blueandgoldguy

Our offense faded ....at least the passing aspect of our offense faded in the second half of the 2017 season. Nichols seemed to be throwing for 300 or nearly 300 yards per game in the first half but around Labor Day/Banjo Bowl his stats took a noticeable dip.

Based on how this season is shaping up I would be fine with Lapo being shown the door, but I disagree that Lapo hasn't developed a half decent QB. Durant emerged as a starter in 2008 and 2009 under Lapo's offensive schemes in Saskatchewan. Campbell was given a bad hand to deal with when his GM let many top free agents leave for other teams. I don't anything about this whole revolt against him. IF that's that case, perhaps he is gone. If this revolt is merely speculation on your part, or is being highly exaggerated by a source, then he is likely to receive a second chance to right the ship in 2020.

Lapo is likely gone. Hire Dinwiddie who is regarded as an up-and-comer for several year as the OC. He has been coaching now for 7 years, 5 of those with one of the best in Dickenson. We hired an unproven special teams coach to be head coach here 6 years ago. Now it's time for some fresh blood at the OC position. Sign Arbuckle as he already has a repoire with Dinwiddie and has displayed far more potential than Streveler up to this point. Sign Strev as well, as based on his performance up to this point, he will not command much on the open market (of course, this may change in the final 3 reg. season games and playoffs). Nichols can be shown the door. His performance has been wanting for the most part the past 2 years. When the running game is stopped he does not have the ability to lead this team to victory. We have seen this time and time again from him against the good teams ie. earlier this year in Hamilton, Last year's final against Calgary. Add in his shoulder injury and the likelihood he will decline further is that much greater in 2020. It's time to move on.

Well, one thing I will say is that Miller has a sweet gig. I would estimate he is making anywhere from $300 - $400,000 a year, perhaps even slightly more. That is likely far more than he would earn at Pinnacle.

Hall has been given the benefit of a nearly all-American starting lineup for his entire tenure with the Bombers. 1 or 2 starting Americans while the offense typically has had for a 5 starters. That, in itself, provides him with a significant advantage...well at least it should. IF the Bombers continue to stumble down the stretch and are one and done in the playoffs once again, good luck trying to sell the idea of a long-term contract extension of Mike O'Shea to the city and the fan base. He is not nearly as popular as many here may think. Walters might look at re-signing him, but it's possible, for a variety or reasons, O'Shea may leave for the Argos. 1) Walters offers too short of term ie. 2 years instead of 3 years and without a substantial raise, if any raise at all. 2) O'Shea wants to head back east anyways regardless of the Bombers offer and the Argos offer a lengthy contract (4 or 5 years) with a generous AAV. Assuming Lapo is gone in the off-season, I would really love to see the Bombers target Dinwiddie. He has been viewed as a rising star in the coordinator ranks for a number of years now and has been the quarterbacks coach with Calgary working under Dickenson since 2015. I would think he has enough seasoning at this point and should be handed the reigns to the offense. I would prefer him to Buck. Tom Clements is quarterbacks coach with the Cardinals. He would be an intriguing prospect for head coach given his connections to the NFL. Such a hiring wouldn't be without its risks given his time away from the Canadian football league, but there is no doubt he would be able to supply a pipeline of talent to this organization not seen since the days of Murphy. Moot point though as his salary is likely to be $250 - $400,000 US. Bombers would likely have to offer $500,000 Canadian to just to peak his interest and with the cap on coaching salaries, that is probably too much for one position.

Best not to completely rule it out.

I posted in the other forum that the Bombers have failed to draw a crowd over 25,500 this year, not including the Banjo Bowl, for the first time in the history of the IG Field. This after 4 seasons (including this one) of better than .500 ball. Frustration turning to apathy plays a role as well as high ticket prices in the lower bowl which have only been somewhat addressed with the introduction of family season tickets, student season tickets and individual family packs. There are more and more seats becoming available between the 30s, which used to be sold out...a result of charging new season ticketholders over $1000 per seat for non-club seats and $150 per game. Seats between the 10 yard line and corner end zones continue to sit largely empty at those high prices. Miller has to take part of the blame for this. As for O'shea, his contract is up this year and if he is one and done in the semi-finals (assuming the Bombers don't turn things around to finish first), he won't be back. 1 playoff win in 6 seasons. Try to find the last CFL coach who lasted into a 7th season with 1 playoff win and no division titles. I think you will be looking back decades to find one...in fact, I'm not sure it has ever happened. It could also be the Argos or Redblacks (I think they keep Campbell for one more season,) offer a lucrative contract offer a more lucrative contract that O'shea jumps at as soon as the season is over. Even if O'Shea makes it to the divisional finals and loses I think it's a 50-50 proposition at best that he is back. Barely above .500 in 6 seasons and no real progress towards a Grey Cup by the looks of this season...him going to bat for Richie Hall this off-season with more of the same results. He has to wear that. No, the more I think about it, the more it seems likely anything less than a Grey Cup appearance will likely result in the end of the O'shea era in Winnipeg...should be the end of Richie Hall and Lapo as well...unless Lapo replaces O'shea as head coach.

Hammy has tonnes of talent, probably more than the Bombers. They are the Grey Cup favorite right now, imo even more than Calgary.

Tonnes of garbage time stats for Strev and he still didn't look good.

Disappointed in the effort all-around....especially after last weaks' debacle. Streveler is not showing any progress by the looks of things. He has been passed by several backups around the league - Adams, Fajardo, Arbuckle, Evans. Defense, which appeared to be a strength, looks like a mirage. Bighill has been the biggest disappointment of all and the secondary has been underwhelming most of the season. It sure doesn't seem like the players are going all-out for O'Shea, contrary to popular opinion around here. I suspect a one and done in the playoffs results in him not being offered an extension. I guess we will see what happens next week in another statement game against Saskatchewan. Another loss likely spells the end of ANY home game in the playoffs and a likely third place finish. Really frustrating right now. Feels like another cupless year.

We have seen this story too often. The defense plays a good game only to blow it when the team really needs them to hold the opposing offense to zero points on their final drive. We saw some good late game stops by the D in the preceding weeks but this was an all too familiar tale. Fajardo was 4-4 on the final drive for 34 yards...not sure why people here say all he did was hand off the ball to get in field goal range. I get frustrated with our coordinators too, but there appears to be an assumption by many here that whoever we replace them with will be better by utilizing the talent to its full potential. That is a pretty big assumption. Who is exactly out there that will call a better game than Lapo or Hall? Someone we don't know about from the US? Someone in the CFL?

It's a poorly formed opinion backed with little research. Halifax and Nova Scotia are growing. There was not an interested ownership group in the past, but there is now. If the ownership group has enough financially backing to run the year-to-year operations of a CFL team - and Ambrosie and the BOG believe they are at this point - then they will be rewarded with a franchise...assuming the city/province will provide the funding for a stadium. Ambrosie has done a good job. CFL 2.0 is a great initiative that will take years to bear fruit. Ambrosie realizes that the CFL's revenues have been maxed out in Canada and unlike previous commissioners he has decided to do something about it - marketing the CFL in other countries with a good probability it will bear fruit in the form of increased exposure and revenues in the next 5 - 10 years. He has also handled the Montreal ownership crisis as well as anyone could have given the circumstances - a massive team debt, a outdated, small stadium and a fickle market. I am confident in saying no other commissioner would have expedited the process in a quicker fashion.

It is not a premium game lol. Bomber end zone seats for out premium Banjo Bowl game are $60. You are wrong. The sideline seats were more expensive than most if not all CFL stadiums at their original price points ie. $108 for seats at the back corner of the end zone...no team has tickets at that price point in the back corner of the end zone. If the promoters were smart the seats would have only been priced similarly to the last TD Atlantic - $40 - $80. Poor ticket sales in Moncton will certainly not provide a forecast of future support in Halifax for a CFL team.

Of course, but this Halifax team will be made or broken by the financial support from those in Halifax and its immediate surrounding area.

They most certainly were. When the original price points were released, most, if not all, were significantly higher than comparable sections in all CFL cities. Those $80 end zone seats are a good example. Most stadiums have $25 - $35 end zone seats, some are even lower. Bombers sell their seats for $45 - $55, not including discounts for kids. Keep in mind these are also temp benches too. Party zone seats were also priced poorly - around $80.

The majority of season ticket holders are usually within a 1 hour drive of a stadium/arena in most if not all cities. This will also apply to Halifax if they are rewarded a team.

No there was a good number of blue dots on ticketmaster still available a few hours before the game. I am pretty sure they did not sell. They had a fan zone in one end of the stadium and a party zone in the other end. One of those zones was a brighter shade of blue on ticketmaster indicating there were still a decent number of tickets left there as well. I suspect a true sellout would have been at least 11-12,000 although they may try to spin this event as such.

Your views are the Maritimes are, shall we say, misinformed. Sounds like a stereotypical Albertan

The article I recall reading a few months ago with the new proposal for a $130 million stadium would include a 12,000 seat permanent grandstand similar to the one in Hamilton with the club seats, suites, locker rooms and training facilities on one side. The end zones would have some seats and the opposite grandstand would be temporary (also be similar to Hamilton) seating with general seats. Grand total was said to be around 25,000 - 26,000 seats. I think the temp seats would be the kind that last 10 years or close to that number of years, not the kind that have short duration as we have seen for Grey Cups.

Nah, the prices were ridiculous. $130 - $150 at centre field to 30s, Nearly $110 from the 20s to the back of the goal lines. Nearly $90 for end zone seats. They waited too long to reduce the prices as people had already allocated their disposable income to other things and the price points left a bad taste in their mouths. Leblanc and his group of promoters blew it. Speaking of which, this Touchdown Atlantic apparently had little buzz...no week of events leading up to the game with the players promoting the game around town like the first two games around 10 years ago. Sounds familar.

Halifax is growing actually and has been for the past several years. Same with Nova Scotia. https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/t1/tbl1/en/tv.action?pid=1710000901 Demographics are a concern though. Unlike the Western provinces, NS has an increasingly aging population.

Yes, a CFL team in Moncton playing in a stadium with over half the seats as temps and mostly in the end zone is a non-starter. Even if they managed to fill a 20,000 seat stadium for all 9 games for 2 seasons, they would likely lose several million dollars each season. They can't charge a high price point for end zone seats, there are little to know suites or club seats, few club seats, limited opportunities for advertising (no ribbon boards, one smaller big screen). Just because this team will be advertised as Atlantic Canada's team, it doesn't mean people will flock to the stadium from Moncton and New Brunswick, knowing full well the team will be relocating a few hours away to another city in a couple seasons. When the Houston Oilers became the Tennessee Titans, they played a few seasons in Memphis while they waited for their new stadium to be constructed in Nashville. The team was branded as a Tennessee team and yet they typically drew poor crowds in Memphis...because the team was using the city as nothing more than a temporary stop. Moncton would be no different. I hope Halifax can build a stadium and get an expansion team, but imo given its unproven nature as a market, I would ask for minimum 3- 5 year commitments from season ticket holders and 7 -10 year commitments for suites if I were the owners. This is similar to what True North asked for from Jets season ticket subscribers and corporations when the team relocated from Atlanta.

Those sneaky Riders! They timed it perfectly. They either switched out Andrew Harris' clean supplements with tainted ones when he wasn't looking or they broke into the lab and switched Harris' clean samples with tainted ones a few months ago. Since it takes several weeks for everything to be verified in the lab, they knew confirmation of both tests wouldn't happen until today, just before the Labour Day Classic and Banjo Bowl, rendering Harris a complete non-factor both both games.

Reilly doesn't have much help but he sure didn't assist in his own cause with two untimely interceptions both deep in Cats' territory. BC was fortunate to get a late TD as the second roughing the passer penalty on Hamilton was a total joke... the low hit on Reilly where the defensive lineman was essentially wrestled down by the O-lineman into Reilly's legs.

Fajardo took advantage of the short field the defense gave him with those INTs and turned them into TDs. He was very efficient. He also had at least a couple other longer drives for TDs. He did not turn the ball over. All in all, a very good game by him. Certain folks here would be praising Nichols for a game like that even if he threw for 70 less yards than Farjardo's 240....and yet it seems like Fajardo is doing it with smoke and mirrors according to some posters. Riders are clearly better than I and many others thought they would be. We will be in tough next week, even if Nichols was starting. I will be happy with the split after the back-to-back games.