TBURGESS

The blocked punt cost us the game. The Cornish drive cost us the game. The missed FG cost us the game. The timecount may have cost us the game. The int may have cost us the game. Stoudemire's fumble and stupid running back instead of catching the ball and falling forward may have cost us the game. It doesn't come down to a missed single if all of those things don't happen too.

Really? That's the excuse? Lirim can practise converts from the middle of the field all week long. It shouldn't take him until the 5th game to get it right. Should be able to adjust in preseason. IIRC...He's missed the most converts of any kicker this year, so the rest have been able to kick from the middle of the field.

You are underestimating the Esks. Given Stampeders injuries, I can see Edmonton finishing first in the West and even with Nichols as QB, Winnipeg will have their hands full. In fact, I'll be surprised if Winnipeg betters the Esks, which makes the blown opportunity against Calgary even more regrettable. I don't think so, both of their victories have come over the RB's and with Nichols at the controls bad things are going to happen. If Willy plays consistently and the offence can put a decent number of points on the board I think they will top them. I'm certainly not expecting to see a continuation of the mistakes that they made tonight. I'm expecting a game of redemption. I agree. Reality is we eliminate our own mistakes and we owned the stamps tonight. Not sure why some argue it but 16 of Calgarys 26 points came off mistakes. One on a blocked punt. One on a Stoudemire fumble. We win easily and Calgary looks awful without our mistakes. The problem is that we are not limiting our mistakes so we aren't winning, let alone easily.

Esks have one of the best D's in the league. Their D line causes tons of pressure and we've been known to wilt under pressure. I hate Nichols as a QB. Bad accuracy, won't take any part of the blame for any of the problems and is constantly gesturing at his receivers when he thinks they're doing something wrong. Still... they should be able to run and pass on our D. I expect them to win next week. They've actually looked better than Calgary for the last two weeks, but of course they have been playing Ottawa.

Way better game than the one we lost to Hammy. Hung in with the Grey Cup winners until the very end.

Eliminate the turnovers and we win. Sure, but we didn't. Fix the run defence and we win, but we didn't. Eliminate the mistakes like time count, punt return and Int at the end and we probably win, but we didn't.

He's right, but that doesn't help the situation. Gotta make the call in the game when the chips are down. He had the 'I'm a new HC' excuse last year, but he can't use that anymore.

Here's a hint Edmonton... Throw the ball to your own players in the endzone. Not too far that they can't catch up and not too short so the other team can catch it. You'd be up by a ton by now if you just follow that rule.

Gotta think that Calgary's O line gives us a good chance of owning the LOS on defense. Usually a good sign of a dominant defensive performance, which we'll need if we want to win.

A nasty attitude is great, but a cheap shot is a cheap shot IMO.

If Neufeld is on the roster this week, I expect he'll be the 6th guy and will take Goosen's spot. I wouldn't trade Greaves right now, even if their are other teams asking about him. I'd offer Neufeld instead and hope to get rid of the $150K salary for our oft injured NI O lineman.

Cornish - I've only got it right once, so this is a good omen for the Bombers.

Yup. It had nothing to do with the Refs hating the Bombers.

Greaves looks to be the weak link but I wouldn't touch the O line right now. They need some time to play together to get better as a unit. Neufeld might be a better choice than Goosen as the utility guy because he's played tackle before, but that's as far as I'd go right now.

I like the idea of going for 2 more often and not just for us. Assuming a 100% 1 point convert, and that's actually a bad assumption, all you need is 50.1% on two pointers for them to be a better idea. The only question is.. Is that realistic from the 3? With a good offense and the new rules I think it is.

If the DB pushes a receiver while the balls in the air, it should be a penalty. Every time. No ifs. No ands. No buts. Simply throw the flag. If the refs started doing that, no DB in his right mind would push a receiver unless they were already beat. In that case, the flag would be worth it because it's better to get flagged than to allow a deep pass to be completed. Refs shouldn't let them get away with it sometimes and call them other times. That just causes the DB's to do it more often and complain when they do get called. People who say there's holding on every play don't understand what holding is or how the refs have been calling it for years. For example, grabbing the jersey inside the shoulder pads is no longer called holding even though the offensive player is holding the defensive player. Consistency is the key here too. The same interpretation of the rules should apply to every team. Sometimes that doesn't seem to happen, especially in the eyes of the fans who see holding everywhere on the other team and don't see it on their own. I'm saying if you remove the refs discretion, you remove their known or unknown bias. They wouldn't be able to favour one team over another or one player over another. You also get rid of the 'why did you call it this play when you didn't call the same thing 10 plays ago' arguments. Utopian idea? Sure. Workable? We'll never know because we'll never see it.

How can anyone expect a ref to decide if a penalty is going to affect the play in real time? They can't even get the calls right all the time, even with replays and coaches challenges. I certainly don't want them trying to decide if this hold or that hold is going to affect the play. The simplest of concepts are the best when it comes to reffing. Be consistent and call it the same way for both teams. If players don't want to be called for holding. Don't hold. What makes it OK to cheat if it doesn't affect the play anyway? Before I get the 'you said something different about unsportsman conduct penalties'... I think that those should be completely eliminated from flags. I don't believe there should be any penalty for miming a flag or tapping your facemask or complaining about a penalty or lack thereof any more than their should be one for celebrating a great play or a TD. I draw the line in unsportsmanlike conduct to getting into the face of another player or ref.

Shell made a great play last night, but it's honestly the only time I've heard his name mentioned. Has he played any DB yet?

Funny because I remember you saying the exact opposite when people used this argument in favor of the Bombers in the year they went 4-14 before going to the Grey Cup the next year. Folks like you were arguing that the Bombers were better than their record. They weren't and the Riders aren't better than their record either. If they can fix the defense they should be OK in the long run. They may or may not be able to do that. Our 4-14 team never could.

He's also making the wrong reads, running away from the point of attack and if he does get in on the tackle it's late and he gets dragged a couple more yards.

Sask isn't as bad as folks are making them out to be. They've lost 3 games by a grand total of 9 points and two of those games were in OT. Glenn's leading the league in passing yards and they are moving the ball really well. 0-3 is something you can come back from. They need to do something about their defence and they should be OK in the long run.

It was an ugly win, but I'll take an ugly win over a pretty loss any day of the week. The offense didn't score a TD. The defence allowed 420 yards, but we capitalized on Montreal's mistakes and we played a clean game, no turnovers. It went down to the wire even with a blocked punt and a pick 6. All that ends up mattering was that we posted a W.

Randle had a great night at SAM. First game that he's looked even remotely comfortable there. Toss up if he or Adams were the best defensive player last night.

Not backtracking at all Mike. If you actually went back and read what I type instead of reading into what I type, you'd know that. TBurg post only ONE PAGE earlier: Good grief. This is really getting ridiculous. Good grief indeed. That's about the second Friesen article, not the first one. If you read the entire post instead of cutting one line out it reads as follows: Just like Friesen's previous article said what you wanted to hear, because it was negative. As you can see, you're calling me out on the previous article, not the one I mentioned.

Martyr? Me? Hardly. I didn't know that Matty traveled with Dr. Tator in the offseason. Thanks for the info, but you can keep the attitude gcn. I use the word hate because folks around here constantly attribute things to me that I never said then go on to complain about it. For examples: I never said that Willy has a concussion. The closest was that I think Willy was knocked out cold (Before he even hit the ground) and that he has good reason to say he wasn't knocked out. I never mentioned Friesen's article, yet KBF calls me out on it. I never suggested I was a doctor or that I know more than the doctors or that I could diagnose concussions from a TV feed, yet some folks would have you believe that everyone who preaches caution is pretending to be. Funnily, they don't see it in themselves when they diagnose non-concussion from their TV set. When I'm negative, I'll happily own it, but that's not the case this time. I've been knocked out several times, but I'm from the generation where you were give smelling salts, told to shake the cobwebs off and get back into the game. I've never had any headaches, nausea or other concussion like symptoms afterwards (unless going blind in one eye for a while is a symptom). I've never been diagnosed with a concussion, but my guess is that I've had one or two. You want a doctor to say it was probably a concussion, call Dr. Tator. I don't know if his 'extreme' views come from dealing with the results of concussed patients or if he always disliked contact sports You want a doctor to to say it wasn't a concussion, call a Bomber doctor. Both see things from a different perspective and both have their view and their own motives. I give more weight to the doctors who've actually seen Willy, but I don't think either are infallible. Folks around here want to believe the Bombers doctor is right, which is fine, but to pretend he doesn't have his own motives or that his opinion is the only one who matters is disingenuous. Matty, an ex player who's had his share of concussions talks to Willy about a week after the incident doesn't think he was concussed. (I'd hope Willy would be symptom free by now or else putting him in would be really stupid.) Folks rejoice because he's saying what they want to hear. I'm pretty sure if Matty was saying he thought Willy had a concussion he'd be in the same boat that they've put Shultzy in. An ex-player who doesn't know anything and who can possibly be able to tell anything other than Willy was obviously not concussed from the TV screen. BTW: I take no issue with Matty's comments, I only take issue with those who think it's the only correct point of view. Freisen, to his credit (Flame away), gave both sides of the argument in his columns this week. Dr. Tator's and Matt Dunigan's. The first time there was a lot of flak about how terrible a reporter he is. The second time there's no flak because it's what folks want to hear. IMO, the truth isn't black and white so the truth is probably somewhere in between the two extreme views. For the record... I'd still err on the side of caution, even though Willy seems to be symptom free.