Captain Blue

This is quite honestly an insane question. This is easily the best situation we have had in years and that is even including the past weeks. Management, coaching and the roster are all solid. Sure there are some weak spots but every team has that. This team can compete for Grey Cup. You think we would have learned our lesson. Every time our team seems to have a bit of success we instantly demand more. Then fire the coach if it doesn't happen right away. The best chance at winning a Cup is to be good consistently. This regime has made that happen. Eventually, it will be time to win championship "or else" but that isn't right now. I haven't felt this good about this organization since Dave Ritchie was here.

I'm still surprised they pulled Davis. I know the offense was struggling but once the Fever went in I knew the ship would just sink faster.

I really thought Osh needed to go for a couple third down gambles. Kept punting at mid field. Long fields for their offense is nice, but not when they're going on touchdown drives continually. Just a complete embarrassment.

Masoli has been stuck on his first read all night and it hasn't mattered. Playing with so much cushion that he's torn the defense apart again. Getting ripped apart by Masoli and the TiCats offense just shows how bad this defense is and how it'll likely haunt us in the playoffs. I really hoped for more from Dom Davis. Offense with him was disappointing. Total team let-down. Pathetic performance by so many tonight, including the coaches.

Was begging to see our DBs finally jump one of those short routes. Reilly had been telegraphing a bunch of those comebacks and hitches most of the night. Randle came through in the clutch again. Offense struggled a bit more than I expected to get things downfield. Hopefully we got a bad game from Medlock out of the way now and not in November.

Henry Burris on the TSN Panel. Those Playbook segments were atrocious. Let's see if this goes better.

Thorpe's star has fallen significantly given both the performance of his defense this year and the apparent issues working with coaches and/or players, as mentioned in this thread. O'Shea certainly isn't going to fire Hall, especially given our record. Moreover though, I think plenty of the issues on defense aren't actually Hall-related. Those big plays against Saskatchewan last week were mostly player-related issues (broken coverage, Walker tackling with no arms, etc). If Hall leaves after this season due to health reasons, then I think Thorpe SHOULD be a candidate, but I'll be interested to see if more comes out about this.

I don't think we'll see much of an impact. They only were allowed 17 padded practices through the whole season before. I like the move.

So Chapedelaine didn't get even a full calendar season as HC. Real shocker is Thorpe, who they wanted to keep so badly in the offseason. Montreal is a real mess.

I was going to post a comment earlier but a Rider player just got a leg cramp so I had to wait.

Embarrassing for the league if this happens.

I think the five best teams in the league all reside in the West. Wouldn't surprise me to see the Riders win a big game coming in hot, but similarly I'm confident in a Bomber team that has demonstrated it can win in multiple ways.

They were embarrassing. Did they even talk about the game? All I heard about was Nik Lewis' receptions, Andrew Harris' chance to get 1K-1K, and the Montreal/Winnipeg game several weeks ago. The Bombers got three hands to the face penalties and they didn't show a replay on any of them. They didn't have a good camera angle for the may-have-been-a-fumble TD. I expect very little of TSN these days, and yet somehow remain disappointed.

Somehow, Hamilton has made themselves look even worse today. Promoting a coach that has been there a month to head coach. Oh, and he only has a distant prior experience in the league.

This part of the thread just goes to show how easy it is to criticize an offensive coordinator. The reality is everyone one of us would call a slightly different game. Some opt to run the ball when I would go with a pass, and vice versa. The trick play wouldn't have been something I would have called there, but I've got no issue with it. It didn't work. Plenty of calls don't work. Only reason it sticks out is because it's unique. People can complain all day about an offensive coordinator. What matters most is the overall result of these play calls and right now this offense is putting up really strong numbers. If those numbers tank, then I'll be more willing to listen. People complain about LaPo because his name is LaPo. If this offense was run by New Coordinator Joe, everybody would love it.

1) Nichols - need him to play lights out and light up the scoreboard 2) Harris - just dominant with the ball in his hands 3) Flanders - he just adds so much on the interior running HH - going to go with a surprise choice, Paul LaPolice. Easy to hate the guy after his previous failings here and other places, but he's quietly creating a very prolific offense. Maximizing the talents of his players.

The refs were, as usual, pretty awful. I thought they were worse against us. They clearly were targeting our OL, and I can see why they threw them. Thought some of them were pretty soft. As I said in the game thread, Ottawa's guys were losing their footing pretty easily and I thought that made some of these plays look way worse. Chung's hold near the end of the game that took away the throw to the six, the tackle was losing his balance already...the PI call against Roc was pretty close to within the five yards and again the receiver fell easily after contact...

I thought this was an overall good effort and performance by the team. I'm still concerned with the defense, but they continue to make in-game adjustments and tighten things up as the game goes on. They came through when it mattered the most, because for as much praise as the offense should get for this one, it was the defense that held strong to give us those chances. Thought the offense looked really good today and played a more complete game. Having Flanders in adds another dimension, basically the ability to use speed on interior runs. Then threw in the change ups with Harris running/catching. Also thought they were much more aggressive in the pass game, continually trying to stretch the defense out.

I'm good with it although some team is definitely gonna get hosed by having to use their challenge on some other blown call. Ideally just get rid of stupid pass interference penalty challenges but honestly I would even go back to not being able to challenge penalties at all. Give the coaches two challenges but only for actual football plays.

1) Jeffcoat is fantastic. Can't take him off the roster. Quite honestly I think he's been our best defensive end this season - even if Westerman has prettier numbers. 2) Harris has his struggles in the run game sometimes but this offense relies heavily on his receiving abilities too. 3) Nichols - played terrible most of the game but came through in the clutch this time. HH: Medlock for the perfect onside kick and Alexander for pulling it down.

That was just a flat out crazy ending. I'll take it. Last week we couldn't close out a victory, this week we came back to ****** victory from defeat. Montreal was getting ready for the flight home before they figured out the game wasn't over. There are a TON of things to work on but at least they're more tolerable after a win. I hope this gets Nichols going. For most of this game I thought he was pretty poor. A lot of checkdowns with the rare nice throw. Several tosses in the dirt, especially on the move. Those checkdowns came in handy once Montreal's defense went into prevent at least. The DL played well. What I can't figure out is why we play so much zone coverage despite clearly succeeding more in man. It doesn't matter what sort of pressure we're getting when we're in deep or soft zones all the time. I think the amount of rookies and young players on the defense has really hurt us though. Enjoy the win and figure out how to play more consistently. We'll be all right.

Meh its Winnipeg, if this team doesn't win fans will move past Nichols pretty quickly and the pressure will build.

You know that with the game hanging in the balance this team is going to use its full arsenal of checkdowns.

What a disappointing way to lose. That 15 point lead evaporated so quickly you could tell this team wasn't ready for the pressure. I've been a big Osh fan but that fake punt call was one of the stupidest things I've seen in a while. Similarly, I've been a strong supporter of LaPolice but his offense went super conservative once we had the lead. Even Arceneaux just said "they let their foot off the gas." Play to win the damn game.

I am glad the Bombers won so that I can say this without it sounding sour: the CFL needs to get its officiating in order ASAP. Its ruining the game.