We advise the Blue Brass: when should he go?

1 hour ago, TBURGESS said:

Toronto hired Trestman and won the Grey Cup this year. Riders hired Jones who got them into the playoffs and a playoff win in year 2. Hamilton's Jones turned that team around in half a year. It could be argued that he'd have made the playoffs if he'd had the whole year. All 3 of those coaches took over teams as bad as the one that MOS did.

We chose MOS and we'll go into year 5 still looking for our first playoff victory.

Trestman wasn't available when the Bombers were looking, and I'm glad we don't have Chris Jones.  I can't stand the guy's attitude or the way he runs his team.  Sure they got into the playoffs and got a win... in the East.  I'll take O'Shea's culture over Jones' any day of the week.

I don't know much about June Jones, so I can't speak to his availability when the Bombers were looking.  Glad to see that he's having some success in Hamilton, hopefully that makes the East a stronger division next year.

I wasn't suggesting that those guys were available. I was showing what experience does.

I'll take wins over culture every day of the week.

1 minute ago, TBURGESS said:

I wasn't suggesting that those guys were available. I was showing what experience does.

I'll take wins over culture every day of the week.

Well luck for us we have both wins and culture with O'Shea.

8 minutes ago, gcn11 said:

I can't complain about the coaching, but a roster that can win a playoff game would be nice.

I firmly believe we had one this year....when healthy. If we had a healthy roster for that playoff game, we win it...I really and truly believe that.

9 minutes ago, Noeller said:

I firmly believe we had one this year....when healthy. If we had a healthy roster for that playoff game, we win it...I really and truly believe that.

Unfortunately, we are never going to be healthy in week 20.

Our depth is going to be tested every single year, and you have to be able to put wins together anyway.

We were the healthiest team in the league this year.

I'll take play off wins over in season wins and Grey Cup appearances over one and done and Grey Cup wins over all of them. MOSS hasn't delivered any of that yet. Experienced coaching has.

10 minutes ago, TBURGESS said:

We were the healthiest team in the league this year.

I'll take play off wins over in season wins and Grey Cup appearances over one and done and Grey Cup wins over all of them. MOSS hasn't delivered any of that yet. Experienced coaching has.

oh, well then.. we should just shitcan the whole lot.  screw the progress made, lets just start from scratch again.

2 hours ago, SPuDS said:

How so? 2 starting calibre Canadian receivers, well stocked O-line, D-line has great canadian depth and our STs are some of the best and majority of them are Canadians as well..

 

I think our canadian content has not been this good since the days where we had 4+ on the O-line

OL: only two regular Canadian starters

DL: really only one full - time starter.  When he went down they had to start 4 Americans

Rec: outside of Harris, most teams have better Canadian receivers

 

Just now, Mark H. said:

OL: only two regular Canadian starters

DL: really only one full - time starter.  When he went down they had to start 4 Americans

Rec: outside of Harris, most teams have better Canadian receivers

 

I'm not comparing to other teams as of yet.  I'm comparing to where we have been for years before.  We may only start 2 Canadians on the o-line but we have enough to start 3 if we wanted... with backups.

 

D-line, we could go 2 starters if we wanted with Faith/Thomas and Westerman and Corney backing up. 

 

Receivers, I think Coates has taken a step forward in securing a starting gig.. JFG was a solid starter.. not sure what happened there with Wolitarsky in the wings..

 

 

12 minutes ago, SPuDS said:

I'm not comparing to other teams as of yet.  I'm comparing to where we have been for years before.  We may only start 2 Canadians on the o-line but we have enough to start 3 if we wanted... with backups.

D-line, we could go 2 starters if we wanted with Faith/Thomas and Westerman and Corney backing up. 

Receivers, I think Coates has taken a step forward in securing a starting gig.. JFG was a solid starter.. not sure what happened there with Wolitarsky in the wings..

 

I don't entirely disagree with you - but we could also keep the status quo at MLB if we wanted.

13 minutes ago, SPuDS said:

I'm not comparing to other teams as of yet.  I'm comparing to where we have been for years before.  We may only start 2 Canadians on the o-line but we have enough to start 3 if we wanted... with backups.

D-line, we could go 2 starters if we wanted with Faith/Thomas and Westerman and Corney backing up. 

Receivers, I think Coates has taken a step forward in securing a starting gig.. JFG was a solid starter.. not sure what happened there with Wolitarsky in the wings..

Got your blue-coloured glasses on here a bit...

Neufeld is not a confirmed starter - guy has been injured every year of his career and Couture/Spooner are big question marks

Ekakitie hasn't shown anything - but I do believe Corney/Thomas are great rotational guys

Coates and JFG are not 'solid starters' - they are journeymen who can catch a ball once or twice a game...  if they were not Cdn, they'd be gone

 

Demski is up for grabs....I think he would be a nice fit here but it might be at the expense of JFG or Coates who I really like....Going to be some tough decisions for Kyle and I think it eventually will come down to dollars like it usually does..

59 minutes ago, Noeller said:

I firmly believe we had one this year....when healthy. If we had a healthy roster for that playoff game, we win it...I really and truly believe that.

That's why we need better depth, and that's on Kyle Watlers scouting staff. Lots of fine draft picks and good results in general through free agency, but a bit slow to find our own recruits. Get that figured out and suddenly your depth improves. Now I think we saw some more success this year so perhaps things are getting built up, shall see what happens next year in training camp. 

8 minutes ago, Floyd said:

Got your blue-coloured glasses on here a bit...

Neufeld is not a confirmed starter - guy has been injured every year of his career and Couture/Spooner are big question marks

Ekakitie hasn't shown anything - but I do believe Corney/Thomas are great rotational guys

Coates and JFG are not 'solid starters' - they are journeymen who can catch a ball once or twice a game...  if they were not Cdn, they'd be gone

 

Again, not comparing to the league.. comparing to the previous regimes and teams prior to Walters and Co showing up.   Neufie, if healthy, can start.  his issue is staying healthy.  I wouldn't want to have him starting nor change the ratio to more canucks.  I like the setup we have now and our o-line is stocked up well for what we are currently doing.

 

Ekakitie and Thomas could easily platoon on one interior spot.  Would they be all-stars? No. functional? yup.      Coates has done nothing but perform in his spot duty so far.  For what we use a canadian receiver for, he has been very good...  I don't get the "us versus them" thought process..   for where we use the canadians, we are very well stocked up with the exception of MLB (but whos to say that doesn't change in the off-season.. the use of the role more so as finding a better canadian then Hurl)

1 hour ago, 17to85 said:

The thing is, every great coach is a rookie at some point. You gotta hire right people and let them grow into the proven winners, and I think Mike O'Shea is well on his way to that. I mean christ, this team has just won 11 and 12 games in the past 2 seasons. It's not like they're barely limping into the playoffs or anything. 

O'Shea will be a grey cup champion head coach at some point.  The only question is whether it is here or somewhere else.  It would be sad to see us fire him after 5 years and then have him win a GC somewhere else in his first season.

1 hour ago, Floyd said:

Got your blue-coloured glasses on here a bit...

Neufeld is not a confirmed starter - guy has been injured every year of his career and Couture/Spooner are big question marks

Ekakitie hasn't shown anything - but I do believe Corney/Thomas are great rotational guys

Coates and JFG are not 'solid starters' - they are journeymen who can catch a ball once or twice a game...  if they were not Cdn, they'd be gone

 

I completely disagree with this statement. They aren't all stars. but they are solid. Didn't Coates have the 2nd most amount of catches in the play off game? Behind only Dressler. I thought I read that. And Journeymen??? Both have only every played with one other team.

2 hours ago, TBURGESS said:

I wasn't suggesting that those guys were available. I was showing what experience does.

I'll take wins over culture every day of the week.

Biggest knock against  Walters and MOS is that they are not in the East.

TO was a .500 team and would have been .500 last year with a healthy Ray.

TO played at home in the East Final against the 4th best team in the West as a result of being a .500 team.

Pump their tires all you want but Popp and  Trestman didn't work any miracles. They played well enough in one important game in miserable conditions. And, even then, still needed a bad fumble at the goal line to turn everything around.

 

 

Edited November 29, 20178 yr by JCon
Typo

I`m no MOS fan but comparing Trestman and the Argos to the Bombers is a bit unfair. Toronto finished first in a putrid division and then won a Grey Cup thanks in large part to huge mental break downs by the Stamps. If we had played Calgary in the  Cup final we would have won too with their mental game so poor.

 

13 minutes ago, JCon said:

Biggest knock against  Walters and MOS is that they are not in the East.

TO was a .500 team and would have been .500 last year with a healthy Ray.

TO played at home in the East Final against the 4th best team in the West as a result of being a .500 team.

Pump their tires all you want but Popp and  Trestman didn't work any miracles. They played well enough in one important game in miserable conditions. And, even then, still needed a bad fumble at the goal line to turn everything around.

 

 

I am not even sure they played all that well, they just happened to make a couple big plays, two of which can be called flat out stamps errors. They had a huge passing play for the touchdown, they got the fumble on a misguided fight for extra yards by the stamps receiver and then they got the int into double coverage on ego mitchell trying to be a hero, outside of that they were the inferior team all game long, but that's football, make the big plays when the opportunity is there win games. 

2 hours ago, TBURGESS said:

We were the healthiest team in the league this year.

I'll take play off wins over in season wins and Grey Cup appearances over one and done and Grey Cup wins over all of them. MOSS hasn't delivered any of that yet. Experienced coaching has.

By that argument, BC should have won this year, and last year, and the year before that, Wally is an experienced coach, why isn't he winning it every year? 

50 minutes ago, Sard said:

By that argument, BC should have won this year, and last year, and the year before that, Wally is an experienced coach, why isn't he winning it every year? 

 What a ridiculous suggestion/comparison.

I compared the results of 3 experienced coaches taking over bad teams to MOS. I didn't suggest that every experienced HC could win the Grey Cup every year.  I showed the actual results of hiring professionals compared to hiring guys who have to learn on the job. You may not like the comparison, because it doesn't show MOS in a great light, but at least get the comparison I'm making straight.

3 hours ago, SPuDS said:

oh, well then.. we should just shitcan the whole lot.  screw the progress made, lets just start from scratch again.

I'm not suggesting that we blow everything up and start over this year. MOS has 2 more years on his contract, but if he doesn't at least win a playoff game next year, I'd be looking for an experienced HC to get us to the next level. 4 years without a playoff win is bad enough. 5 years should be a firing offense.

While am at it... Firing the HC when we already have a good core of players isn't the same thing as starting from scratch again or blowing the whole thing up. It's making a change to try and change the results. 

27 minutes ago, TBURGESS said:

 What a ridiculous suggestion/comparison.

I compared the results of 3 experienced coaches taking over bad teams to MOS. I didn't suggest that every experienced HC could win the Grey Cup every year.  I showed the actual results of hiring professionals compared to hiring guys who have to learn on the job. You may not like the comparison, because it doesn't show MOS in a great light, but at least get the comparison I'm making straight.

I'm not suggesting that we blow everything up and start over this year. MOS has 2 more years on his contract, but if he doesn't at least win a playoff game next year, I'd be looking for an experienced HC to get us to the next level. 4 years without a playoff win is bad enough. 5 years should be a firing offense.

While am at it... Firing the HC when we already have a good core of players isn't the same thing as starting from scratch again or blowing the whole thing up. It's making a change to try and change the results. 

I do agree that we need a win in the playoffs now.  we have established ourselves as a playoff team again, getting a win and advancing to the greycup should be the next logical step and if O'Shea doesn't get us the first part next year... it might be time to pull the plug, yup.

This whole "only hire rookies" thing is a farce and outside of a few people in here I doubt many are buying it. O'Shea had almost zero coaching experience when he came here. Three years as a special teams coach in Toronto. He certainly wasn't ready to be a head coach and I said then it'll take him 10 years to become a great coach, if he ever does. Who is willing to wait decades for coaches to maybe become great? C'mon! What kind of a ****** strategy is that? Hire the right frigging people and give them something to work with and you can win it all in a year! Don't give us this crap about experienced coaches not wanting to come here. Plenty of them have come here, just show them the money and give them something to work with. Man, you guys can sling the hooey in here.

What experienced head coach with a winning history was available in 2014, when O'Shea was hired?

2 hours ago, Atomic said:

What experienced head coach with a winning history was available in 2014, when O'Shea was hired?

Tom Higgins.