Canadian offensive lineman Patrick Neufeld was unable to play the second half of the East Semi-Final due to a nasty injury he opened up about after signing a one-year contract extension to return to the Winnipeg Blue Bombers for 2026.
“It was a kidney injury. I recovered a loose ball in the first quarter there and one of the Montreal defenders going for the ball hit me in the lower back. I didn’t know it at the time — I was in pain, but I just kind of thought it was like one of those hits in football. He must have hit me right in the kidney,” he told the media on Monday.
“At halftime, I was just urinating the wrong colour, let’s say, and immediately got our trainer Al (Couture) to assess everything. The next thing you know, that was the end of my day. It was just super unfortunate. Another huge reason why I wanted to come back was because I just felt like I couldn’t go out like that and need to redeem myself.”
Winnipeg had a miserable start to the East Semi-Final, falling behind 25-6 to the Montreal Alouettes by halftime. Backup blocker Tui Eli took over for Neufeld at right guard to start the third quarter and the team hit the ground running, scoring 21 unanswered points in seven minutes to take a 27-25 lead.
The Blue Bombers were unable to maintain the lead, losing to the eventual East Division champions by a score of 42-33. Neufeld never reentered the game, which may have been his last had his contract extension with the team not worked out.
“I just couldn’t return. It was just one of those organ kind of things where you’ve got to make sure you’re looking out for your health more than anything,” said Neufeld. “It was about two weeks of pretty solid pain and I can tell you guys for sure you want to stay away from kidney injury because it doesn’t feel great.”
The offensive line never made an appearance on locker room clean out day, which occurred shortly after Winnipeg’s playoff loss. Neufeld, who recently turned 37, didn’t speak to the media, nor did veteran stalwart left tackle Stanley Bryant.
According to the native of Regina, Sask., he and his fellow offensive linemen chose not to speak because they were still processing a whirlwind year.
“I think it was just a sentiment of feeling upset and frustrated with how our season ended. Me personally not getting to play the second half of that game was really disappointing, just with the hit that I took and the injury that happened,” said Neufeld.
“We just wanted to be in the room with the guys. It’s a business of change, so you never know who’s not going to be back in that offensive line room. We were kind of just sitting in our offensive line room reminiscing about the season. It was not an airing of grievances, but just talking about the season — the good, the bad, the ugly, the fun, all that.”
The Blue Bombers have already started making changes, recently releasing pending free-agent centre Chris Kolankowski, who has already landed with the Hamilton Tiger-Cats.
Neufeld indicated he was surprised by the move, calling Kolankowski one of his best friends. He expects Eli to take over the starting job at centre, while also speaking positively about young offensive linemen Gabe Wallace and Ethan Vibert. He also wants to see pending free-agent Bryant return, indicating he speaks regularly with the 39-year-old future Hall of Fame inductee.
Winnipeg has already made a key change to its coaching staff, hiring Tommy Condell as offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach. In a corresponding move, Jason Hogan was demoted to his old role of running backs coach.
“It felt like a frustrating season — especially on offence, we just couldn’t click, couldn’t mesh together for some reason. I think we were for whatever reason on different pages and that made that made it frustrating,” said Neufeld. “We just weren’t playing to the standard that we felt like, so I think everyone this offseason is kind of taking it to heart, the guys who are coming back, and want to make a statement that’s not the team going forward that we were in the past.”
“It’s about executing and playing better, that’s the bottom line. It’s about production and that’s just on executing. There’s a lot of elements that go into execution that we’re going to have to focus on. I think there’s going to just be kind of a renewed sense of fire, I think it’ll be refreshing having a new offensive coordinator, but having still part of our staff who’ve been around for a long time.
“It’s great that Marty (Costello)’s going to be back coaching us as an offensive line. He’s a tremendous coach for our group and has led us for the last number of years and I don’t know if there’s an offensive line coach who works harder on preparing us and getting us ready for game day, so we should be excited to have him still here and to be playing for him. I think it’ll just be a true commitment to executing and getting the job done on game day.”
