Tracker

Who of those 3 is covering a slotback? Bass or Wild. I don't know if Simmons has the speed.

We're going to have to wait a long time for January.

If Simmons is as good as he was with Ottawa, the thought of a Simmons-Bass-Wild linebacking corps makes me positively giddy.

To paraphrase Charlie Brown:" We need all the help we can get"

I don't think they quit, I think they were just in over their heads. Hey if you get offended being compared to Nasty Nate don't offend O'Shea comparing him to Burke. He is a way better coach than Burke could ever hope to be. I don't see the evidence that O'Shea is better than Burke. They were both good coordinators with bad head coaching records. Other than style, what's the difference? I don't see the players quitting on O'Shea. They gave up on Burke entirely. Yeah the team right now has a hard time rebounding from a couple poor plays, but it's different than a team that just packs it in entirely. I mean just looking at that Calgary game, the defense fought tooth and nail in the first half to try and give the offense all the chances they needed to win but the execution simply wasn't there on offence. With Burke the team visibly checked out about 5 minutes into a game. 4 blow outs says otherwise Blow outs aren't the only story. Sometimes a blow out just happens because you're over matched. With Burke the team quit on him and as I said, I don't see the team quitting on O'Shea. I see them getting overwhelmed by negative plays and it takes them a while to recover, at which point the other team has generally opened up an insurmountable lead. This teams problem is it can't shake off poor plays quick enough and can't capitalize well enough on the big plays they do get. Let's look at this past game as an example. Calgary turns the ball over in the endzone, what do the Bombers do? They turn it right back over and Calgary immediately puts it in the endzone. Bombers block a punt and come away with only a field goal. Calgary gets an INT to start the 2nd half and it's in the endzone. See what I mean? Gotta be able to capitalize on the big plays and recover quickly when you make a bad play. Blowouts do tell you a lot about the team, and almost half the games this year have been blowout losses. Either the talent just isn't there, or the coaching is lacking. O'Shea may or may not have lost the locker room but the team is spiralling downward once more and the win/loss numbers do not lie. Don Matthews,Scotty Bowman, and many other coaches were not on their players' christmas card lists, but the teams won anyways. The same applies in the business world- it all comes down to results.

Hey if you get offended being compared to Nasty Nate don't offend O'Shea comparing him to Burke. He is a way better coach than Burke could ever hope to be. I don't see the evidence that O'Shea is better than Burke. They were both good coordinators with bad head coaching records. Other than style, what's the difference? I don't see the players quitting on O'Shea. They gave up on Burke entirely. Yeah the team right now has a hard time rebounding from a couple poor plays, but it's different than a team that just packs it in entirely. I mean just looking at that Calgary game, the defense fought tooth and nail in the first half to try and give the offense all the chances they needed to win but the execution simply wasn't there on offence. With Burke the team visibly checked out about 5 minutes into a game. I agree the players haven't given up on O'Shea yet, he is much more of a leader than Tim B. however I do have many issues with O'Shea's style I think he is too easy on the players in practice and he gives then too much "rest" IMO , Cal Murphy wasn't too working about keeping his players fresh he wanted them to work in practice and lots of them... I think for a team that has gone 4-14 over its past 18 games ( and only 3 without Willy ) we are not a very good team and its not from a lack of talent IMO its poor coaching especially our OC , ST and OL Coaches... Coaching has changed and evolved since Cal Murphy was coaching. The task master doesn't work anymore. Kent Austin and Hufnagel would disagree with you.

No big surprise- Wild is a sort of "tweener"- too small for an NFL linebacker and not really suited to be a DB. I would love to see him here as an outside linebacker.

Yup, I was hyping Marve, I admit it, and all I've seen so far is Justin Goltz 2.0. Argh. The key words are "so far". Lets give Marve another game (or most of it) to show why he ought to be a starter, or here at all, for that matter. And then there's the Bellefeuille effect....

Bellefeuille is the biggest open sore with the team at the moment, but you do need to ask- who chose and kept him as well as our previous DC? And who decided that the current bunch of wanna-be-starter QBs was good enough?

We could use some Lemon-aid at DE.

So long as you have the requisite number of GOOD starting Canadians, you ought to be able to find import players ot fill in the gaps. It doesn't matter if the Canucks are linemen, linebackers, DBs, receivers or RBs- it all comes down to talent.

You want a proven head coach then your only option is Trestman. No not Higgins. Everyone else with experience who isn't 100 years old has been given a shot to be a head coach and failed. That's why it's always coordinators getting hired these days. You know what' better than firing a decent head coach in Mike O'Shea? Giving him enough depth on the roster so that a few injuries don't derail the entire thing. We need to stop blaming coaches here. Kyle Walters seems to be the teflon man but 2 years now he has simply not brought in enough talent from the States to this team and his drafting is fairly over rated as well. He's done some good work in signing CFL free agents but outside of that he is lacking and needs to be better before we think that a new coach will magically fix everything. Apart from the steaming mess in Montreal, Higgins has had success, and I believe would be better than O'Shea. Walters deserves his share of criticism as does McManus but good players look worse under bad coaches, so that has to be looked at, too.

If we are the first and only team to lose to the Riders this year, we will be one of the two laughing stocks of the league and deservedly so. For the Bombers to salvage any respect his season, we cannot lose to the Riders, even if we beat no one else.

Is Forde not a DE?

Phil Hunt? I didn't realize he was still kicking around... good for him... He's only 29 years old. He was cut. He'd be an interesting pick up. He spent last year out of football before signing on with the Lions this off season. I wonder if he's ready for a CFL comeback. Coming off an ACL injury, bouncing from the Eagles, the Colts and now the Lions .. he may not be the same player he was when he left .. Shawn Lemon also just got released by the 49ers. He's someone the organization may want to touch base with. Second the motion, although our defence is the least of our problems.

Splitting with the Riders is simply not good enough. If we have any illusions about making the playoffs, we need to sweep the Riders and even then, its still a long shot unless Marve and Bellefeuille (if Bellefeuille is still here) stop looking at their prostates up close.

Much as I like Khari and what he would bring to the community, we have had enough of inexperienced head coaches who are cutting their teeth at our expense. We need someone with successful head coach experience, like a Trestman or even Higgins. Were Trestman available right now, I would turf O'Shea today, not because I dislike him, but because he appears to be in over his head.

Spit. No help forthcoming here.

And they are welcome to him. He shows every indication that his problems are bigger than his talent.

Ricky Ray is at least as brittle as Willy,so putting him behind the current Bomber O-line is a recipe for an expensive disaster. Besides, its after 10:00 AM and we haven't heard that Bellefeuille and/or Brohm has been show the door, so my pessimism is growing.

Actually, had the Riders won against Ottawa, it would have given them some degree of hope, but now going into the next two games, all they will have is an intial flurry of effort and if that does not pay off quickly, they will fold. The Riders have a dreadful defence which the Bombers (surely to God) ought to be able to exploit even with a crippled offence. Our defence should be able to smother whatever offence the Riders cobble together. No excuse for the Bombers not winning albeit in a crushingly boring pair of games. The biggest challenge for fans of either team will be fighting back the waves of boredom and nausea.

I have to admire Chamblin for the restraint and composure he showed in handling what must be a horrible job in answering the tough questions after his 9th loss with patience. If you have to lose, the best you can do is handle it with class.

I would almost settle for Australian Lawn Darts semi-finals replays.

Can we merge the teams for the rest of the year? Then see a divorce lawyer?

I fear you are correct.