17to85

I find this excuse hard to swallow. The bombers actually have a lot of vets in the secondary, who have played together for quite a few years now. The only rookie I can think of that got any significant playing time was Markett, and he usually was not starting. Cauchy has been in the league for 4 years. The newest personnel on defense among the DBs/LBs are Washington, Dunn and Wild, and I think they were actually among the better performers in this group. I'm not familiar enough with the secondaries of the other 7 teams to be certain, but find it hard to believe that the Bomber are particular laden with rookies by CFL standards. Yeah the defense is actually pretty veteran, especially the secondary which is the biggest trouble spot on that unit. Hell a lot of time the rookies are the guys playing the best which is to me further proof to what a lot of people have been saying this year, that the coaching staff on this team actually makes players worse the longer they are exposed to them. I just can't buy the rookie excuse because there are enough players around here who have been in the league for a few years that it shouldn't be an excuse. This team is struggling in a lot of cases because people who should be better aren't playing up to the level they should be. That includes on Simpson for most of the year, Edwards, Demark until a couple weeks ago, Matthews before he got hurt. Watson, Honestly how many raw rookies did this team start throughout the year? The whole thing sounds like an excuse by veterans for their own lacklustre play.

The most surprising thing is how big the numbers are for some guys, that's a lot of consensus.

Like I said if you want to be technical about it they finished second last only because of their better record against Hamilton in head-to-head matchups. But I'm not being technical. Bombers tied the Ticats for last so both teams are last place teams as far as I'm concerned. And as I stated previous, the Bombers will probably finish last this year. I didn't say it was definitive. Anyway, you slice it, this team was pathetic under previous management. Hopefully under new management we can actually string together a few consecutive winning seasons - something we haven't seen since 2002-2003. no you're just being wrong. You want to argue about a team being pathetic do it with truth not with lies, there's lots of ways to do it truthfully, no need to try and make it sound worse than it actually is cause the way it is is bad enough. Gotcha. So during the 2012 season the Bombers compiled a 6-12 record to finish tied for last place overall with the Hamilton Tiger-Cats who also compiled a 6-12 record. However, due to a technicality, that being the Bombers 2-1 record against Hamilton in head-to-head matchups, the Bombers ended up drafting second overall instead of first overall. you think it's a technicality beating a team head to head and claiming to be better than that team? sounds like simple logic to me.

an amateur practises until it's right, a professional practises until it can't be wrong.

Like I said if you want to be technical about it they finished second last only because of their better record against Hamilton in head-to-head matchups. But I'm not being technical. Bombers tied the Ticats for last so both teams are last place teams as far as I'm concerned. And as I stated previous, the Bombers will probably finish last this year. I didn't say it was definitive. Anyway, you slice it, this team was pathetic under previous management. Hopefully under new management we can actually string together a few consecutive winning seasons - something we haven't seen since 2002-2003. no you're just being wrong. You want to argue about a team being pathetic do it with truth not with lies, there's lots of ways to do it truthfully, no need to try and make it sound worse than it actually is cause the way it is is bad enough.

Mike Kelly was a complete lunatic who tried to make old outdated ideas work in the modern CFL but the one thing he did damned well was protect his players from any scrutiny and they responded for him and got more wins than they had any right to because of it. This year we see the team just rolling over and then the coach giving them a couple shots afterwards just so they stay down.

The other way to compensate for that is through leadership from the coaches though... prepare the players better so they don't get overwhelmed in game situatioins, make sure the veterans aren't trying to do their job and the other guys job... It all starts with coaching. Oh definitely coach should help that. Also guys should not make the team just based on who can jump the highest or run the fastest in practice. A vet might not be the better athlete but will make up for the fact he is not by being able to out think the opponent. That's Mack downfall is he fell in love with athletes who he thought could be coached into becoming a player instead of having guys with experience and less overall talent. I would agree with that last part, particularly when it comes to the offensive line, but at the same time Burke really isn't a guy who seems able or willing to work with the raw athlete either. At least Lapo was much better at that aspect of things.

with as bad as the east was this year sure it woulda been. right now they're 4 wins back of Montreal, well win the Edmonton game, the opener against montreal and one of the Hamilton games and all of a sudden you're looking at a playoff position. Just compare Lapo and Burke... Lapo lost a ton of close games Burke lost a lot of blow outs, that should be all you need to know to see the Burke is the biggest problem. Drastic decline in the team going from one to the other.

The other way to compensate for that is through leadership from the coaches though... prepare the players better so they don't get overwhelmed in game situatioins, make sure the veterans aren't trying to do their job and the other guys job... It all starts with coaching.

if the bombers were in last place they would have been drafting first overall last year, there's tiebreakers in place for a reason and last place is last place, and Hamilton was in last place last season not Winnipeg. Hell crazy as it is they might not even be in last place this year depending what happens in the final games!

Any competent head coach would have at least had this bunch competitive and not getting steam rolled nearly ever week. It's not just the losses, it's the way the team would lose. Lapo lost a hell of a lot but at least the team was competitive and looked like they had a chance to win every week, with Burke the team plays the part of road kill more often than not and that is the most damning thing about his time as head coach.

A whole lotta this. It didn't work out for him as HC, and there's no question it's time to move in another direction, but really...he's not a bad guy. Hell, we all LOVED the guy for a long time. Some people act like he killed your family... He's killing our football team and to me, that's pretty close. I was going to post the exact same thing.

false.

What makes Edmonton a better city than Winnipeg if you're a football player? They are quite similar cities to my eye, just that Edmonton is bigger and has a bit more money kicking around from the oil patch but really that just means there's more douchebag rig pigs around and that's not a plus.

The interesting thing about Ray is that he was recommended to the esks by Rick Worman

It's obviously a combination of things for our disaterous season. Appropriate blame can be evenly distributed among the many levels of the organization, top to bottom, bottom to top for different reasons but ultimately sharing the same outcome. But to have some fun, simply moving Calgary's entire management/coaching staff over to us, I still don't know if that would have got us into this year's post season with our existing starting and practice roster. I think it absolutely would have had this team into the post season. Not like the other eastern teams have been world beaters. Look at the improvements this offense has made with swapping offensive coordinators, and it's not like Bellefeuile is a great OC or anything. Put a good coaching staff like Calgary has on this team from day 1 and I have no doubts there are a playoff team because good coaches make players better and bad coaches make players look worse than they are.

He is my thoughts on Denmark this year - He either didn't fully understand, or buy into whatever offensive system Crowton started us with. It showed, and perhaps that lack of understanding/buy-in hurt him more than just not performing well within the system (he didn't get what he was really supposed to be doing / didn't think it made sense and that resulted in not going at 100% of his full effort) Once we got MB as our OC Denmark made a pretty marked turn around in his play. I doubt it is coaching affecting Denmark as much as I think it is having a system he understands and believes will work. so systems aren't part of coaching?

I think Etienne is on the list because he's disappeared from the field in place of Drops Foster.

also curious just go look at the people who were already in Burkes doghouse. Guy is not shy about holding his grudges.

if not for the last couple weeks Denmark was the prime example of a guy who was destroyed by these coaches. Remember how in his rookie year he was seen as the next best rookie behind Chris Williams? And how this year everyone was ready to cut the guy cause he just wasn't getting it done?

you're crazy.

Those are the people who just blindly parrot what they read in the newspapers and since the papers are all so keen to bash Mack and shelter Burke (presumably because they like Burkes lack of ability to filter his comments to the media) But keeping Burke on would be a disaster no matter how you slice it because this team will never win with Tim Burke as head coach and losing teams don't fill the stadium.

There is no way they can be stupid enough to retain Burke, absolutely no way.

The highlight of the weekend will be taking this bomber team out back and putting them out of their misery.

not this **** again.... You wanna throw accusations like that out there let's have some proof, otherwise we can just assume that Walters got that job cause he was a good choice for it. The fact that Miller is adamant that he wants to keep Walters around no matter the role should be an indication that he's a good option for it.