GCn20

He is guilty of poor roster management for sure but the logic people are extending here to the effect of that is mind boggling. Instead of just looking at the real cause for our losses, that being talent and depth drain in the trenches, they would rather fantasize that we had the talent here all along but it was on the bench. The second biggest reason is that our best players made some big time mistakes in each of those games....but nah....if we had dressed Miles Fox that would have overcome that. SMH.

What obvious changes would have won any of those games. Show your work. To say add this guy and subtract that guy would have won is not provable in any way. We could have made those "obvious" changes and lost even worse. None of us can say otherwise. To say we definitely win if this guys starts and this guy sits is not fact, it's opinion, and one that couldn't be proven one way or another. In all of those Grey Cups I watched players that were indisputable to be in our lineup make mistakes that gave the other team points and momentum. Maybe we should have sat them too? That's an inconvenient truth in all of this. Last year we lost mainly because our 1st and 2nd string QBs were injured. We had nothing but ham n' eggers left to play or a QB trying to gut it out. Those were our options. Anyone thinking Dolegala comes off the bench to lead us to the Grey Cup against that defence is dreaming in technicolor. We had one shot and one shot only at victory, Zach Collaros being able to gut it out. He couldn't but that doesn't change the fact he was our only option at victory. As was Montreal the year before.....and it doesn't matter who we had rostered, it was always going to be that way. We didn't have the horses. The Montreal game it was a calamity of errors by some of our best players that cost us victory not roster usage. Last year we simply could not compete with them in the trenches no matter who we dressed. 2022, again, our strength was our secondary. ELITE secondary all year that gets completely run over by Chad Kelly. Not roster usage there either. Big time players make big time plays. IF those plays are positive we win.....our best players were the ones that cost us in all 3 of those years. Plays that should have been made were not. For 3 years I have been talking about our talent erosion overall, and guys around here are beaking about how Jake Dolegala or Miles Fox would have won us the Grey Cup? The myopia is strong with this roster usage thing, probably because the drum has been banged so hard on it. Wanna know why we lost the last 3 Grey Cups? Their talent made plays and our didn't....and yea we got whupped in the trenches all 3 years because our talent has eroded on both sides of the ball in the trenches. Those are the REAL facts. Self inflicted wounds? Sure...by the players themselves not manning up when it was time to do so.

I played, not pro, but high level ball in the US. Never once did any of my team mates ever view a winning season as a failure. I can honestly say that to a man NONE did because we got rid of those kind of poor character guys in training camp. So don't give us that bullshit. Every single guy went to war with each other each of those years and are proud of them. You saying otherwise either shows that as a player you had a piss poor attitude that likely was the reason you couldn't stick in the pros, or you are completely full of **** about that in the first place. Quit talking like you da man and have some kind of deeper insight into how a football team operates. You don't. Sick of this bullshit on your part already. You don't speak for every pro player out there and how they think. You only speak for how YOU might view it, and like I said that would get you an awfully short pro resume.

Whatever man, just glad I don't share your outlook on things. Success by one's team is a terrible thing to waste.

This is ridiculous. Completely ridiculous. I don't like that we didn't capitalize on our last 3 Grey Cup appearances, but dismissing the fact we got there as meaningless might just be the dumbest thing I've read on this forum in quite some time. There is nothing remotely the same about missing the playoffs and winning your division 3 straight years and advancing to the championship game. My gosh some people here have a sense of entitlement that makes Rider fans look good. The only failure that I'm seeing is a complete lack of cognition and reality by some of the fan base around here. These guys played their asses off for us, show a little bit of class. Saying they were no better than the RedBlacks, or the Craig Dickenson Riders is so far out to lunch I am gobsmacked. You guys are trying so hard to hate right now that I feel sorry for you. I used to ridicule Rider fans for comments like that. Makes me sick that some here are echoing that behavior. Pure hubris and entitlement. The last 5 years has seen a historic run of success for our franchise and some here don't appreciate it at all. I guess these guys missed the 90's and 00', and 10's where we truly were bad. Getting to the Grey Cup is a failure that 7 other teams would have been excited to call their own.

Why does this surprise you? The whining started in 2023 and we've won our division twice and went to two Grey Cups in that time span. The agenda is strong here and wins won't get in the way of that. We could have pitched a shut out and people would be complaining how the defence could have not only secured the shut out but scored points if Jake Thomas didn't get his twelve snaps in that game. Nah....we had the same whining in 2023 and 2024. It's just baked in now.

Insight....sure. They will not privately criticize their team or team mates outside the dressing room or give a lot away about locker room dynamics. Just doesn't happen. I won't name names, but during the Mike Kelly days, I had a former player who was a daily customer of mine at my sports bar. We got to know each other very well, he would come to my house couple times a week even for beers. He would talk about the team, but never in much detail and very diplomatically. If he had something bad to say he just wouldn't say it and he told me as much. He was a professional and this is ingrained in being a professional. He ended up on another CFL team during Kelly's reign, and when he came back to town he stopped in. That is when the truth came out. It was shocking because what he told me I would never have guessed from the hours I spent with him talking. They are extremely guarded and protective of the dressing room. If they aren't the leaders of the team will take them to task. If that doesn't work you usually see them down the road.

Not even a little bit debatable. Fastest way to be shunned by your team mates is by talking dressing room with people outside the dressing room. I would bet big dollars that applies even more under FIFO. Players may talk to outsiders but it's more of them just kind of telling them whatever they wanna hear vs, the truth. If a guy loves the coach, the player will praise him. If the guy hates the coach. the player will go along with it. It isn't the truth. It's just a player, a lot of times, just humoring a fan. If he's healthy he likely will. Those guys get an apple and a road map pretty quick.

There is not a single person on this forum that can truthfully say they have any insight on the inner dynamics of the Blue Bombers dressing room. Not one member. There may be guys on this forum that occasionally might hear this and that but the source would have to be a disgruntled and unprofessional player, and therefore not a true representation of the locker room at all. No player with even an ounce of professionalism or commitment to the team would comment anything to anybody outside the confines of the locker room. PERIOD. Every single team in the CFL and even NFL uses vet cards but we do it and somehow our HC should be fired. What a nothing burger.

My point which you ignored is that Mitchell's average over the same timespan is 22 yds per game. Therefore, I objected to your insinuation that Mitchell should have been in the lineup over Wheatfall. Look I'm just as happy as you that Mitchell finally put together a game over 50 yards but to offer that up as proof the Bombers were holding him back by being overly loyal to Wheatfall is pretty much a bogus theory. Wheatfall earned his place, and I hope now that injury has opened up a bigger opportunity for Mitchell that he can lean into it and salvage his season.

I'd be willing to roll with Wheatfall another year. The kid is essentially a rookie starter and he has been putting up decent numbers despite Streveler being our QB half the time.

How many of those games was Chris Streveler throwing passes? Pretty tough to blame our receiving corps for a dud QB. Yea, when Collaros came back everyone's numbers rebounded last game. Wheatfall didn't get that bump because he was injured. He has over 600 yards as a first year starter, those are pretty decent numbers. Just out of curiousity how many yards a game is Mitchell averaging this season? Yea...there is the fly in the ointment right there. 23 yds per game. That doesn't scream sit down Wheatfall because we are holding this guy back to me.

Not really true. He was quite productive through August and then something happened and every receiver on our roster saw their numbers drop off a cliff. Oh yea we had no QB for several weeks. Hard to blame Wheatfall for that. He was on a 1000 yard pace up to that point. I mean it would be a pretty big stretch to suggest the Bombers were wrong to start Wheatfall over Mitchell because Mitchell had a 60 yd game.

Keric Wheatfall is what happened. Mitchell is now looking productive in Wheatfalls spot. O'Shea explained this earlier this season that Mitchell was not well suited to what was available position wise. Mitchell has been a true pro and has bided his time. Good on him. I would be willing to wager that J.Jones did not take the same approach.

Wah wah wah...free agent bust couldn't play up to expectations, someone fire the coach..wah.