Courtesy Winnipeg Free Press:

It must be football season. The grass is green, the ladies are starting to show a little ankle, every city street is blocked off for construction and, oh, Doug Berry isn’t exactly raving about Troy Westwood.

“Right now, he’s really struggling,” the Bombers head coach said Monday of his veteran placekicker/pincushion, noting that Westwood’s leg strength is “not there where it was last year.”

So it’s official: The Bombers season has started.

And so, for that matter, has the Westwood Watch. How do his punts look? Pretty decent. What about his placekicking? Yesterday, lousy.

Of course, from our vantage point, no kicker in camp yesterday — including University of Miami product Brian Monroe and non-import punter Darryl Wheeler — stood out, although clearly Monroe has displayed the strongest leg so far. A sparse smattering of applause came from the spectators at Canad Inns Stadium when Monroe unleashed a few booming punts during drills, before flagging a little.

But does anyone else out there wonder why Westwood, at age 41, continues to subject himself to a thankless task of trying to impress a boss who obviously has so little faith in him? Oh, Berry will grudgingly acknowledge Westwood’s better moments — like, say, when Lefty’s kicking played a major role in getting the Bombers into last year’s Grey Cup. Period.

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