Tracker

I expect that the Riders will use the same game plan as last- keep chipping away at the Bomber defence for 3 quarters and then turn Messam loose in the 4th quarter. I have zero confidence in the current Bomber running game,so we probably going to live or die with the pass, and we are going to see how fast a learner Nichols is.

Apart from holes in the International talent which Walters (and McManus et al) have not filled well, the talent level is overall better than it was under Mack. Where Walters has failed in in the choice of a head coach, and even Wally Buono has not batted 100% there. For Walters, the urgent need of the team is to sign Muamba, a dominant nose tackle, and backup quarterbacks, although that may have been resolved.

I had high hopes for O'Shea when he was named head coach, and expected that there would be bumps in the road for the first year, but he has done little to deserve being kept on. I think you can make an argument for letting him finish the year, although I would disagree. O'Shea's judgement, not his heart is the issue. He appears to be unable to judge player or assistant coach talent properly, and him getting snarky with the media is not going to help him either. Either way, the honeymoon is over.

Then why did this GM sign Walker just a week ago? That is a puzzlement. Perhaps there was a hole to fill and nobody else was available.

An observation: it seems that our collective assessment of Greaves' decline over the past 12 months was accurate. Another consensus we have is that Chevon Walker is dead weight, as is Picard. This move means that our GM is paying attention, and so are the coaches, so the departures of Picard and Walker may not be that far away, and its all good. For all the concerns we have about the coaches, we can take our eyes off Walters.

Wasn't Greaves a defensive tackle? I find it hard to believe that he was drafted with the intent of him playing tackle. That's what was said at the time. Apparently, he has really long arms... I'm glad I'm not the only one who remembers stuff like this. Mack/Lapo definitely said that they thought Greaves could potentially be a tackle down the road. And apparently down that road was Edmonton

Firing him midseason is a trap. Then you get a situation like when Crowton was let go and Bellefeuille was brought in. Hard to make changes wholesale midseason so it's not really improving anything, but hey the guy works well with the rest of the staff might as well just keep him. If the offence is going to be ****** the rest of this season regardless why not wait until the offseason to make the change and then you can go out and find the best candidate and not have the temptation to just go with the easy status quo hire. Except that MB has proven he can't win with our current players. And his playcalling is terrible. Why reward that kind of work? Give something else a try, even if for shits and giggles. Never wanted him here in the first place. I never wanted him here in the first place either, but you can't change an offence completely with only 8 games remaining. We're stuck with his crap all year like it or not, might as well wait until the offseason. But then again I'm not the kind of person who needs a public execution to placate me. Now you've taken all the fun out of it.

I'm still a bit surprised that no CFL team has picked Khalif Mitchell up. Tons of talent but negligible grey matter.

Once is happenstance, twice is coincidence, three times is either hostile action or gross incompetence.

Its going to be a tough game for the Bombers to win. The Riders have a win under their belts and therefore confidence in their new head coach, and they out played and beat the Bombers by a wide margin. The Bombers will have Nichols behind center but haven't won a game in more than a month, and their confidence in their coaches, particularly the offensive coordinator must be pretty low. In the last year, the Bombers have won, what- four games in 12 months? I shudder to think what the team morale will be if they lose to the Riders again, and nothing less than a convincing win will get this team back on track. Nichols has to shine for that to happen and with his only recent arrival, that will be difficult. The Bombers need leadership to give them hope and its is not going to come from the Head or Offensive coaches.

For all his alleged faults, Doug Brown probably still has a pipeline into the Bomber dressing rooom. As Jeff Reinbold proved, you can have the players love playing for you, but if the wins are not there and players are not being used to their best advantage by the playbook, the honeymoon will soon be over. I think we are one short step away from that point now.

I maintain that Walters deserves more time to assemble the talent we need, and two years is just not enough time. Walters has brought in some good players, just not enough and there are some real questions about how well they have been assessed and utilized. On the other hand, O'Shea has taken his best shots and they have not been good enough.

Gawd, you'd think we ought to be able to score a couple of these free agents who could help us.

I think you are confusing frustration with hatred and a year of futilty and bad judgment with adversity.

Do you think that the man who chose Bellefeuille, Tracy and our previous defensive coordinator, and thought Marve and Brohm were good enough backups fpr Willy has what it takes to do better next year when he isn't doing any better this year than last? The evidence says no.

O'Shea's track record indicates that it is probable Bellefeuille will remain to at least end of season. I'm not even sure that another humiliation will get him canned.

Yup. And O'Shea will regurgitate a whole bunch of excuses.

There is a statement that keeping obviously poor coaches (O'Shea and Bellefeuille for starters) makes and that is that there is no committment to winning and no consequence to incompetence. If the quality of our coaching, or lack thereof, is obvious to us, it must be way moreso to the players, and that has to breed disrespect for the organization.

Tracy richly deserved to be fired. In the presser this afternoon, O'Shea wrung his hands over having to fire a friend he's known since first year university but was adamant that this was the only needed change and there will be no other changes this season. It could have been an effort to reassure his minions but it probably means that he has lashed himself to his team of coaches and will live or die with them. Given the way things are going, dying looks like the probable outcome. He was asked point-blank about the flaccid offence and refused to comment on it. Translation: what you see is what you get and if this aint gonna do it, it aint gonna get done.

Without Randle, we might lose the next game.

A famous French politician was quoted as saying, " Just because it isn't working, is that a reason to change it?"

If O'Shea was referring to his coaching, then the answer is "yes".

And here I thought it was either Scope or vanilla extract.Don't forget hairspray. Isn't that for the Stampeder head coach- the "Huffer"?

yea they got hops alright lol. one almost jump kicked me in the face when i was dirt biking.. it was running straight at me down a trail and jumped at me.. if i didnt duck it may have knocked me clean off the bike at like 50 kph.. crazy buggers! So you avoided disaster by a hare?

I was going to hit the "like" button on this post but I cannot attach like to the prospect of this prediction.