And he played two seasons with the Blue Bombers so he knows what he and his teammates will see in Winnipeg Thursday night (8:30 p.m. Ticats Audio Network, TSN).
“They’ve been winning for a long time,” says the Ticats’ interior defensive lineman, who will be lining up against Hall of Fame bound quarterback Zach Collaros and star power back Brady Oliveira. “First and foremost we have to stop the run, we’ve got to make Collaros uncomfortable and go out there and play good football.”
The Ticats did play some good football in the league opener last Thursday—in fact most of the first CFL weekend was well-executed for so early in the season—but as head coach Scott Milanovich has repeatedly emphasized, a game usually comes down to a handful of critical plays, often just five or six, which can alter its course and the Ticats made a smidgen fewer of them than Montréal did in their last-second overtime win.
Conversely, the Bombers won their opener on a last-second field goal 30-28 at Calgary because they made plays when they most counted to beat the hometown Stampeders, who could easily have won.
So the Bombers have a tailwind to go with their talent, heading into their home opener before what will be a raucous, celebratory audience at a deafening stadium in a city where the CFL game always matters.
“Football is in the atmosphere out there,” says Ticats’ boundary defensive halfback Destin Talbert, whose pass-knockdown prowess—he ranked second in the CFL last season—will be tested by Collaros and his arsenal of receivers. “They have a crowd that loves their team.”
Talbert is likely to often line up directly across from Tim White, who put together four straight 1,000-yard receiving seasons for the Ticats before the Bombers brought him west in free agency in February. As Milanovich explained Wednesday, the Ticats cherished what White had done for them and wanted him back but in this fluid-lineup CFL era, free agency alters lineups. White, who rarely missed even a practice, got off to a flying start in his new colours with five receptions, 60 yards and a key touchdown reception.
White is one of a group of former Ticats in pivotal roles for the Bombers, along with Collaros, field corner Jonathan Moxey and kicker Sergio Castillo, but that door swings both ways as a flood of Bombers have been with the Ticats the past couple of years. Some have since departed but a number, brought in by late GM Ted Goveia, remain, including Fox.
Fox is in his second season so returning to Winnipeg, while not quite routine, is no longer a unique experience. As Milanovich was saying earlier this week, all 2025 Ticats who are back with the team recall with distaste their visit to Manitoba in late September, just after the club had clinched a playoff berth, had won three in a row and nine of their previous 12, and were feeling good about themselves, then promptly gave up a 98-yard touchdown on the opening kickoff and were thumped 40-3.
“This is the second time back for me and we all remember what happened last time we went in there,” Fox says. “It was a lot of bad and we didn’t play to our best ability and now it’s time to show everybody what we can do. We know who we are, we know who we can be and we just need to go in there and prove it.
“It’s so easy to get caught in the past but my old coach told me there’s a reason the windshield is bigger than the rear-view mirror. Anything that happens in the past you can’t change, all you can do is get better from it. I always try to put my best foot forward, learn from my mistakes and just get better from them.”
Which is precisely how Milanovich characterized it Thursday: as a learning experience.
Ditto, one would assume, for the heartbreaking Game 1 loss.
“Obviously opening night hurt,” Fox acknowledges. “It’s a three-phase game and all of us could have done better, but we just have to put our best foot forward and move on from that. Learn from our mistakes and put in a good game out there.
“I love playing against those guys, there are guys still in that building I enjoyed playing with. Great, great guys, and a well-coached football team. I have high anticipation for every football game, so I’m not going to say ‘Oh, I’m playing against Winnipeg; it’s time to juice up’ as opposed to playing against Montreal. At the end of the day, it’s just another game and they all matter.”
But he’s more familiar with Oliveira’s threatening impact than he is with other backs, because he practiced against him every day for two years. The CFL’s Most Outstanding Player in 2024 pounds the ball, and would-be tacklers, and ran for 113 yards into the guts of the Calgary defence last week. His potential gives defences pause, which in turn gives Collaros a bit more time and space. It’ll be important for the Ticats’ defenders, who’ve shown good pursuit to the ball in the early going, to continue and amplify that focused tracking.
“You have to wrap him up,” Fox says. “There’s no arm-tackling Brady; he’s a big and powerful runner. And very smart. He knows the game, knows all the ins and outs. I’ve been in the room with him and he’s very passionate about what he does. It’s going to be fun playing against him.”
Maybe not everybody’s idea of fun, but not everybody spends their working lives in football’s fierce trenches.
CATS CLAUSES
McManis still out but Hill returns
As Scott Milanovich confirmed after yesterday’s practice, Ticats MLB Wynton McManis will miss his second straight game with a bone bruise in his knee, but he will not be out for an extended time, the head coach said … but the linebacking corps gets a boost with the return of WILL Braxton Hill who was impressive on defence and special teams after joining then Cats late in August … the only other Ticat roster change from last week sees defensive back Devodric Bynum, who joined the team 11 days ago two seasons with Edmonton, moving onto the game-day roster as backup corner … on the Winnipeg side, slotback Nic Demski, who missed practice earlier in the week, will play but LB Jaylen Smith has been moved from the active roster to the 1-game injury list and DL De’Shaan Dixon and LB Jaiden Woodbey have been placed on the 6-game injury list … the Bomber roster includes 3rd-year RB Michael Chris-Ike who starred at Hamilton’s St. Thomas More and veteran receiver Tommy Nield, who starred at McMaster.
Smith keeps on elevating his game
Ticat receiver Kiondré Smith,who has significantly increased his number of receptions every season since he made the Ticats in 2022 as a rookie, caught all six passes thrown his way last week against Montreal for 75 yards, earning the praise of his head coach who says Smith has the talent, work ethic and desire to be great. “He has a knack for getting open…there’s something almost unorthodox about the way he runs routes but he’s got just a great feel, kind of a natural vision of leverage and how he wants to work a defender,” Scott Milanovich said. “He can run forever, and he competes every day. In my opinion he had a tendency to dance a little bit after the catch (in his early years) but he worked very hard, Naaman (Roosevelt, receivers coach) worked very hard on him catching the ball, and splitting the defence and getting vertical. That’s all of our receivers.”
“Communicate” says Talbert
The Ticats gave up a couple of long pass plays last week and DB Destin Talbert said the way to correct that is “You communicate first. Most big plays that we give up, they’re errors that we made, more than (the other team’s) schemes that beat us.” That will be put to the test against Zach Collaros who has been reunited with new Bombers’ offensive coordinator Tommy Condell, who spent seven seasons over two stints in Hamilton. Of Collaros’ 28 passes last week, 16 were 10 yards or longer, for a 57 per cent rate, double what the rest of the league did.
Notes and Quotes:
Bo Levi Mitchell completed 12 passes in a row last week, had an 87.2 per cent pass completion rate, the third best of his career and had his 60th career 300-yard game, eighth most in CFL history. He needs 61 yards to pass Kevin Glenn (12,085) into 7th place on the Ticats’ career passing chart … WR Kenny Lawler needs just one TD to reach 40 for his career … here’s All-CFL Safety Stavros Katsantonis on using last year’s loss in Winnipeg as a spark: “We definitely want to go in there and set a tone early. Right from the kickoff, right? That’s what happened to us last year. We let the kickoff go for a touchdown. So it starts from there? I think we lost that coin toss as well. So probably starts with winning the coin toss”… last year’s top two pass knockdown leaders, Hamilton’s DB Destin Talbert and Winnipeg’s future Hall of Fame DE Willie Jefferson are in Thursday’s game. Jefferson has 96 for his career, second all time behind Hall of Famer Eddie Davis’s 111 … new Bomber WR Tim White had four straight 1000-yard reception seasons for the Ticats. Eugene Lewis, now with Ottawa, is the only other active player who’s done that. White could have had five but his first season in the CFL was shortened by the pandemic to 14 games … Bomber WR Nic Demski can become the 52nd tCFLer (and 18th Canadian) to reach 500 receptions with four more catches. He leads all active players … DT Jake Ceresna’s 3 sacks last week surpassed the only one had last season with Edmonton and earned him a Player of the Week honour … this is the 131st regular season meeting between the Bombers and Ticats since the league started interlocking play in 1961. Winnipeg leads the series 70-60 … the Bombers are looking for their 14th straight sellout (32,343) … The CFL reports that when the Als won last week’s game against the Ticats in overtime, it was the first time a team had ever won a game on a walk-off without ever leading the game.
