blueandgoldguy

Rich, don't you know that every time the Riders play in an opposing team's stadium the attendance increases by 15,000? Without all those Rider fans all 8 other teams would lose millions at the gate.

In his one season with the Bombers Jyles put up 19 Tds and 7 Ints and a 100.9 QB rating in 16 games. Not sure how many fumbles he had but I do remember one game where the Bombers were deep in opposition territory and a TD would have put the Bombers ahead late in the game. Jyles proceeded to avoid a sack only to fumble the ball all on his own and the opposition recovered. That play had a large role in the Bomber loss. Ultimately, Jyles' numbers that season are perfect example of misleading stats. So many times, he was in a position to win the game, only failing time and again to put together a late drive for a go-ahead score. It's just like Willy and his 70% completion rate which ultimately doesn't mean diddly when he has been incapable of leading his team on a long TD drive and struggles to consistently put 25+ points on the board and can virtually never put 30+ points.

Thanks for the read. Those numbers for Willy are truly damning and serve as further proof of his poor play this season. 6% of his drives end in TDs by far the lowest in the league and he has thrown the most passes behind the line of scrimmage letting his receivers do all the work. Let's not forget that Willy has been unable to generate a td drive of 40 yards or longer outside of garbage time all season.

NIce to see the Riders get stomped by a mediocre Montreal team. Remember last week when one of their fans came on here and said Jones was building something special after a fluky, ref-assisted win? Haha. It will take a few years to build that Canadian depth back up before they can compete.

big time fail by Jennings. Instead of running the ball on second and long with a little over a minute to go in regulation he throws an interception and before you know it, Calgary has tied the game. If he had simply run it, and they had to punt, Calgary would have had to take the ball the length of the field in a minute or so - very unlikely. Then when Jennings has a chance to redeem himself in OT, he blows it again with another INT and loses the game. His huck and chuck em' high risk style reminds me of a bit of Jonathan Crompton who could generate some yardage largely through long passes but this was mitigated by some poor decisions and passing usually resulting in at least one INT a game. Of course, Jennings is younger than Crompton so he has a chance to change some of those bad habits. Wally has to be fuming after that loss.

And what's your point? Nicholls generated Td drives of 67 and 80 yards. He showed he is capable of moving the ball. He also generated drives that resulted in short high-percentage field goals for Medlock. Meanwhile Willy has yet to generate a TD drive longer than 35 yards in 5 games outside of garbage time.

WOOHEE! Didn't get to watch the game as I was at a birthday party and I only heard the final bit on the radio. At best, I was hoping for a respectable score with the Bombers losing by 10-12 points. Never would I have expected a victory in a stadium the Bombers have not won in since the War of 1812 and without several players in our secondary and a backup QB who typically played like a backup in the past (Nicholls proved that idea wrong today). I will have to watch the replay for sure now. This will open the door to the playoffs...only a smidge, but it went from an improbability this past week to a possibility after the victory. Hopefully this is the start of a positive trend for the offense and defense though I don't want to get too excited as I have been burned before by false positives from this team in the recent past. Right now, I will just enjoy the victory. Good job Nichols!

You're reaching. Just like you were reaching a few weeks back with those ridiculous comments about Willy be better than half the starting quarterbacks in the league. Quarterbacks threw more interceptions in the early 2000s than they do today. Khari generated around 58 td drives in 2002. You can't just look at his TD passes. He drove his team down the field with TD drives that happened to be finished off by a Qb sneak or a running back. The best Bomber O-lines in the the last 25 years would have been in the early to mid-90s. I would rather have a qb that threw a pick or even 2 picks a game but manage to put together 4 td drives per game than a Qb who throws one or less INTs a game but is incapable of generating a TD drive of his own outside of garbage time or without a major assist from special teams and the defense.

He did say they should be running more sweeps with Harris.

Firing a head coach mid-season in the CFL has rarely, if ever, led to a turnaround for the team. With that said, if Walters feels - or has been told - his job is on the line if the Bombers fail to make the playoffs this season, there is a very good possibility we see a change at head coach regardless of the suspect impact mid-season coaching changes have had on a team's final record. If he feels it will provide even a minute benefit to the team, he will pull the trigger in the next few weeks if the Bombers continue to perform poorly.

Professional broadcasting should involve a play-by-play man who prepares himself for a game by understanding the rules of the game and nuances of the offense and defense rather than concentrating on some pre-programmed storyline effusing a player's physique like Giguere or a player's place of birth like Josh Bartel

There are plenty of questionable calls by the officials that are not called out by TSN color. See the awful pi call on the Ottawa defender that allowed Saskatchewan to get into field goal range and win the game. Thanks Mr. Official. The closest Suiter got to saying it was a bad call was saying it doesn't look like the player was contacted. He didn't blast the officials as he rightly should have. It is like TSN has put the kibosh on any overt criticism of the officials for as long as I can remember. TSN pretty well never discusses bad calls by the officials as you claim. Nice try though.

Ah, so with your comments and your troll-like name of gcdrought I think it is rather obvious you are a Rider fan. If anyone's bias is showing it is your's with comments that the ball wasn't catchable for the Ottawa receiver, but the pi on Ottawa was questionable. There was nothing questionable about it - that pass by Gale was not pi and the Rider receiver flopped like a fish. Props to craps for making a long field goal though.

The receiver was pushed well before the ball arrived. He could have changed his path to catch the ball as he was doing but was ultimately prevented from doing so because of the push from the Rider defender. How was that pi on Ottawa - a flop by the way - legit when the ball could not be caught either?

Riders had two terrible calls of PI go their way to win the game. It is magnified all the more being so late in the game.

Watching the final few minutes of the Rider-RedBlacks game I am very puzzled by what is defined as pass interference. On the Riders drive for a field goal, it appears the Ottawa defender did not interfere with the Saskatchewan player in any way (appeared to be some hand jostling) and the Rider player flopped to the ground after the uncatchable ball was thrown past him. Flag thrown. Ottawa challenges and the ruling stands. When Ottawa gets the ball back, on second down the QB throws the ball and both in regular time and slow motion you can clearly see the Ottawa receiver being pushed by the Saskatchewan defender while he is attempting to adjust to the flight off the ball. The Saskatchewan defender does not even attempt to look back at the ball in the air and clearly makes contact with the receiver well before the ball has arrived. What makes this especially egregious is that it happens right in front of the official. Not sure why the play was not challenged but is was clearly interference. Saskatchewan can thank the officials for two terrible calls that directly determined the outcome of the game in their favour. What the hell is pass interference anyways?

The verdict is still out on Wade Miller. He hired Walters and promised us a more competitive football team. So far, he has failed. Perhaps he was the wrong person for the job.

I was pretty skeptical about Ottawa's hiring of Desjardins 2.5 years ago. I think more than a few here scoffed at the idea of giving him another chance as GM after the disaster in Hamilton ten years ago. Looks like Hunt knew what he was doing when he hired him.

Miller has listened to the fans and done some good things: - bringing back the beer snake - cheaper student section - tailgate area outside the stadium - post-game party with dj and letting the fans on the field and interact with the Bombers - continued with solid corporate support and may have even increased that support. Some of the bad: - failed to recognize and/or convince the rest of the Grey Cup committee that some of the sections for the 2015 Grey Cup were over-priced (charging the same $399 price for seats in the lower bowl at the 30-yard line as seats in the upper deck at the goal line and expecting all of those seats to sell was asinine). It resulted in a reduction of capacity from 40,000 to 36,000; tickets being given away by the hundred and maybe thousands to military, volunteers and others; and discounted tickets to those who had already purchased tickets and corporations. Yes, the team did profit by $7 million from Grey Cup week, but I can't help but feel they left some money on the table with the poor pricing structure of the Grey Cup. This is somewhat galling given the problems with the turnout the previous year in BC. Miller shares some of the blame. - his extensive search for a GM led to hiring of then-interim GM in Kyle Walters. The results speak for themselves - erosion of the season ticket base and what will likely be a huge decrease in gate revenues after this season. Other: - the Bombers' 2015 operating profit (without the Grey Cup) cannot be solely attributed to Millers' salemanship. Miller had little if anything to do with the 7 World Cup matches held in Winnipeg last year. Nor did he have anything to do with drawing One Direction or ACDC to Investors Group Field - that was True North. Without those additional sources of revenue, I think it is reasonable to assume that the the club's operating profits for the 2015 season (again, not including Grey Cup revenue) would have been an operating loss possibly exceeding 6 figures. Miller will not have the luxury of all these additional events to boost the bottom line of the club with the lone exception being the Heritage Classic in October for which I have heard the Bombers cut will be $200,000. So combine the loss in revenues from non-Bomber events at the stadium this year vs. last year with the decline in gate revenue from season ticket sales and single ticket sales (barring a miraculous turnaround by the club in the second half) and we may see a substantial decline in overall in-stadium revenues and a significant 7 figure loss for the year. Of course, Miller will have to bear responsibility for this as his one of his primary jobs with the club is the successful day-to-day running of the business side of the operation.

Interesting... http://3downnation.com/2016/07/22/end-mike-oshea-14-thoughts/

Assuming the season continues at it is and O'Shea is fired, what quality candidates will want to come here if they know Miller may interfere in the decision - making process.

Rielly was probably hit more frequently and injured more often than Willy in his first few seasons with the Esks and he has bounced back a few times to become one of the best, if not the best, quarterbacks in the league. Guy is a winner. Some players are just more resilient than others.

Did Miller train under Bauer? He was on the team, yes, but I won't recall Bauer training him in a management-type role.

Interesting looking at the comments from 3 years ago... Are you two worried yet? Sadly, it looks that way. His recruiting from the US leaves a lot to be desired. Might be the weakest of the 9 teams. His drafting has been decent but hardly outstanding which is what we were hoping for from a CIS guru. Looks like a bad start so far. 0 for 2. Unfortunately, this is starting to look like one of those sketchy interim solutions unless there is a dramatic turnaround. Looks like the skepticism was warranted. We have already seen the season ticket base decline from 24,000 to below 20,000 (I have heard as low as 18,000) in the 3 years the Miller regime has been in charge. Hopefully we can pull of two wins in the next 3-4 weeks to give the fans some hope, but if not I would have to think the walkup crowd will all but disappear and we will see another decline in season ticket sales. If the Bombers miss the playoffs I wouldn't mind a clean sweep of the organization from top to bottom, including Miller. He will be given another shot though and I shudder to think what will happen if the next hire is as underwhelming as this one appears.

Did Willy's knee injury effect his play this season? That could very well be, but it is worth noting that he played pretty awful in a few of his games last season prior to the injury.