deepsixemtoboyd

So, the earliest - and I do stress the earliest - returns on Chevy's off-season work are in and well...the results are a tad underwhelming, to put it mildly. Our GM really had only one major assignment - that of acquiring a legit, average goalie (yup, just average) to give what looks like a very offensively gifted squad a fighting chance at a post-season birth. So, what'd he do? He went out and got a guy whose save % was very similar (lower?) than the 2 guys who too regularly $#^@ the bed last year for us...Meanwhile, the Rangers (perennial playoffers, mind you) seem to think Pavs ain't that bad, afterall. Steve Mason as the answer? Really? Mason's save % last night (.750) was pretty much the same as the game I saw him in last week against Ottawa... Meanwhile, all the other usual suspects more related to coaching also showed up...defensive zone lapses/breakdowns, p$*^ poor power play, lousy PK, and the re-emergence, as the game wore on, of those ol' discipline problems. Hopefully, this is just a real bad opening day misstep - a hiccup, albeit a stinky one - and the boys in polar blue will bounce back strong...and Mason shows us all that Chevy was no fool after all...and Maurice rises to heretofore unattained heights (afterall, you could make a pretty strong case that he has simply reverted to form...over a 1360+ game career, the guy is a good talker but a lifetime .500 coach, at best). Here's hoping... Otherwise things are gonna get real interesting (read: ugly) around these parts fast...

Well, wishing you well. And looking forward to your posts, whatever they may be about, and whenever you get around to making them.

And, in a different era, Ricky ray for...was it Stephen Jyles?

Nice catch! Actually, though, we agree. I meant to say that it "led " to seven points for us (for a first half total of 29) rather than three points for us ( which would've been the first half total of 25 ). Damn Siri. She changed my led to lead!

This. Adams absolutely trips himself. That said, about one second before, the D back grabs hold of Adams' arm… For just a split second, but long enough that it could've been illegal contact. But, at the end of the day I am with DOD... I was just prayin' that Jones wouldn't throw the challenge flag and was shocked that he didn't. To me, had he done so, it was a slamdunk overturn. Pretty critical turning point, too, in that it lead to seven at the end of the half versus three.

Nah, that's just the smell that goes with them *****ing the bed at the Banjo Bowl.

Yeah, I heard that too. But, to be honest, it was pretty ridiculous. I believe MOS also went on to "explain" that Sam was only appearing to be less effective than singleton because of the type of offense Sask was running; namely, quick strikes from Kevin Glenn which doesn't allow the middle linebacker to be as effective. Course, this explanation utterly failed to address the main contention of the caller which was that Sam's tackle numbers are considerably lower than any of the top five middle linebackers in the league. In other words, this is not a one game phenomenon driven by a particular opponent. Singleton was not simply better than Hurl in one game. Singleton, along with a host of other middle linebackers, is vastly superior to Hurl in every game. And that's why he makes way more tackles. Seeing Henoc Muamba apparently returning to form is pretty depressing.

All that said, hope springs eternal! I am looking forward to the rematch next week. Go bombers!

What happened yesterday can hardly be considered surprising on any front. I have been a Bomber fan since the late 70s, and even when we have had dominant teams and the riders have been abysmal – see the entire decade of the 80's - we have tended to lose and even get smoked on Labour Day. That said, I will repeat the obvious, stated here and elsewhere by many posters, for my own self–cathartic reasons: We have a strong, steady, though non-explosive offense. That offense has and will continue to put up points though isn't a group that will ever strike a deep fear in the hearts of defenses. They are more a get it done/lunchbucket crew. And, as such, they are good enough: good enough to make the playoffs, and possibly push into them, even win the big prize. If... If they were supported by a even average defense. Which they are not. Our defense frequently has inadequate pressure/push, a linebacking corps which is 2/3 inadequate, and a porous bend and break secondary. I believe we have given up an average of approximately 30 points per game. And that, folks, just ain't gonna get it done. It is simply unrealistic to expect our steady but unspectacular offence to bail out a weak defence every week. So, going into the LDC – an extremely hostile environment – it really was asking a lot to get another Houdini moment. Finally, until the blue bombers acknowledge the core problem on defence – and I don't know whether it is schemes or personnel or both – this team will not be a serious contender to end the longest championship drought in blue bombers history.

K, now I feel old + depressed. Thx!?

Please say more about this. Assuming you are talking about the "diversity is our strength" message, why do you object to that?

And he's a self-aggrandizing windbag, so there's that...

100% agreed. 0 value added, whatsoever.

I really like the way we are looking at this point in the season. Things seem to be rounding into stronger and stronger form in all three phases. That said, I have two continuing concerns: 1) The dink and dunk passes on second and long. It appears that Lapo is content to play the high percentage pass and then hope that our guy can break a tackle or make a guy miss for the first down. sometimes it even works. Like when Harris, on the penultimate drive, caught a pass at about the 6 yard mark and turned it into a 15 yard gain for a critical, drive sustaining first down. Still, I'd like to see us run more routes and throw more passes closer to or the 10 yard+ range in second and long. 2) I still think Sam Hurl is a weak link. He looked very slow when he was running with the ball. If we had a strong MLB, we'd be a more serious, consistent threat against the best teams. A final minor beef? I'd like to have seen the Blue go to Dom Davis in garbage time when we are up by 20 points. He needs his reps and we don't need to risk Nichols when the game is won. Anyone remember 2007? When Kevin Glenn goes down in the eastern final and we have to start a quarterback in the Grey cup game who didn't have a single down under his belt? Same goes for Harris versus Flanders at that stage of a contest. Having said all that, I am – overall – extremely content feeling this afternoon as a fan of the Winnipeg Blue Bombers.

Sweep? Didn't we already beat them once this year, making a sweep impossible? What am I missing?

I agree, Hurl's main responsibility is stopping the run; that is his core task. He's not good enough at it. HH's to: 1) Loffler and whomever the other player was that helped rip that ball out on the big TD by Randle. 2) Whomever in the bombers' brain trust finally decided to get Flanders on the field. That was huge and overdue and we need to see more of it. He has quicks in a way that Harris does not – not taking anything away from Harris, he is amazing and arguably our most consistent, high-impact player as well as a tremendous leader, right there with Nichols and then Medlock – but Flanders brings a different dimension and he is simply too good to have on the bench. He will also eventually grow dissatisfied with that role and sign elsewhere, so that's just another reason to involve him.

Yes, it was too bad when O'Shea had to burn his only challenge on what should've been an obvious PI.

Yeah, I do wish coach would acknowledge we have a line backing problem and then make a plan to do something about it. On another positive note, the one challenge rule change means that the d-backs actually get to play football again. This is nothing short of an awesome development. Several times during the game I found myself cringing – expecting a challenge – and then realizing with something close to a flood of relief that the coaches had both already used their challenges. OK… I'll admit this was really only a flood of relief when it stopped Campbell.

Thanks for this. Always nice to re-visit the game via your odds and sods. I think Nichols is actually 14-5 as our starter. Regardless, the guy is a winner. Scrappy. No panic in hm. That little desperation-broken-play-forward-shuffle-pass-just-before-taking-a-sack play to Thorpe was just that sort of staying calm and making something outta of nothing, a first down instead of a disaster, that the winners make happen. Yeah...there were also a few home run misses tonight where Nichols missed open receivers with overthrows or threw 'em outta bounds but - that said - when he's really gotta do it, in absolute crunch-clutch time, the man is...well...clutch. Repeatedly. Been a long time since we had a QB like that. Orchestrating comebacks and last min drives and last second plays to win. Khari had his moments, esp in 01 and 02. Before him, it was really all the way back to Tom Clements in mid 80's. He was also a dude with that kind of cool command of the 2-min drill. Confidence. Smarts. Leadership. Hell, three of our four wins this year have happened on the last play of the game! Exciting football. Glad to have #15 as our QB. And #9 as our kicker.

Didn't Rick Campbell do a fair amount of this last year?

And your father was a hamster and your mother smelled of elderberries

I must admit, your retort post made me smile.

Ok, now read Tait's post game report. Precise responsibility for miscue remains foggy. What remains clear is this: Jones didn't look for the ball when evidently the ball was coming to him on an absolutely crucial play that the vast majority of head coaches would never have green-lighted in the first place. Responsibility is still, therefore, on both counts on the coach. To be more succinct: it didn't work, ergo no one is a genius, and **** has been happening too often.

I can agree that Darvin Adams was excellent. After that, though, you lose me a little bit… Medlock's punts were not "good." They were mostly pretty bad. And he threw the extremely ill-advised third down gamble pass, and he came up short on the game-winning field goal at a distance which is normally quite makable for him. Don't give me wrong, the whole offence choked away the entire fourth quarter, especially Nichols on that absolutely gawd-awful, telegraphed pic at the very moment that the best quarterbacks go to work (see exhibit A: Mike Reilley's performance 24 hours earlier). That said, if Medlock is hanging his head just a little bit this morning, I don't think that's the end of the world. The guy gets big money to be money and has been till now, but that isn't a reason to treat him with kid gloves when he ain't. And last night he wannit. Also, we used Harris quite a bit; the question is more in the way we used him. Too many dinks & dunks short of the yardsticks. I mean, to your point, maybe he should've got more handoffs in the third and fourth quarter… Don't know haven't checked the stats on this… But my main thought is that the other receivers needed to see the ball more, and more down field.

Definitely true that Jones was not expecting a pass, but MOS does not get off the hook that easy; he absolutely claimed full responsibility for the decision in the post game interview on CJOB, saying he had "green-lighted" Medlock to throw that pass. And, even if he is just trying to cover for Medlock, the fact that Medlock believes he he has the authority to make that decision as well as the fact that Jones seems to be unaware of what's going on the play; both of these things ultimately fall on the coach. And while Kelly Moore was doing his best Bob Irving impersonation – ie. defending all things Bombers – by saying that "if they had made it, we'd all be calling him a genius" (which is sort of like saying I'd be devastatingly handsome if I were only better looking), the reality is that our coach was, once again, employing some very unconventional reasoning to extremely unsuccessful affect. Was cruelly reminiscent of his decision to attempt a 61 yard field goal in the same facility last year; these absolutely crucial brain farts just keep coming and, I fear, are a sign that he is ultimately not up to the job. To whit, the first special-teams gadget play was brilliant. But the decision to go back to the well a second time, particularly at that point in the game at that position in the field, is suggestive, as the realist Doug Brown observed, of the addictive gambler who gets a big win and keeps coming back until he loses it all. The first 3rd down gamble demonstrates MOS to be a very competent special teams coach. The 2nd third down to gamble demonstrates MOS to be an incompetent head coach.