gcdrought

I am critical of the BB far more than giving them praise, and that's been driven by one thing...their performance on the field. But after the impressive win like last night, you should have ditched this agenda-driven question. The team is 2-4, just came off a really good win and this question is posted yet again. I'm not even an O'Shea fan. But I am a Bombers' fan and fair is fair. Posting this question this week is totally bias-driven. As for your request to "not be divisive" in the comments, stop posting the thread when it's not warranted and you won't get any divisiveness.

Nichols was an obvious improvement and gave the team an immediate spark. But I thought the whole team was fired up from the start. Great to see...finally. Now let's follow it up with a couple more wins in a row.

One of the absolutes when a QB drops back is he hopes his receivers have beat the DB's or LB's and that one or more of them will be open. The better your receivers, the better any QB will look. Everybody tends to concentrate more on the O-line, but the receivers are just as important if not more so. If the QB drops back and the receivers haven't beaten their man, the QB has to check down or be sacked. So you and Matt right. The QB and O-line are always the ones blamed, but the talent in your receiving corp is just as critical to success. And the Bombers, right now, don't appear to have that great a group.

Mack got the team to a Grey Cup. But they went totally downhill from there. The team finished 21-39 during his regime, so I disagree that he found "a lot" of good players. You don't win 1 of every 3 games when you're signing a lot of good players. Some were signed yes (like every team), a lot no. Yes, he was better than the current regime but almost anyone could better that. Walters' record, if you include the 12 games he was interim GM in 2013, has been 15-39. And in his last 35 games his players are a staggering 8-27. Five straight years of just plain bad football.

Thanks for the correction. I guess Bauer - who did hire some good people - officially started the trend of hiring people with no experience for their new position.

You get what you hire. Joe Mack's out of the CFL for many years and has never been a GM in any football league. Well let's hire him to re-build the team. Joe Mack hires Mike Kelly, a guy who has never been a CFL Head Coach, but who is an old friend. The disaster known as the 'Mack era' ends and the Board hires Wade Miller as President, a guy who has never even tried putting together a CFL football organization. Miller walks down the hall and hires Kyle Walters, a guy who has never been a CFL GM and whose experience as an Assistant GM was with a losing football team. Kyle Walters hires Mike O'Shea who has never been a CFL coach. It's like the main criteria that the Bombers' look for when trying to build a winner is never have any sort of winning experience in the CFL. IF you've actually won in the CFL as a President, a GM or a Head Coach...we're not interested in hiring you. My initial thought is 'it's going on the cheap'. But then you give a QB a $400,000 per year contract ? But it fits the pattern, he's never achieving a winning record in the CFL. I love the Bombers, always will. But I am fed up with the way they try to build a winner. Their No. 1 priority is hiring someone who has no experience and has never been successful in the CFL. Mack, Kelly, Miller, Walters, O'Shea...no experience whatsoever in the positions they were hired for. What type of organization penalizes their loyal fans that way? And despite their disloyalty to the fans with their terrible hires, I will turn on the TV yet again and cheer for a team I was once so proud of.

I tend to agree with you, and seemingly Paul Wiecek as well based on his most recent column. There does seem to be an accountability issue with Willy. He felt he had nothing to prove this year when asked in an early season presser, despite a 10-14 career record with the Bombers and a $410,000 salary. And he could have been more invested on the sidelines as you suggest. It may not be in his nature, but a greater sense of urgency and passion would definitely serve him well.

Respectfully, I don't know about this being "in his own head". Maybe, just maybe, he is not all that good a QB to begin with. We signed him when he only had something like 3 or 4 starts and a sub-.500 record. He went 2-10 after a bit of a fluky and lucky start to his first season in Winnipeg (2014). He went 3-3 last year before being hurt and he's 1-4 this year while healthy. And if we're being honest, much of his yardage/TD success this year has been in garbage time of losses. It's a team game so not everything should fall on the QB's shoulders when a team is struggling. But the reality is Drew Willy is well-below a .500 QB during his CFL career. Yes, the Bombers rewarded him a $400,000+ contract, but that wasn't based on successful results. Willy will regain the starting role down the road if Nichols, pretty much a professional career back-up, stumbles as he likely will. But personally I think the Bombers' view of Willy's talent level is much greater than the on-the-field reality. I haven't given up on Drew, but there really doesn't seem to be any advancement in his play other than when the other team goes into a prevent defence mode. Maybe it's a "head/mental" issue as you suggest and the talent will surface. I hope you are right. Or maybe the guy is just not all that good and his well-below .500 record is the real deal.

Nice try bear, but it falls short. The topic is about 'Kent Austin winning with a second-stringer'. And a comment is made 'yea cuz they (Hamilton) have soo many more wins than we do'. The comment can't be interpreted any other way than 'so what, they have the same number of wins as we do'. So no, I'm not telling anyone "what they're arguing". I'm responding to a comment than minimizes Austin's efforts - which is fine. I just think some context should be given to the Hamilton record, i.e. one of the best QB's in the CFL remains on the sidelines.

Agree. He was cruising to his 4th Grey Cup in as many years as a CFL Head Coach (pretty amazing) until Collaros was hurt. He's an excellent Head Coach and as you say he can especially develop QB's or make good ones better. Man there are so many good HC's in the league and we have Mike O'Shea. Sigh.

They're still missing Zach Collaros. What exactly did you expect? Hamilton was likely the best team in the country last year until Collaros got hurt. As for suggesting Austin isn't that great a coach, which is what you're doing, that just isn't borne out by the facts. The guy has been a CFL Head Coach for 4 years (2007, 2013, 2014 and 2015) and he's taken his team to 3 Grey Cups, winning one of them. If Collaros hadn't got hurt, he probably would have been in the Grey Cup game all four years he has been a CFL HC. The guy is the best coach in the league, and his record proves it.

That's no big surprise. You have to look at results and if you throw out all the garbage yards Willy has accumulated, it's pretty obvious that he isn't getting it done. Nichols, if nothing else, will provide more of a spark as he seems more emotional and he isn't as predictable. It doesn't matter who we start, there's a tall order ahead as Edmonton will be snarly. They relaxed after half-time and basically gave a game away and they'll be fired up. I was hoping they would be complacent after a big win; no such luck. Good luck to Matt.

When a pass receiver feels he has been interfered with he pleads his case, especially in the last minute of a game. The HC also would go ballistic, whether he had a challenge left or not. There was a push, but the ball wasn't catchable and Williams and Campbell knew it. You can't have it both ways, feeling it was not PI on Ottawa because the SK pass wasn't catchable, and then ignoring that the Ottawa pass was not catchable either. We'll agree to disagree on this one.

The receiver didn't complain and Rick Campbell didn't complain. I get you hated Saskatchewan winning, but your bias is showing through on the Ottawa pass. It wasn't PI. I agree the call on the Saskatchewan pass was questionable. It didn't look like the ball was catchable. But we never were shown a closeup of the play, so it's tough to be certain. But on that one, I agree it looked like a real ticky-tack call.

That wasn't PI on the last-minute deep pass by Ottawa. The Ottawa receiver didn't even complain. It was just a badly thrown ball. As for what PI is, it depends on what referees are on the field. PI changes from game to game, with no consistency.

Depressing stuff. Two back-up QB's, yet both offences were way more exciting than ours.

Miller himself said he wanted to return the winning tradition, and there were so many write-ups about his other business successes. I don't bear the guy any ill will, but he personally made the single biggest decision that could restore that winning tradition - hiring a GM to be the team's personnel architect. And things have gotten worse. If things don't turn around the Board has to look elsewhere for a President, or they have to demand he hire a far more proven GM.

One thing that's missed is the validity of this talk about 'signing all-stars'. If you follow football and i think most of us do, you know that 29-year-old running backs and 30+ receivers are past their prime years. We'll get production out of both Harris and Dressler because of their past quality, but they are not worth the money we're paying them. Weston is not the deep threat he once was and you could see in Harris's final year in B.C. that he's not the threat he was as well. That's normal; it's football aging. These guys will still give us some production, but there's no way it will match their all-star years. So when we give major money to a QB with no winning resume, and big money to free agents past their prime it really becomes a question of judgement, because these big contracts affect the other salaries we can pay. I wanted the current regime to work, probably mostly because of patriotism. But 2 1/3 years in, I don't see a lot of reason for optimism. I am just as tired as everybody about the constant re-building. But it doesn't feel like we're progressing at all.

It's amazing that our last two GM's, Mack and Walters, had won 0 professional football games as a GM when they were hired. What kind of organization/Board allows that to happen? I think, yes we need a new GM who can find better talent and who will not pay Drew Willy a reported $410,000 in 2016. You should have to earn big bucks in the CFL before getting them, and that doesn't mean very few starts with a losing record. But it's amazing how little blame Wade Miller gets. He's the guy who was given the keys to do whatever it takes to turn this franchise around and he hired Walters. Personally, I still naively think there's a chance this season may turn around. But if it doesn't, I don't want Miller anywhere near the hiring of the next GM.

Frankly any team that has won only 8 games in 35 starts isn't worth the time and effort to cheer for - or even comment on - week in, week out.

What a disgusting interception and TD. Oh well, it's garbage yardage time. Willy will be in his element and will rack up a bunch of useless yardage. Nicholls can't be any worse than this guy.

The rose-coloured glasses folks try to control every message board by using words like troll, etc. so don't take it personally. If they had their way, changes would never be made and kumbaya would be sung after every losing game. I'm exaggerating, but I find those at either end of the spectrum (always positive or always negative) impossible to chat with because they're never objective. Your question is a good one. Would a second embarrassment to Calgary, this time on our home turf, cause a coaching change? I think it would cause more concern with Walters and Miller than some think. If they're badly beaten by Calgary, I think the four-day window to the next game saves him. But if they go 1-5 there's a good chance they'll make a change. They have to start winning to help the bottom line. Let's hope we can upset Calgary and put the topic to rest for a while.

I don't think there's any way the team can be as bad as 3-15 this year. But if they go say 6-12 and miss the playoffs, the Board will have no choice but to move on from the current regime. Three years in the CFL is way more than enough time for a GM to build a competitive team. Anyone who wants to gamble on a 4th year of mediocrity frankly isn't putting the best interest of the team and the fans first. The franchise can't afford another year of fewer and fewer fans in the seats. There was a lot of suggestion after two bad years that the current regime be replaced. But it was fair to give them a third year. But if this is another really bad year - and it's still too early to be sure of that - management changes will be a must.

While I think the G.M. and scouting departments are way more important than any head coach, I imagine O'Shea will be gone by mid-season at the latest if we don't chalk up some more wins. Walters will know that the only way to save his job will be a turnaround, so he'll cut O'Shea loose sooner rather than later. I know it's a longshot, but hopefully things can turn around and LaPo won't become our interim HC.

The expectations of Willy by management are one of the strangest things I've ever seen. He was a backup in Saskatchewan with very limited action, and in his first season as a starter with the Bombers he lost more games than he won. But somehow management felt he was a future star and rewarded him with a $400,000/yr. contract. I didn't understand the need to give him that big a deal and obviously still don't. I hate going to Nichols if Willy continues to struggle, but I guess there's no choice. My main question is the same as it unfortunately always seems to be with respect to the QB position. Why do we always end up with back-up QB's from other teams? It's been over a quarter of a century since we scouted, signed and developed our own QB. That's just pathetic scouting. Sorry, but it is.