TrueBlue4ever

Answer: because it works and we are winning. Because he does what the club asks, works hard at a thankless task of blocking on offence and special teams, fills a big role on the short yardage offence which has been extremely effective this season. O’Shea has been open about his reasons but some don’t listen here because they have been convinced by others that O’Shea doesn’t have a clue how manage a roster, all actual evidence to the contrary, and would rather see an 8th d-lineman bolster our already number 1 defence instead of having a starting fullback on heavy package plays. People may not like the answer and tune it out in favour of their personal narrative, but it’s not like O’Shea hasn’t hid his reasons from us.

Dull first period, good second, bad third, but Hellebuyck probably steals it in the third and a win is a win.

So the quick answer is yes it has happened before, but with a caveat. In the earliest years of the MOP award (starting in 1953) the eastern and western teams did not play an interlocking schedule, so the only chance for them to meet was in the Grey Cup. So in 1953 the MOP was Edmonton’s Billy Vessels, but the Tiger-Cats beat Winnipeg in the Grey Cup, so he did not face Hamilton. It happened 3 more times in the 1950’s when the Esks Jackie Parker (in ‘57 and ‘58) and Johnny Bright (in ‘59) won MOP but Hamilton and Winnipeg played in the Cup each year. By the time Montreal’s George Dixon won MOP without playing in the Grey Cup, CFL teams were playing a full interlocking schedule, so he faced the Bombers in the regular season. I haven’t done a deep dive through the rest of the 1960’s and 1970’s, but as far as I can tell, the MOP for each season from 1980 to 2022 either played for or against the eventual Grey Cup champions for that season. There were two close calls though. In 2002 Milt Stegall did play against Edmonton in one game, and started the second before being injured early, and then did not play in the playoff game as the Esks went on to win the Cup. In 2004 BC’s Casey Printers won MOP and did play eventual champion Toronto at home in August as he was replacing an injured Dave Dickenson. He’d play a bit of the re-match in Toronto before being pulled midway through a loss. And then he famously was sat for the Cup in favour of Dickenson three days after winning the MOP, and the Argos won. Now since the whole implication of this question is that Kelly sat out against the Bombers in their lone meeting and the Bombers are destined to win, if you have now angered the football Gods with your presumptive confidence and jinxed us come this Sunday if the Als pull off an upset, and made me do all this work to boot, then

Ehlers scores almost from on the bench, and it’s 3-1

Perfetti with a laser opens the scoring.

Connor with the best chance in a ragged first period, just misses burying the breakaway rebound. I guess that’s what you call a good “road period” for Buffalo.

I think he means has the MOP never played AGAINST the league champions. Obviously if the MOP is on the eventual Grey Cup champs they would not play against themselves, but I will look into it to see if the MOP has ever not played a game for OR against that year’s champs.

And ex-Jet Comrie in the net for the Sabres.

Axel Jonsson-Fjallby in for an injured Kupari as well.

Sorry can’t copy the line-up from the Facebook page. Bucky in net, heritage jerseys

Sorry, I couldn’t resist.

The obvious choice would be Paul LaPolice. Great offensive mind, history with and ties to the city, Grey Cup winning pedigree, works well with O’Shea, and he……..wait a minute……..sorry,, thought I heard screams and a table being overturned somewhere. Got distracted. Now where was I? Oh yeah, LaPo. He…….huh. swear I heard it again. Weird.

Not holding my breath on that one. Not really for Biggie either, but it would be nice to hear an update about him.

His player bio says he’s 5’9” (college combine has him at 5’10”) and 225 lbs. According to a few internet sources, average NFL running back is 5’10” to 10.5” and 213 lbs. so size does not appear to be an issue. It’s his speed that I think would hold him back. His college combine 40 time was “high 4.70” according to a 3 Down article, and average NFL running back speed is in the 4.43-4.58 range, according to various sources. NFL combine 5 year average came out at 4.49 for running backs. As Booch pointed out, NFL is all about measurables, so tough to even get a foot in the door. And RBs seem to be a dime a dozen coming out of US college, with a shorter high end shelf life than other positions. But good luck to him. If not, he is someone one would hope would be a true Bomber for Life (who was the last high end player we could say that about?)

So @DTonOB led me down the rabbit hole with this tweet, and I dug up the stats in the CFL (1958 and beyond) era. There have been 28 teams to lose a regular season game by 30 or more points and then play in the Grey Cup that same year. Those teams are 12-16 in the Grey Cup game. The Cup winners are : 1988 Wpg (lost 36-3 to B.C.) 1989 Sask (lost 49-17 to Edm) 1990 Wpg (lost 55-11 to Sask - the 44 point loss is the largest ever for a same season Grey Cup winner) 1993 Edm (lost 53-11 to Wpg and 52-14 to Winnipeg - the only CFL team to ever lose 2 games by 30 points and then win a Grey Cup the same season) 1994 BC (lost 62-21 to Cal) 1999 Ham (lost 52-19 to Mtl) 2000 BC (lost 35-2 to Cal) 2004 Tor (lost 58-20 to Mtl) 2007 Sask (lost 42-12 to BC) 2010 Mtl (lost 40-3 to Ham) 2011 BC (lost 42-10 to Ham) 2022 Tor (lost 44-3 to BC) Winnipeg has the best winning percentage, having won 2 Cups and losing zero in a year where they lose a game by 30+ in the same regular season, while Ottawa is 0-2 in Grey Cups where they lost a game by 30+ points that same year. BC is 3-1 in that situation for the most GC wins. Hamilton is the worst at 1-7. Incidentally, Montreal is 1-4. As an aside, on 9 prior occasions, a team has lost by 30 points or more to a team and then met that same team in the Grey Cup that same year (which is the scenario we have this year). Those losing teams are 2-7 in the Grey Cup. Winnipeg has been involved in both of the scenarios where the 30+ point loser later won the Cup against the same team: 1988 Wpg lost in B.C. 36-3 in the season opener, beat them 22-21 in the Grey Cup This one stings - as mentioned above the Bombers beat Edmonton twice in 1993 by 30+ points in the regular season, then lost to them 33-23 in the Grey Cup (with Matt Dunigan injured) Also, 4 times a team has lost multiple games by 30+ points and still made it to the Grey Cup. Other than Edmonton in 1993, all those teams would lose the big game. Sask in 1997 lost to Winnipeg 43-12 and 55-10 in the regular season before losing to Toronto in the 1997 Cup, and Hamilton did it twice, losing the 1980 Cup to Edm after losing 53-18 to Edm and 49-10 to Mtl earlier that season, and then in 2013 when they lost 37-0 to Sask and 36-5 to Mtl before succumbing to the Riders in the Cup game. On the flip side, Winnipeg won a game by 45 points over Sask this season. There have been 17 teams to win by 45+ points in a regular season game and then play in that year’s Grey Cup. Those teams are 9-8 in the championship game. Edmonton holds the record for biggest margin of victory by a team that went on to win that year’s Grey Cup, beating Toronto by 54 points (61-7) in 1981. They also beat Mtl 62-11 that year, becoming one of only two teams to win multiple games by 45+ and then win the Cup later that same year. More on the other team at the end (hint, 1999 Hamilton). Calgary beat Hamilton 60-1, and that 59 point spread is the largest for a winning team that would later lose that year’s Grey Cup, in 2017. Incidentally, that Calgary squad won a second game by 45+ points, beating Mtl 59-11, to become the only team to lose a Grey Cup in the same season that they won multiple games by 45 or more. And there are teams have have been on both ends of the spectrum, winning by 45+ and losing by 30+ in the same year and going on to play in the Grey Cup. BC has done it twice and won the Cup both times (1994 lost to Cal 62-21 and beating Shreveport 67-15 before defeating Baltimore in a home Grey Cup, and in 2000 lost to Cal 35-2, beat Tor 51-4, and won the Cup over Mtl), Sask did it once in 2009 and lost the Cup (lost 43-10 to Mtl, beat Wpg 55-10, then lost the “13th man” Cup to the Als). And the one other team to be on both sides of the big win/big loss coin is the fascinating 1999 Hamilton Tiger-Cats squad. That year they had 3 margins of victory greater than 45 points and also lost a game by more than 30, and ended up winning the Grey Cup over Calgary at season’s end. They are the only club to register 3 wins of that margin in a Grey Cup year. Beyond that, the first two wins (54-8 over Edm and 63-17 over Sask) were in consecutive games, so the combined margin of +92 in back-to-back games is a single season CFL record as best I can tell. Then later that same season, after losing 52-19 to Mtl, they beat Wpg the next week 65-15, and the 83 point swing in consecutive games is also a record in the CFL era. And now you know…..the rest of the story.

My all-time fav was when the league didn’t like the sneaky tackle eligible play because defences were hindered, so they made it a requirement that the o-line player had to check in and declare eligibility as a receiver, and the refs had to announce it on the stadium mike so there were no surprises. Bombers in Calgary and the Stamps have that play declared about a half dozen times. Each time Proulx has to go on the mike and say “Calgary number fifty-tree is illegible on display”. The crowd struggled not to laugh, and even Bob Irving in the broadcast booth uttered out loud “Poor Andre” after the sixth butchered attempt at “eligible”. The league actually stopped forcing the refs to announce it over the PA system after that game, IIRC. Having said that, my favorite ref to see on the field.

Their offence wasn’t even that good. Both of Montreal’s TDs were off pick 6’s. If we can score even one touchdown in the Grey Cup game, Montreal’s offence will need to do more than it was able to do in two full games against us to overcome that deficit. That’s dominance.

If you don’t see this year as dominant and label it as merely adequate, I have to ask what your standard is. Identify what qualifies as dominant (like a past actual team, not some hypothetical nebulous answer like “a squad that imposes it’s will”)

Fun fact about that broadcast - it was shown on both CTV and CBC, and the broadcasts teams for each network split the duties. CTV’s Pat Marsden did the first half play-by-play and I think it was Leo Cahill on the colour, with CBC’s Don Wittman and Ron Lancaster taking over in the second half.

Bang on assessment. Consider that at the half the turnovers were 4-1 for Montreal and they were only up by 7. Toronto was still right in it. In the 2021 West Final the Bombers were trailing 10-7 at the half with 5 turnovers to zero against. And Collaros ran down the Sask defender with a two blocker escort on the second one instead of quitting on the play. And look how each team responded in the second half in those situations. Kelly and the Argos allowed themselves to be defeated in the moment and crumbled in the second half. That Bomber team sucked it up and flipped the script to gain a win.

No rule against it as far as I know. It is called “football”, after all.

Yeah, maybe it will be an actual issue next year unlike the manufactured non-controversy some tried to sell as a problem this season. Serious question - what evidence is there that the roster moves actually cost us this year, and what proof is there that we made it so hard on ourselves or would have been much better if some fans’ preferred players were on the roster over what the club actually fielded? Of our 4 losses, 2 were in OT, and 3 of the 4 were by 2, 3, and 6 points. And in those losses it’s a lot easier to find an on-field mistake that was the difference, rather than the fact that we did not have a certain person rostered as a back-up to a back-up in spot #45. The one blowout we had, well we just sent that team packing again in a dominant West Final, and IIRC the big worry was the age of our o-line after that game, not the “Haba vs Jackson” debate. In our 14 wins, 11 were by double digits (same as the mighty Argos, BTW) and only 1 was by less than a TD. Our average margin of victory in those wins was 18 points. What was so hard about this year in the big picture? This isn’t a Madden video game on easy mode where anything less than a 60 point win is a failure. This edition of the club, if they win it all next week, should go down as one of the best ever teams in franchise history. And even if we quibble about a certain roster move, it sure looks like based on where we stand today that the staff made all the right decisions in the end, and the “putrid roster management” story was largely overblown. Convince me otherwise.

Is there any other way????????

Here’s the recipe for the Texas nachos (inspired by Planet Hollywood in San Antonio): Tostitos Rounds fry bacon slices, cut each slice into 1/3 pieces 1/3 bacon strip on each individual Round big enough to cover the Round without spilling over grill boneless chicken breast, dice it diced chicken on the bacon slice diced tomato beside the chicken on the bacon slice Bullseye BBQ sauce, 1/4 to 1/2 tsp per piece, over the chicken and tomato shredded marble cheddar atop the BBQ sauce, better to keep the cheese contained to each chip so each can be eaten separately, rather than covering the whole pan broil until the cheese is melted serve warm