ball.

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The middle linebacker’s job includes calling the defensive play and ensuring everybody beside and in front of him is in the right position.

But Bighill goes above and beyond that.

“A lot of times he’s calling out the offensive play,” Thomas said, recalling occasions when Bighill gave the heads-up on what the O-line was about to do.

The others agree.

“He can call the plays before they happen,” Gauthier said.

While Gauthier has learned “almost everything” from Bighill, it’s hard to learn that.

“First-and-10, he can call something, it’ll be something,” is how Jefferson put it. “Second-and-long, he’ll call something and it’ll play out.”

That can only come from two places: experience and a endless desire to study.

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“He loves football,” Thomas said.

Wilson describes plays where Bighill will tell him to move to a certain area right away, but he won’t know why until the play happens.

When it’s over, he’s thanking him, because he was in the right spot.

Opposing offences, meanwhile, are cursing him.

“I feel like he’s in the meeting room with them all the time,” Wilson said, laughing. “He’s been in it for a long time so he knows all the tricks and all the little things that the offence tries to get on us. He’s special.”

He’s also 35 years old, 183 regular-season games and 891 tackles on his odometer, another 21 games and several dozen more tackles in the postseason.

The last time we saw Bighill in a game, he was playing a part-time role in the Grey Cup game after tearing his calf muscle just seven days earlier, in the West Final

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There’s no word on what his injury is this time.

Moving players to the six-game list removes their salary from the books, and the Bombers can use all the help they can get to stay under the cap.

Teams are allowed to pull a limited number of players off the six-game list early, and O’Shea hopes Bighill will be one of them.

“I’m hopeful it won’t be a full six, but we’ll see,” the coach said. “Biggie is going to put in as much work as he possibly can to help to his teammates through this time and we’ll be good. We’re fortunate. We’ve got good players that play linebacker in our building that have been in a system for a long time, that know how to run the system and know how to communicate through it.”

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Wilson has been around for five full seasons, Gauthier for seven.

“I feel like I’m ready until he gets back,” Wilson, 31, said. “I’ve learned a lot from him, and pretty sure he’s still going to be in the meeting rooms, coaching us up and helping us if we need help. But I feel like I’m up to the task.”

Ditto Gauthier.

“I know I can do it. They know I can do it,” the 32-year-old said. “But we’re still in training camp. Like, we don’t know anything.”

They do know one thing: the size of the hole to fill.

For the first time in nine seasons the Bombers are working under a new defensive boss, Jordan Younger having taken over from Richie Hall.

The good news: he still has three weeks before the live bullets start flying.

pfriesen@postmedia.com

X: @friesensunmedia

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