Doublezero

Etcheverry's defence gets criticized because it is high risk, high reward. And it is true that Bombers defence gave up too many yards per game in 2014 and surrendered too many points. But Etch's defence also scored points. If it hadn't been for defensive team scores and special teams scores our record last year would have been more like 4-14 rather than 7-11. It is a fair and reasonable argument that the O was more of a liability than the D.

You're right. They should hire Doublezero. Hey Mike do you have anything football related to add to this thread - or is that outside of your area of expertise?

My problem with MB is multifold. His track record as an OC is well below average. He didn't excel as OC in Mtl in 2007 the year Calvillo was pummelled into the ground and left early, injured, to be with his wife who had cancer. That year, with Bellefeuille as OC, Calvillo was sacked 50 times in 13 starts. The Als gave up 68 sacks that year, which was a CFL high. That was with a decent O-line. Now that Bellefueille's here, same thing - Bombers gave up more than 70 sacks last year, most ever for the Bombers. Calvillo and Willy are similar pocket passers and MB seems incapable of designing an offence that will offer protection for that style of QB, or take the pressure off the QB with appropriate play calling. The offensive stats - the ones that count, were abysmal for Winnipeg last year - again. For example, Winnipeg's touchdown percentage was 2.6%, second worst in the league ahead of only Ottawa. We were 7th in most offensive stats - among the lowest in terms of touchdowns scored, total yards per game and most 2 + outs. We seem not to have a screen pass, draw play or any other play designed to relieve heat on the QB. This isn't rocket science. Bellefueille also made some questionable personnel decisions, same things he took heat for in Montreal. Why did he stick with an ineffective Grigsby so long at the tailback position when Cotton, who showed better at TC, was waiting in the wings and when he did come in proved to be more capable? To me, that's judgment, or lack thereof, or maybe he just relying on the advice of RB coach Buck Pierce - which, if so, is another story in itself. I'm also astounded that Bellefueille allowed Drew Willy to get pounded as much as he did, which does nothing for a rookie QB's confidence. Willy had happy feet for a few games in the last 1/3 of the season and I blame Bellefueille for that, too. I could go on and on ... Bottom line: Miller Walters OShea don't know much about offence - so they are completely delegating | deferring to Bellefueille, at their own peril.

OK so Etcheverry goes and Bellefeuille stays. IMHO Bombers got this a$$backwards. This shows the football brain trust: Miller, Walters, O'Shea - whose collective experience is essentially on the defensive side of the ball and special teams (I know Miller got inserted occasionally as FB) - it shows that they know nothing about offence and can't see what a disaster the offence was in 2013-2014. I predict the Bombers sad-sack offence is going to be the achilles heel in 2015.

Happy to see this. Bucknor was one guy I wanted to see back in Blue & Gold. He was a pleasant surprise for me in 2014. Sounds like he wants to be here too!

Appears players who ended the year on the PR have been released, #14 Aaron Woods, #22 Daivon Dumas - and some others I can't recall. Their names are no longer on any roster, at least not on the Bombers website. Dumas was on the PR all regular season but never played a down. Woods I guess lost his job to Stoudermire. I forget the rule there, maybe when you finish the season on the PR you just become automatic FA.

More good news!

Here's an updated FA list as of Dec 9 http://cfl.ca/article/2015-free-agent-tracker I hope we can keep Bucknor and Sears. I'd like to keep Washington Brohm and Portis, too, truth be told. But I know that is unlikely.

... Jamal Brown is part of a new story, a small but promising case study of possibility: It is about his black inner-city high school football team and their white Canadian football coach. “This is the most positive story that is out there,” says Joe Winslow, a black man born and raised on the South Side, and an assistant with the Wendell Phillips Wildcats. “This is what can happen when people come together. http://news.nationalpost.com/2014/11/28/black-chicago-high-school-and-their-white-canadian-football-coach-offer-hope-in-u-s-torn-by-racial-discord/

http://www.esks.com/article/eskimo-transactions-20141112122008

Mike O'Shea very publicly committed to Willy as No. 1, long before the season began. So it would be a matter of swallowing pride and relinquishing stubbornness for him to back down from that pronouncement and to admit that Willy has been a disappointment. That's why O'Shea's MOP candidate started against Stamps. But really, the Bombers braintrust must be privately very worried about the QB position for next year.

Willy is the 9th best QB in the league right now. Whether it's due to injury, shellshock, inexperience, poor schemes, poor coaching, receiver carousel, or a combination of all of these, he just hasn't performed as well as the 8 other currently starting QBs. The main problem is he takes way too long to get the ball in play and to make his reads. And part of it is circumstantial: lack of a running game, difficulties with QB protection. But where a better QB might overcome some of the limitations the team has placed on him, Willy hasn't. On the contrary, he has regressed. His throwing accuracy hasn't even been very good the last 2/3 of the season either. Hopefully he ends the season on a positive note and the club can put him in a better position to succeed next year. It would be progess if we have good competition at the QB position in training camp 2015 - and if someone else shows better than Willy they should start.

It being a meaningless game, hopefully MOS will come to his senses. Hopefully Marve doesn't try to run the ball himself 50% of the time. Stamps will figure that one out after the first series. Be good to see a few other PR players get some game action. Cameron Marshall maybe? And Portis, I'd like to see what he can do.

Yup.. Threats of violence always make your point more valid.. Smh. No - thats more frustration I get what he's saying. It can be infuriating when a 'fan' only see's what they want to see. Willy had all kinds of time to throw, he had receivers open. It was hilarious, on the telecast, Suitor tried to make a point that all the receivers were covered. The 'short' receiver was about 6 yards underneath the coverage, but of course Suits was on a roll so he said he was 'covered'. About 10 minutes of game time after that, Beck got the snap, turned, and fired a dart to Gore I believe it was, who was 'wide open' just like the bomber receiver was above, only the bomber defender was about 3 yards off him. It's amazing all the apologists there are for Drew 'freakin' Willy. At least more fans are finally starting to see what I've been seeing since mid-August. He hasn't nearly been good enough, and tonight was his worst start yet (but low an behold he finally threw another TD pass). But yeah, I get his frustration. Unless you know what the read progression is on the play that is called, it is impossible to say "he had receivers open." Probably the biggest fallacy in football from a fans point of view, when everyone goes "hey, that guy is open!" Ya, but it's the QB's 6th read, and the by the time the ball gets to him the DB or LB is going to completely fill in the "opening" most of the time. About as dumb as the people who yell "shoot" all the time on the powerplay at a hockey game. Are you a pro Qb? Juran, I'll ask you then you seem to 'know your stuff'. Explain to me how our second stringer, Brian Brohm, and our third stringers, Robert Marve, can, with the same receivers, same oline, and same OC, and same play calling, make plays, and Willy can't? This is a legit question 'cause I definitely don't have a clue. Thanks in advance Willy had a bad game. Doesn't change the point of my other^ post, we can't know if he had receivers "open" or not because we don't know what he was looking at before or during the play. Unless you have access to the coaches film it's a complete assumption to make watching on TV or from the stands. BC has a great secondary, that's part of it. Our scheme with Willy doesn't move him around a lot. Hard for us to say if that is Bellefeuille's fault, Willy's fault (in terms of him preferring to take a straight drop) or a combination. Our scheme for Brohm vs Calgary moved him and the pocket around a lot, even though he isn't a "mobile" QB. Did he "make plays?" I wouldn't say he did anything special. He was steady, but it was pretty obvious that the game was simplified for him with the rollouts which essentially shorten the field, make throws and reads a little quicker. Marve was just blind luck IMO, and even at that he completed 50% of his passes while continually putting the ball in harms way. Why they don't do for Willy what they did for Brohm (it sure worked) is my question. One major thing Brohm did differently from Willy, is Brohm brought some urgency to the huddle, to his reads, and thereby created some offensive tempo. Same with Marve, he was quicker with everything though it was clear Marve was set to run the ball himself 50% of the time. Even if they simplified things for Brohm, he didn't let 10-12 seconds tick off the playclock prior to the snap. Willy has been doing that consistently, on almost every play - all season long. Apart from the fact he takes too long post-snap to go through his reads, his delay in getting the offence going kills any tempo the O might develop. Also, his handoffs to the RB seem to be in slow motion and when he scrambles he seems to kind of, well ... its as if he's out for a casual afternoon jog.

Wow. I did not know that this was Etch's theory. But I fully agree with the notion that in 3-down CFL style football success on the ground spells success on the scoreboard. The field is so big and wide (of course you need balance between pass and run) but the successful run game always sets up the successful pass, not vice versa. But even if Etch is wrong on this, Bombers crap record this season isn't so much on the D as it is on the putrid O. Etch's high risk D has frequently helped score points or put the O in score position with turnovers. If the D hadn't chipped in with points in the first half of the season we'd be 1-16 right now. Small consolation, I know.

Because he's shown to be highly capable, it's his first year as a starter and he's surrounded by (at most times) a pretty terrible supporting cast? Not hat's not it at all, it's because people are in love with stats, if his completioon percentage was crap and his yardage lower they'd hate him. But because he has artificially high completion percentage( from not throwing the ball away when he needs to), and his yardage is high from continually thorwing bombs more than he should be. THey love him! Even though the majority of the time he makes the stupidest decision ever, alas Saskatchew games or the game tonight! Even less then mediocre QB play and we win tonight. Seriously, I understand the need to defend our QB after how hard we've been on QBS over the years, but this year Willy has had a million chances to prove his worth and he' s progressively getting worse, and not only worse, but progressively getting more idiotic with his decision making. Several games this year, in a city with in a less sensitive and touchy situation(scare to hurt the starting QBS feelings), Willy would of or should have been benched. Yes, coaches are complicit in this. It has been obvious since about game 5-6 that Drew Willy takes too long to put the ball in play. He seems to have no sense of how to build tempo in an offence. He uses too much time pre-snap and post snap. Bellefeuille's playcalling is asinine sometimes but the core problem is game temp. You could see a real improvement in game tempo, and therefore offensive production, in the Calgary game with Brohm and Marve at the helm. So what the heck's going on with these coaches? Do they not see it too?

For all the criticisms of the defence, the D hasn't been our most glaring liability. Lack of offensive production has been the achilles heel. In those fluky wins earlier this year, it was defence and special teams had to chip in and help score points. If you look at it objectively, this team hasn't progressed much beyond last year. We've relied too much on a rookie QB who is essentially an NFL-style pocket passer whose become gun shy from too many hits - and an uncreative offensive scheme that seems unable to adjust. If you want to go to this kind of Calvillo-style, straight drop QB, you have to pass protect and have a decent running game to take pressure off the thrower. We've had neither. Bombers don't have top level offensive experience and collective offensive memory among the coaches, unfortunately, and it shows because they haven't done anything to correct these problems which, as you point out, started 2-3 games in.

We definitely need a change at OC, but no LaPo. Should find another (reduced) role next year for Buck Pierce too, IMHO. I just can't see what he's bringing to the O. Running backs coach? Really?

Almost 30 people on the operations side of things now: managers, directors, assistant directors, coaches, etc. That's almost as many football operations folks as uninjured players. Who is Assistant Director of Football Operations Madeleine Norwell? When did she join the club and what does she do? Anyone? Link: http://www.bluebombers.com/football-operations

It is a shame they waited so long. MOS should've benched Grigsby for Cotton 7-8 games ago and maybe even given Drew (Happy Feet) Willy a rest at the same time. I worry that O'Shea (who admits, and has demonstrated by his comments, that he knows nothing about the offensive phase of the game) might be too stubborn to learn from his or his coordinators errors. I mean this is an O that is guided by Buck Pierce and terminally-mediocre Marcel Bellefueille, and our lack offensive production combined with ill-timed offensive turnovers has been the achilles heel of this club all season long. Kyle Walters and Wade Miller aren't exactly offensive geniuses either. This could be a problem going forward.

I didn't notice...who was the holder after Brohm got injured? Thought I saw Kyle Jones out there holding on the one (missed) FG attempt after Brohm's injury. Terrible luck for Brohm. He played well for us. Hope he recovers 100% and we get him back next season.

Here is the difference between Bomber fans blaming MB and rider fans blaming Cortez... Cortez has been one of the best OCs in the CFL for years and years and years while MB has peaked at average and shown for years that the best he can do is average. He has had bland and dull offenses every where he's gone and they've done just enough to not be a total embarassment at best. Cortez on the other hand has had CFL leading offenses many times on many different teams. One guy has a stellar resume and the other is the guy you hire when you have no other choices. Yes, it seems MB mediocre as our OC and should be replaced. Bombers inability to produce on Offence is their biggest problem. Defensively we are not great - but not as bad as everyone is making out. If you look at points surrendered you see that this year our defence actually didn't cost us too many games. D contributed points with turnovers and held opposing teams to low points against. My concern is actually with MOS in relation to the O. He admits he knows nothing about the offensive phase of the game and therefore delegates to his OC. This was fully revealed couple weeks back on the Coaches Show when a caller asked why Bombers don't run more outside runs and power sweeps. MOS said those plays don't work in the CFL because opposing Ds have their fastest players between the hashmarks and sidelines. The field is 65 yards wide. These plays do work. Also, MOS said you can't have extra blockers and delayed release plays but of course this is rubbish also.

Agreed. Down on first contact, always. Slow hitting the (occassional) holes. I have been wondering what took Bombers so long to demote him. Now he's got an attitude to boot, buh-bye.

That was unquestionably a late hit on Hank. It's going to be called 100% of the time.

Grigsby has been better last couple of games. But that doesn't mean he's good.