LeBird

It almost seems as if the players are not really working any more and have not fear of being replaced. This does not appear to be the same team we had at the start of the year.

What's next with those guys? http://www.foxsports.com/north/story/minnesota-vikings-adrian-peterson-indicted-for-injury-to-a-child-091214

Quote: "That's no small caveat, given the Bombers are holding those stealth workouts in a $210-million stadium that was paid for in large part by taxpayer funds." They practice there all the time Paul. If you were to pay attention and concentrate when you go to practices you would have realized the place is the IGF. So what's the relevance of your statement? It's their place so why it it an issue when it's not posted? Sheeeesh!

Like conspiracies do you? If it's all you got stick with it. Much better than anything you have proposed that's for sure! Facts are tough for some people to deal with. Fact is the Riders have been called for holding more then any other team in the CFL. So are you suggesting that the refs ignored holding by the Riders, who they have called more then any other team, simply because they were playing the Bombers? My God! What a conspiracy! Outrageous that the Riders have everybody in their pocket! Lol Fact is you're not that funny. 2nd fact that you don't get is that they get called for holding more because they hold more. 3rd thing you don't get it that because of the officiating crew that was calling the game or rather not calling the game, miraculously the riders just stopped holding altogether. Why don't you just give your useless Rider arguments a rest for awhile. Are you really trying to hit 1000 posts in a month? Relax. It's just a game and the officials call it how they see it. Every team holds and, more often then not, doesn't get called for it. Whining about officiating is about as lame as it gets. 1000 posts? Maybe. Go back and read the posts on Riderfans after the loss to BC and tell us whining about refs is lame.

It was a unconditional pick for Brohm and a reconditioned pick for Poris. That's the way I remember it or was it the other way round? You guys have a headache this morning? Have a good one!

Both teams made multiple mistakes in each and every game so what is your point exactly? For F sakes, in the last game alone the Riders fumbled the ball twice on third and short! Add to that a myriad of penalties on the Riders in the first game and a punt return given up for a touchdown in the LDC. It seems that as fans we love remembering the screw-ups that our team made but so quickly and easily dismiss the other team's blunders. I wouldn't call a punt return touchdown a "mistake", that'd be like calling a rushing touchdown allowed a mistake. The other team gets paid to play too. What I'm talking about is fumbles. Interceptions. Plays that swing field position and momentum. You may have won all three and credit is certainly deserved for that but let's be honest for a second ... you didn't win a single game by more than one possession. Your margin of victory in each game was either 5 or 6 points. We turned the ball over seven times in the first game, twice in the second and three times in the third. That's 12 turnovers in 3 games compared to only 3 for Saskatchewan. Your turnover ratio was +9 and you only won by a combined margin of 17 points in 3 games. You don't think turnovers were a BIG factor? Not only that but we had over 100+ yards of penalties the last game. That right there can cost you the game. Kind of like the Riders in the first game at IGF on a short week? No wait, the Riders won anyway. Come on guys, focus on pounding the Lions. Now you can go back to riderfans and tell them how silly we are. I gather you come here to pick up some ammo? Nope. Bombers are in the rearview mirror. I'm here to talk football and found myself tied up in a bit of a donnybrook. Please don't torture yourself here! What? Are you Tag Smith 2?

Both teams made multiple mistakes in each and every game so what is your point exactly? For F sakes, in the last game alone the Riders fumbled the ball twice on third and short! Add to that a myriad of penalties on the Riders in the first game and a punt return given up for a touchdown in the LDC. It seems that as fans we love remembering the screw-ups that our team made but so quickly and easily dismiss the other team's blunders. I wouldn't call a punt return touchdown a "mistake", that'd be like calling a rushing touchdown allowed a mistake. The other team gets paid to play too. What I'm talking about is fumbles. Interceptions. Plays that swing field position and momentum. You may have won all three and credit is certainly deserved for that but let's be honest for a second ... you didn't win a single game by more than one possession. Your margin of victory in each game was either 5 or 6 points. We turned the ball over seven times in the first game, twice in the second and three times in the third. That's 12 turnovers in 3 games compared to only 3 for Saskatchewan. Your turnover ratio was +9 and you only won by a combined margin of 17 points in 3 games. You don't think turnovers were a BIG factor? Not only that but we had over 100+ yards of penalties the last game. That right there can cost you the game. Kind of like the Riders in the first game at IGF on a short week? No wait, the Riders won anyway. Come on guys, focus on pounding the Lions. Now you can go back to riderfans and tell them how silly we are. I gather you come here to pick up some ammo?

They had a thread on this some while back and to a man they were very happy they had kept Sunresi. Well we know what Willy can do. Now is the time to find out how much better Sunseri will be.

You are completely wrong. Look at where the Riders points came from in both games in Winnipeg. Offence didn't put up enough points in the first game and gave up 2 direct TDs, special teams did the same yesterday. If the O and ST don't hand the Riders points, both games in Winnipeg are easy Bomber wins even with 200 rushing yards against. When a team has a big lead their approach to the game changes. The only number that matters is the final score. But that big lead didn't come from the Riders offense, it came from special teams.... The Bombers won the battle on offense and defense yesterday, they just lost the special teams battle in a very lopsided manner. A win is a win, but when dissecting why a loss was a loss you can delve deeper into it than simply the final score. Let me ask you this, as a Rider fan were you pleased with the way the Riders offense played? Yes. Why? Because they controlled the game on the ground and protected the lead in the second half even while losing their starting QB (who was 8 for 9 passing at that point). but they didn't protect the lead... the lead kept shrinking on them in the 2nd half and the only reason they had the lead to start with was because of the special teams plays... I'll point it out again, the Riders offense twice had chances to make first downs late to take time off the clock and twice they failed to do so giving the Bombers chances to win the game again. The Riders defense did more to keep the lead than the offense did. You are looking at the offense from the standpoint of "we won so it all worked out" which is flawed. You have to ignore the final score to properly look at how things went. That is not quite true. On the second try they had gained the first down but fumbled the ball.

I really do think it does matter what people think and what they think will come from reading the papers or from someone who read it and is trying to put his slant on the piece. I am somewhat worried about how this media thing is starting to get negative. Anyone who thinks we can do well without the help of the media is living in a make believe world. Kelly was in a play off race for a long time but after the Banjo Bowl the crowds stayed away. He himself did much of the damage but the press finished him off. Two things scare me in life: a woman in high heels and a guy who always has the last word. Personally I think O'Shea deserves our support even if we don't always agree with some of his thinking. He may be putting too much faith in his coordinators. We all had agreed this was going to be the rebuilding year so let's rebuild until next TC.

Forget him. Etch does not think he would fit into his scheme so we probably should not hold our breath.

You do realize sask runs on every team right, they average like 150 yards rushing a game.... It means they run on everyone, not just the bombers. So why empty the middle of the field then? Etch, here a question for you.

Of course you realize that while the teams were racking up 800 yards of rushing during the last five games we were unable to get the ball and score ourselves right? They might not have scored but using 6 minutes and more on drives meant we lost a huge amount of time. You have to look at the consequences.

Well by loosing we should be learning and getting better. They got 16 points from their ST's. I know excuses don't count.

So did I......

The biggest problem is their running! nearing 200 yards.

- Bellefuile started stretching the field on our fifth pass... and we had a really nice drive - all short passes - for the TD in the 3rd - Etch does seem to have difficulty adjusting to Cortez' game, going to be in tough against Dickenson too Stretching out the field helps keep the underneath stuff open. We don't have to connect on all of them for it to have value. It was a bit odd that we failed to connect on any of them, but Saskatchewan still had to respect the deep game. And just like in the last Rider game, their Oline blew up massive holes in our Dline. More often than not their RBs went untouched until they were 7 yards past the line of scrimmage. 4 Riders in the top 15 in CFL rushing? Behind an Oline like that, I don't know why they waste plays passing. And the similar quality of Calgary's Oline will create similar problems. Compounding that, Calgary has a solid passing game, while the Riders passing attack kinda sucks this year. We were in a position to win both games against the Riders so far and made at least one too many mistakes to earn a W. The games against Calgary will have to be nearly mistake-free. They are the class of the CFL. I agree you have to stretch the field but wouldn't you want to wait until they had stopped the short stuff. Both the running and the short passing game were giving them troubles so why keep doing it. Throw long once just to keep them honest but on every second down. I know that game is done but the season isn't.

The question then becomes how long do the Bombers wait if the poor play of the Dline rests on Etch? Seems it's a pretty steep price to pay. If they won't bring in guys who don't fit in Etch system maybe he should revise it to accommodate these guys. There were two things that happened Sunday that had me wondering: 1 - During the early part of the game we had great success with the short game. Then we went to the long plays and were 2 and out most times. 2 - Up to the late part of the fourth quarter we seem to have the running game managed. According to Brown who I think knows defence we changed our game plan and they exploited that.

In any case the defence had to stop them and they didn't. Whatever they called might not have made any difference anyway. I look at all O'Shea has done and truly appreciate his efforts on and off the field. I think we are expecting too much this year. Being realistic do you think we would be able to beat the Grey Cup champions at home with all the changes the team has made in one year?. We needed luck and perhaps a fair shake from the refs but hey! that's how it goes. I would hope we give him our support because the second half of the schedule will be challenging to say the least. I guess we will have to wait until next year to fix the oline but please Mr. O how about Hunt & Matthews?

One thing you are forgetting here is the intangible. O'Shea keeps saying how much faith he has in his team but when the crunch comes he throws his faith in away. We can't say they would have scored because it never happened but they would not have had the time they got to do it. I don't think your comment was appropriate. This is a forum. How did he throw the faith away? He said to the team, Ok take the lead and defense go win the game. He showed complete trust in his defense to win the game. They failed. Or he could have said OK guys I know you can do it, get a first down and let's kill the clock as much as we can before either kicking a field goal or a TD than the defence will do its thing with the little time left.

One thing you are forgetting here is the intangible. O'Shea keeps saying how much faith he has in his team but when the crunch comes he throws his faith in away. We can't say they would have scored because it never happened but they would not have had the time they got to do it. I don't think your comment was appropriate. This is a forum.

We've given up 600 yards of rushing in the last 4 games and we're still happy with the guys we've got? How many more games do we win at this rate? I have a question: Why is it in the two games we played against the Riders we were able to handle the run until the last part of the game? Something changed and is it that Etch was trying to get too cute?

so... we're moving the ball at the start of the game with the short stuff then we decide the long bomb would be better. Well how's that working for us?

As a fifth stringer?

AH! you missed LaPo's coaches' Corner. It's amazing how much that guy learnt since being here.