deepsixemtoboyd

Well, you’re getting pretty nuanced there. But since you’re going there…🤓 It’s a timing thing; corners are going to break off coverage once it is clear – and that’s an intuitive thing – that the quarterback has moved too far to be able to get into a throwing motion and that occurs a split second or two BEFORE they cross the line of scrimmage. And that is what occurred here. QB was given a severely unfair advantage; he was allowed to break the rules at which point you can no longer blame the corner… Just my opinion. We may have to agree to disagree.

Certainly agree with you about how TSN handles controversial replays that will show the incompetence of the league. However, can’t agree that the corner needs to continue to cover receiver once the quarterback has breached the line of scrimmage. Having played corner many moons ago, you’re always in a tough position once the QB has broken contain, which VA jr. had… But the job becomes impossible when the officials are incompetent and allow him to throw the ball when he’s clearly passed the line of scrimmage.

Oh, I would guess that the dog would be about on par with Osh in these areas. Seriously, most successful head coaches have demonstrated that they are capable of coordinating an offence or defence successfully in a prior gig. A good number of them continue to multitask, coordinating a major area while serving as head coach at the same time. Osh has nothing like this on his resume, ergo he is incapable of providing direction in these critical areas or at critical points of a game when direction is needed. And - no - coordinating the special teams for Toronto for a few years is not on par. His lack of experience in these areas might go someway to explaining the lost look that inevitably appears on his face and as well as his tendency to go mute when the bombers are getting their asses kicked or falling apart ((you know, at the exact time of the game when other more accomplished head coaches actually kick into action and get active with teaching or redirecting or re-energizing their troops). Yep, the more I think about it the more i agree that the lab and Osh are pretty similar… Both fiercely loyal, neither too flashy, and both simply not sharp enough to be in charge of a successful football franchise.

Did you read my last post? O’Shea’s record indicates that he is not better than Dave Richie. Them’s just the facts. And, despite that, Richie STILL got a much shorter leash. And even the indisputably great Cal Murphy was removed only six years after his last Cup win. And that’s really the core issue. Why should the current coach get such an extraordinarily long leash compared to any predecessor in any era on any CFL team? Are all other franchises who’ve existed in the history of the CFL simply nuts with the way they’ve gone about their business? Or is the current edition of the blue and gold leadership – “the Canadian mafia“ - simply too cozy and therefore out of step with the way a pro sports franchise is run? That’s a rhetorical question, of course. 😀 It is the latter. OK, nice chatting with you. Gotta go to work.

Besides, to this point, O’Shea hasn’t even matched Dave Richie. Dave took us to a 14-4 season and to the Grey Cup. He also won multiple playoff games in convincing fashion.

Wow, you’re really parsing this, eh? A “couple of decades” takes us to 1999. Cal Murphy finished in 1996. That’s 23 years ago. Again, I ask, why so eager to protect O’Shea? He’s not good enough to be compared to the greats in our history? It’s OK to compose rhetorical flourishes that talk about “the best in decades“ but 2.3 decades is… ‘No, now you’ve gone too far!?’

I’m not sure on what basis O’Shea earns these accolades. The best in a couple of decades?? What has he accomplished, actually? Compare him to Cal Murphy. Murphy took the Blue to winning the Grey Cup in his second year. He did it again four years later and again two years after that. That is success that should buy you a long leash, and it did. Cal was here until the end of the ‘96 in one capacity or another, a total run of some 14 years. Again, though, that’s with three cups captured, five appearances in the big game, and multiple trips to the divisional final. And even for Cal the rope eventually ran out, just 3years after his last Grey Cup appearance in 93. As blue and gold pointed out on the weekend, I think you will be hard-pressed to find any coach in the entire history of the CFL who has lasted into a 7th year without winning a division and – if the bombers stumble again in round one – with just one playoff win! Yes, as do or die says, the lack of adjustments are frustrating…but the coach bears responsibility for that pattern too. They are his hires. And if he doesn’t know enough about O or D himself to make those adjustments just what the hell is he doing here? 5 years with this type of defense?? Would’ve never, EVER happened under Cal Murphy.

So, are you just saying that this is what they will do? Or are you saying it is the right thing to do? Those are two totally different things, right. Because, of course, you’re right - given that the best predictor of future behaviour is past behaviour - this organization will probably do exactly what you said. But that doesn’t make it the rational or appropriate thing to do.

The above gets at the very heart of my post yesterday. The one where I rhetorically queried why the head coach gets a free pass (from some) while his coordinators wear it. This led somebody to ask "who you would have hired" in the off season etc etc. My point was actually not so much about the need to fire the coordinators but rather the need for the head coach to own his decisions over 6 seasons. There has been ample evidence for a long time that the defense (esp) has not been good enough and - for me - the fact that O'Shea has stubbornly (there's that word again) stuck with Hall for this long is evidence that he lacks the wisdom and/or whatever quality it is that allows more successful head coaches to make timely changes. I'm also 100% with the posters who suggested: a) the current regime is WAAAAAAAAY too much 'we're just one big happy Blue family' here (i.e. they are too tight with one another to wield the accountability that goes with pro sports everywhere else) and b) that it is certainly not the job of fans to figure out who should replace O'Shea or Hall or Lapo or all three. This feels like the equivalent of my sister-in-law who likes to ask my brother - when he critiques the Jets or Bombers - "do you think you could do better?" If a surgeon continually botches their surgeries, do you ask the suffering patients to perform surgery on themselves if they think they're so hot? Mike O'Shea is the reputed football doctor in the house. But his team seems to get sick most years about this time; right when they need to be in peak condition. Now I'm no doctor but I can certainly tell when somebody appears ill and it's only responsible to, at some point, ask: "Hey, maybe you should get a second opinion? Maybe you need to see a different doctor?" For what it's worth, my view is that we've seen the Ritchie Hall **** show enough times now that he should have been gone at least 2 years ago. Lapo (though many here will disagree vehemently) gets a longer leash from me because - overall - the Bombers have scored more points during his tenure here than most other franchises and I think he has consistently been working with a QB (Nichols) with a lower ceiling and considerably less athleticism than the "biggest dogs" we gotta compete with (i.e. Calgary, Hamilton, Edmonton, and now Montreal and Sask). So for me it comes back to O'Shea. He hired Hall and has stuck with him. He (unlike the other most successful coaches in the CFL - e.g. Buono, Dickenson - who have had success and won championships with different coordinators) has been unwilling to pull the trigger on a switch when needed. I think he is a very likeable and fiercely loyal guy whose players love him and that's great and all...BUT I don't think he's nearly as sharp as the other guys I just mentioned and I have certainly come to doubt whether he will ever get us the holy grail. So for me - like Blue and Gold said - anything short of a Grey Cup appearance and his head's gotta roll. Way too late for him to change coordinators now and save his skin.

And what about their boss? Does he get a free pass? You know, the guy who keeps bringing them back for more mediocrity?

As always.

Even if it was done to ridicule the riders, what a seriously ODD time to choose to do it. I mean, down by 14 pts in the 4th quarter and you finally made ONE fackin' play - one single, solitary meaningful play - and you choose THAT time to break out your "sense of humour"???? Brain dead.

C'mon, man! When has O'Shea ever supplied anything but? Year one it was always..."Can't say, I haven't watched the film." He did that for that entire abysmal year. Then, I can only assume someone in upper mgmt told him to fackin' stop saying that. So he did. But he's never replaced it with anything meaningful. He has also been ridiculously slow to acknowledge problems throughout his 6 year run. First year the Blue gave up outrageous run yardage and he informed us (via Bob I.) that run defense doesn't matter (only running counter to a 100+ years of football logic). Now, yesterday, he sorta admits stopping others in second and long might be a problem...14 games into the season? C'mon, man!

I agree wholeheartedly with everything you write above except for after the ellipses... As in, totally flat out unacceptable… But why do you give our coach a pass and focus only on “the MO from our OC/DC”… Isn’t it also “the same ole crap” from the MOS team? I mean he’s the facking guy in charge!

But, with all due respect, who cares if he is “aware” and the same **** continues? Who cares if “the players love 0SH” and yet they fail to finish? The point is to win a championship. I mean, that is the measure by which every other pro sport coach is evaluated and the failure to deliver on it ultimately gets every last one of them fired… Eventually. So if that championship isn’t achieved, it can’t reasonably go on, forever, can it? And, once you concede that point, the question is just how long should it go on. I say anything short of a trip to the Grey cup this year is that point.

This. It’s kind of unbelievable to me how certain posters consistently want to protect our coach from scrutiny. Just what the hell is that about? If these coordinators are really as utterly useless as some people seem to believe and Michael O’Shea is their boss and fails to bring about changes or to successfully re-design schemes or implement the necessary improvements himself and then also continues to bring those direct reports back year after year… How should he not be accountable? Just what is his purpose if he bears zero responsibility for what either the offence or defence does? I mean, geez, what a sweet gig! Can I have this job? I mean, truly, what other head coach in any pro sport has such luxury, consistently getting a pass on these kind of performances, with fans calling for the heads of the underlings? It makes zero sense, even if his only sin is a daft and unthinking loyalty to mediocrity, it is a fireable offence. I’m not talking middle of the season, of course. We are 9 and 4 and it still possible that he pulls it out. But if we get bounced in first round...dude, he’s been here six years. It should be over. It’s pro sports, folks, that’s how it works.

Man, he looks short. And slow. On that pick? Wow. Too slow.

Colin with a great post earlier. Thank you. 1) I usually feel that Lapo takes it on the chin here in ways that often don't make a lot of sense to me...BUT, I have to admit that I was quite mystified by the fact we didn't try to establish the run early or get Strev rolling out given his strengths and current limitations. 2) Overall, Strev is developing just fine; weird throwing motion aside, I still feel he likely has a higher ceiling (maybe significantly higher) than Nichols. 3) Specifically, loved his ability to hang on to the ball when blasted inside our 5-yard line; amazed he didn't fumble which would have led to 7 pts for Sask. 4) Also loved his ability to lead us on what should have been a game-winning drive late. Nichols has struggled with that by comparison in recent seasons. 5) That said, I am not smart enough to assess how Nichols would have done overall in that game, nor do I feel the need to slag him in comparison to Strev. Seems to me that his passing is, right now, more effective than Strev's, esp the deep ball, but Strev is a lot younger and needs time to develop and he will if the Bombers give him the chance. As Colin observes, Nichols has also been very good at protecting the ball (not throwing picks) and not making mistakes like the intentional grounding. That said, Strev will learn from those missteps, I think, and should close the gap in those areas over time. 6) Finally, I am old enough to remember how the Eskimos handled the emergence of Warren Moon as an understudy to Tom Wilkinson. They shared playing time, more and more, until Moon eventually took over. I think O'Shea needs to be less hesitant to use the hook with Nichols when - after 3 quarters - he is clearly struggling. That has also continued to be mystifying.

Well, OK… But he got 55 yards of that on one carry. He was OK. But I can see why they weren’t leaning on him at the end as he was fairly consistently getting stopped for one or 2 yard gains.

Wow. Disappointing. Down in the States with extended family for a cycling weekend. Hooked up our laptop to the TV and watched on ESPN+, the whole lot of us. Pretty quiet, depressed room right after…

Yeah… I think LaPo called a good game. Actually, I think LaPo generally calls a very good game and seems to understand what he’s working with very well. The blue bombers offense – under his direction - is superior and more sophisticated than what we had before… Remember those days? - No misdirection? No check down game? No deep threat? Utterly predictable… Before he came back? I’m going out on a limb here and saying he is a smart guy that takes a lot of caca on this board from for reasons that I find hard to understand. And, pleeeeeeeeze...I really like Buck, but can we finally put to bed any yammering for him to take over as the OC? I mean, once again, what evidence is there that Buck is an offensive mastermind? The bombers have a highly rated offense even with a starter (Nichols) with a limited skill set and ceiling (compared to some of the other starting quarterbacks) and have still managed to produce and are now eight and two. So, let’s give LaPo a little well-deserved love, along with some of the other pieces in the successful season we’ve had thus far.

Totally. Thank you.

Wait, so you actually believe that O’Shea wants to pull the starter but Lapo is overruling him?

That’s two games in a row for Bighill since his return. The defence looked better prior to re-inserting him. That’s the hard truth at the moment.

This