TheSource

He is good enough to consistently beat the Bombers, but you are correct, he is not very good by normal league standards

It will tell whether the Bombers are the worst team in the league in terms of both personnel or management, or whether they are a mediocre "one and done" playoff contender. Everyone seems to be OK with mediocre, content to just spin a mediocre reality into a contender fantasy. It may not be the case, but I'm curious to see what people say if it turns out this is not mediocrity but really Mike Kelley/Joe Mack bad, but just in a different disguise.

Well, they most certainly could win next week, and they do match up much better against a team like Montreal compared to their recent competition. This is again another game that is going to tell us who the Bombers really are this season. Win this one and they are in the hunt for the crossover spot, not that I think it really matters in the long run. Lose this one and this team will end up with the worst record in the CFL this year - book it!

Bombers should not be favored to win this game next week. They may end up doing so, but again, I wouldn't put money on it.

Any chance you could convince Oshea to let you do a mind meld on Nichols to get his head right?

So stockpiling 10 nat receivers is a good thing when, at most, only 2 of them should be playing? None of them are going to be Derrel Walker or Duke Williams good. Why waste those draft picks just for guys to be long term PR fodder?

That's great and he has made an impact, but it is not enough on its own. 1 good player out of 5 is not going to get it done, particularly when the blanks are all in the same area (receiving corps)

This is all very true, but this team needs do do something different to get there. All those teams you mention made changes in season to improve. The concern many have is that this team seems to be very resistant to making any adjustments. That is at the core of the pessimism.

Agreed. Durant shows he had a crappy attitude, and I know for a fact that it would not translate into onfield performance any better than Nichols or Streveler, and would most likely be worse.

Could possibly trade for Adarius Bowman.

That got me too. The sense of the question and the title are opposite. So the tally shown above should at least have 2 less votes to keep the regime next season and two more to get rid of it.

Sure, they made changes. But I'm talking about positive changes. You know, the kind that lead to improvements? Salary dumps and not resigning key free agents do not count as positive changes - those things are just the easy way out for someone who is a weak GM.

I hear what you are saying, and there is truth in it. I have followed this team for all of those years, and in hindsight, some of that house cleaning was ill-advised. That said, there has to be constant, consistent, change on a club to get better. It is called continuous improvement and the reason why Bombers are where they are this year is because they sat back and did less positive moves than all their competition. And as the season goes on, all of their competition continue to make changes to improve, and Bombers sit back and do not even consider bringing anyone in in terms of players, coaches, or consultants to try and improve. The organization has demonstrated that from top to bottom that they are highly resistant to any form of change, and that my friend, is a recipe for disaster in any organization these days. This thread is about house cleaning. Why is that necessary? Because if no one in the org makes changes when they show long patterns of losing trends and/or lack of growth, then you cannot expect to get different results, and although it is a large risk, it becomes necessary to replace all the components that are resistant to changes necessary for improvement. Compared to the current competition in the league the present management and coaching personnel have demonstrated the following: 1) Their rebuild period (now 5 years and counting) is excessively long compared to every other team that has entered rebuild in the last 10 years. This creates a logistical problem because the rebuild duration threatens to exceed the longevity of core players, and with shorter contracts and more free agent movement, it is harder to keep a competitive core together for that time. (Say goodbye to key players like Goosen and Chung soon) 2) The drop off in performance this year is deeper than any drop off suffered by any other CFL team in the past 10 year period (going from 12-6 to a projected 5-13 in a single season) 3) All official communications coming from the org have indicated that no changes are planned in the short term or long term, despite their knowledge of the current performance trends 4) This year was portrayed by the team as a year to be making a GC run, and it turns out that they may very well miss the playoffs. This demonstrates that the management and coaching personnel do not have a good understanding of performance forecasting or evaluation of their personnel selections, and more importantly, that they consistently do not understand what it takes to make a team successful on the field in the current competitive CFL. Since this understanding is a prerequisite to making successful changes for improvement, going forward, why would you continue to support management and coaching that does not understand these key concepts? 5) Including this year, this team will have missed the playoffs more than any other CFL team in the past 5 year interval.

You have a good point. At some point my argument "supporting" him is academic because he has used up what good will there was that existed. You can't turn the clock back and its probably best that he does not continue here. Going elsewhere, with the head coach experience he now has, spoon feeding would probably be inappropriate now. That said, if he was taken under the wing of a stronger GM 5 years ago, things would have probably turned out different.

Petermann, Simonise, and Wolitarsky are all promising national possession receivers, but a team should really only have one or two of those type players starting. Problem is that the rest of the receivers are garbage outside of Adams, who would be a good 3rd option receiver on any other team. What Walters did to the receiving corps this offseason is a huge FAIL.

Could be the case, and I'm actually fine with that. MOS has been part of the problem, but not the biggest part in my way of looking at the situation.

That is what I am hoping for.

He'd be fine in a different organization if Walters was a different type of GM. Walters and Oshea are a bad combination because OShea is too much of a nice guy and Walters is far too passive. If OShea had someone riding him and forcing him to make the tough decisions (kind of like good cop/bad cop) I think he'd be a better coach.

Thank you. You nailed it. You can definitely argue that letting JFG go and then switching to an all-possession receiver NI receiving corps was a huge mistake. None of the Cdn talent they brought in is any better than JFG, as evident by the stats.

It's going to take quite a bit more losing before the BOD starts to find the political taste of the situation unpalatable. Then they will be forced to reluctantly make the change from Miller on down, which will certainly cost them $$$ that they would otherwise want to bank in the city coffers. I think that decision is probably 2 more years out. Until then, I don't see any significant changes being made at all - either with onfield personnel, coaches, management, or scouting. This org is all-in on mediocrity.

There is a reason why Streveler performed similar to Nichols and that is because the problems with the O are far more than the quarterback. In fact, if you put Doug Flutie in his prime in there with no other changes the results would still be the same. People want this to be a QB issue because in reality that is something that is more easily fixed rather than admitting that the talent level at every position from the OLine through to every position in the receiving corps must be seriously upgraded. Even for teams that continually improve and know what they are doing such as Edmonton, Calagary, Hamilton, and Ottawa, it would take 2 years to fully replace all the problem areas with personnel on this Winnipeg team - both on offence and defense. With Winnipeg, assuming that time stood still, it would take them between 5 and 10 more years to figure that out, assuming Miller and the BOD are prepared to stand pat for that long.

LOL Unless they lose to Montreal, and I think they will. Bombers had to be pumped sky high for those two games against Sask to even keep it close because the quality of personnel onfield right now is not very good at almost every position. A letdown and a blowout loss is bound to happen soon, particularly when playing an opponent that they "think" they can beat. A bye week is mostly meaningless on an organisation that is resistant to change and improvement, other than as you point out, it will allow some players to heal up.

Nothing will happen. Unlike the other CFL teams there is no sense of urgency to win in Winnipeg. Team will go 5 and 13 this year, will make minor player changes and lose a number of high profile free agents this off-season. Next year should be something like a 2 and 16 campaign. After that, the BOD will can Miller and the rest of the staff and then bring in another Jeff Reinhold type to run it all who is one of the buddies of a BOD member. Sound familiar? If you know anything about this team, it should.

QFT!!!!!

Really only one star (shared) in this one: Wolitarsky and Petermann both had good games as possession receivers. The others can just go away: Not "sold" on Sayles - gives up two big plays for every good one he makes. Alexander is a serviceable DB, but just looks like a star in a secondary that is otherwise garbage.