Tracker

It occurs to me to wonder if the Bombers couldn't get it up for a game at home in front of fans who had started to believe in them and with a home-field advantage (?) at stake, what reason do we have to believe they will turn it on in Ottawa Friday? Or in the playoffs? The best get better when the chips are down, but this edition? Who knows?

Oh, spit.

nope. That would be like asking for a second colonoscopy because the first one wasn't enough.

My CFL history knowledge is not that encyclopedic but I do not think you would have to go too far back to find such.

Strange stuff happens every week in pro sports. Yes, the Bombers could roll right through into the Grey Cup and squeak past (probably) the Stamps, but the football gods would all have to line up on our side and the whole Bomber side would have to play the game of their lives. Should that improbably happen, it would be the stuff of legends for decades to come.

And look how well that turned out. Nichols has had hesitant starts before but he got better as the game went on- but nothing as bad as he looked Saturday. Coaches get paid to assess when its time to change the tempo of the game, and O'Shea's blind reliance on Willy despite Willy's complete collapse in the first few games nearly threw the season away. Now, as I see it, he repeated the same thing with Nichols last game. That is not going to look good on his CV.

He was pretty good not so long ago- bring him for a looksee.

Yup. I cannot see how leaving Nichols in while failing series after series would do anything for his confidence. Better to get him over to the sidelines to get him watching and then plug him in if he can see what is going on. If that doesn't work, spell him off- it wouldn't have been a new experience for him.

Well, we're going to find out if Nichols and the team can rebound from what was possibly their worst outing of the year.

But has Nichols looked as bad in any of the previous games this year as he did last game? I think not.

I've seen the best coaches pull a player when it becomes obvious that he is really struggling. I do not think that it is necessary to wait out whole damned game for a miracle. Did anyone think that the team and Nichols in particular were going to come storming back after the first half's putrid performance?

You don't have to go very far in the CFL, NFL, MLB etc to find instances where a starter was just not on his game that day and was pulled sometimes for a few minutes, sometimes for the whole game. The stubbornness of O'Shea has been an issue for some time and he looks to be very loathe to learn from his mistakes and I believe that sets a bad precedent and example for the team. And I am betting Durant will stay in Regina.

Are you implying that O'Shea does not read this forum looking for guidance in every posting?

Just because he turtles and whimpers every time an opposing player comes within 2 meters of him?

Everything old is new again and they will be selling pet rocks and 8-tracks in the parking lot next game.

Near the end of last season and into this, O'Shea took a lot of criticism about starting certain players over and over even when they were obviously not getting the job done. Chief among them was a certain Drew Willy, and that nearly cost the Bombers another dismal season until O'Shea had a deathbed repentance. Now, it seems that we are back to the old days.

That first pick definitely rattled the offence but it was still recoverable until the RBs marched right down the field twice and even rubbed the Bombers' noses in it by easily picking up the two extra points. That's where the team should have been called over to the sidelines and read the riot act and Nichols ought to have been pulled for a series or two to get his head straight. I thought that O'Shea was past this sort of thing.

There were no guarantees that either Davis or Glenn would have won the game. But yes, a smart coach would have seen early on that Nichols was not on his game and pulled him. The point in the season is irrelevant- what kind of message does it send to the team when the head coach signals that losing badly without intervening is ok? The way Nichols was playing, it was pretty much assured that the Bombers were going to lose and lose badly.

And deservedly so- quite a fall from two weeks ago.

Yes, they have, but it has been like playing Russian Roulette. This time the hammer came down on a loaded cylinder and the long-suffering fans had to pay for it by watching that mess on Saturday.

Apparently Andy Fantuz is done for the year with a knee injury.

John Hodge of 3downnation has come down hard on the Bombers for their terrible collective efforts against Ottawa. He was particularly harsh on Nichols and Richie Hall and quoted Burris as saying that Sinopoli was open behind the Bomber SAM linebacker all night but the Bomber defence was so loose that they didn't need him. In his eyes, Nichols is trending downwards.

So what's wrong with "negative comments"? If the comments were global damnation without identifying the issues contributing to the problems, then they would be pointless bitching. Criticism which points to solutions has value.

Even if the Bombers had gotten a field goal, there is no reason to believe that the RBs would not have marched down the field the next two times and scored TDs. The defence played way to loose for the entire first half and the score actually flattered the Bombers at half-time. Did they think they could turn it on for the last 30 minutes and win?

Can't deny that the Stamps are a great team, but the good teams compete pretty much every game, even when they lose- like Hamilton vs Edmonton. The O-line is (mostly) fixed, Nichols is a decent QB, our running game and receivers are at least average but we're still getting blown out. LaPolice deserves to be questioned, as do Hall and O'Shea.