I thought why not start a knee jerk reaction thread after a disappointing loss..

I would like to move on from Nichols, mainly because unless everything is running at an optimal level he can't get the job done.

I'd much rather have a guy who can actually run and throw on the run in case the oline has some pressure on them.

We blame the receivers but from my eyes this season it seemed like the receivers did not get passed to them mid stride on a consistent basis. It seems like unless Nichols has numerous steamboats that his passes require the receiver to dive or go high/low to make the catch.

I would not mind handing the keys over to Chris and save a crap load of money signing someone else as a backup.

I'll a take a year of growing pains over a guy who can't rollout and make a pass 15 yards down the field...

3 minutes ago, Arnold_Palmer said:

No way we get Masoli for Nichols at this point..

Agreed. Not a snowball's chance in hell.

That salary for Nichols looks really ugly going into 2019. I think the organization has to do whatever it can to get him to restructure his deal and spread around the savings. He's not worth that kind of money.

34 minutes ago, Arnold_Palmer said:

If we got the Matt Nichols of 2017 we’d easily win the Grey Cup this year. We as a team were good enough to win it all and stood up well against Calgary but Nichols didnt play well enough. Simply put. 

disagree.... Nichols after the Banjo Bowl last season played very much like he did this season.   He had 2 games since then.  2017 West Semi Final and at home against Calgary a few weeks ago.  That's it.

33 minutes ago, pigseye said:

Time for another Winnipeg/Hamilton qb trade, Nichols for Masoli. 

Tillman would be fired

You all thought the O-line gave Nicholls enough time to win?

19 minutes ago, blue_gold_84 said:

Agreed. Not a snowball's chance in hell.

That salary for Nichols looks really ugly going into 2019. I think the organization has to do whatever it can to get him to restructure his deal and spread around the savings. He's not worth that kind of money.

restructure to drop 250K off the top, make it incentive based, then throw another 100K at Bighill, and maybe if Matthews only signed a 1 year deal, offer him 150K!   Dare to dream eh!

9 minutes ago, Al Bundy said:

You all thought the O-line gave Nicholls enough time to win?

They definitly gave him enough time to chuck the ball downfield...... heck I was even hoping he would keep it in bounds when he would throw just so we would have a chance at a Pi call in our favour.....

Nichols for Jennings? 

Nichols for anything......just make sure and have a real QB competition for the job in camp.  If OShea says anything this offseason about Nichols being the starter next season it will at the very least hurt ticket sales. 

7 minutes ago, pigseye said:

Nichols for Jennings? 

I wouldn’t mind that. Fresh opportunity for Jennings, and an opportunity to fight with Streveler for the starting job. 

What about Bennet ? Is he automatically the odd man out if somebody else is brought in ?

Jennings has been progressively getting worse year after year.  No thanks.

22 minutes ago, pigseye said:

Nichols for Jennings? 

I think he makes the same kind of money

57 minutes ago, Al Bundy said:

You all thought the O-line gave Nicholls enough time to win?

100% yes. They didn't dominate like they did in SSK. But they gave him time. There were multiple plays where I counted how many seconds he had before the pressure got to him, or before he rolled out. 4-5 seconds on each. I thought maybe the Oline wasn't performing...but they were. Nichols would look at his 1st read, panic and leave the pocket. I can only recall 1 play where he stepped up in the pocket when pressure was getting to him to deliver a pass. Otherwise he would throw it away or throw a bad pass into the ground. 

I have other issues with the way the Offence played, I don't put everything on Nichols...like why the **** have Nelson in the lineup and not design something specifically for him? He made plays in Edmonton, was returning the ball well enough. But 1 touch on a broken play all game long? And the constant runs up the middle when it wasn't working. But in the end, Nichols didn't do enough to get it done. I haven't put any blame on him in the past 3 play off games. This one, certainly there's no doubt he didn't do what he is paid to do. It's unfortunate, because I believe him when he says he loves this team/city, but I honestly believe it's time to start looking beyond Nichols.

Edited November 19, 20187 yr by Bigblue204

1 minute ago, Bigblue204 said:

deleted

 

Edited November 19, 20187 yr by Bigblue204

8 minutes ago, Bigblue204 said:

100% yes. They didn't dominate like they did in SSK. But they gave him time. There were multiple plays where I counted how many seconds he had before the pressure got to him, or before he rolled out. 4-5 seconds on each. I thought maybe the Oline wasn't performing...but they were. Nichols would look at his 1st read, panic and leave the pocket. I can only recall 1 play where he stepped up in the pocket when pressure was getting to him to deliver a pass. Otherwise he would throw it away or throw a bad pass into the ground. 
 

the more I think about what Nichols said in the post game press conference, the more it bugs me.... he thought he played "a pretty solid game".  The guy had 75 yards passing going into the 4th quarter.

I think he's delusional and gauges the success of his game on number of turnovers over putting points on the board.  Not throwing a pick for a game, he seems to consider a win, regardless of other stats.

4 minutes ago, trueBlue83 said:

.  Not throwing a pick for a game, he seems to consider a win, regardless of other stats.

As did many people defending Nichols play use this as a win..... 

If anything Nichols needs to learn to read the eyes of the defense and give receivers a chance to make a play against a DB that might be in position but is turned the wrong way.  The other complaint with Nichols is that once he starts running there is a very slim chance he's going to make a play.  That said....Ricky Ray wouldn't have ever been called any better in that regard.

36 minutes ago, BBlink said:

If anything Nichols needs to learn to read the eyes of the defense and give receivers a chance to make a play against a DB that might be in position but is turned the wrong way.  The other complaint with Nichols is that once he starts running there is a very slim chance he's going to make a play.  That said....Ricky Ray wouldn't have ever been called any better in that regard.

Realistically if Nichols is going to be a productive QB moving forward with limited mobility he needs to work on speeding up his reads, relying more on pre-snap and speeding up his release, preparing to beat a blitz/solid pass rush.

Lapo did not help this problem either.  We run the slowest developing plays.

32 minutes ago, BBlink said:

 The other complaint with Nichols is that once he starts running there is a very slim chance he's going to make a play.  That said....Ricky Ray wouldn't have ever been called any better in that regard.

Nichols running game is non-existent....He has next to no escape game in him...It's either throw quick (which is when he's effective but I think he forgot for this game) or try to leg it out to the sideline ( while doing that he was too slow and couldn't even square his shoulders downfield to get the ball off) or hit the deck and get crunched.. Pretty much sums up Mr. Nichols play yesterday....Not good enough

I think I heard yesterday this was Nichols ninth year in the league ?....... what's the average lifespan of a QB in the CFL ?  I think it's getting kinda late to finish training and teaching him what he needs to be doing out there. 

What I would love to have is Nichols taking a big pay cut,   give the keys to Streveler and give him half a season and see how he does with an offense that is based around him.   I'd way much rather have Nichols coming in as relief then having to depend on him to win. 

No way does Streveler get a free pass to being the starter next year. He has to earn it, but O'Shea being who he is, it is doubtful that Nichols will not be handed the starter's role.

I get that everyone is still angry (I'm physically ill thinking about it...) but Matt Nichols has earned the benefit of the doubt. What he's accomplished as a Bomber, and especially how he rebounded after the Banjo Bowl, he's more than earned the right to come into next year as the starter. I expect big things from him out of the gate next year. 

Nichols play doesn't concern me......Lapo's playcalling, however......

24 minutes ago, JuranBoldenRules said:

Realistically if Nichols is going to be a productive QB moving forward with limited mobility he needs to work on speeding up his reads, relying more on pre-snap and speeding up his release, preparing to beat a blitz/solid pass rush.

Lapo did not help this problem either.  We run the slowest developing plays.

Which is so ridiculous because we were running a tempo offense with a lot of success last year and we mostly abandoned that this year. With faster cadence came faster movement and faster reads. Even in that Calgary game there were a couple times where it looked like we upped the tempo and completed some passes and then we just stopped again... 

14 minutes ago, Noeller said:

I get that everyone is still angry (I'm physically ill thinking about it...) but Matt Nichols has earned the benefit of the doubt. What he's accomplished as a Bomber, and especially how he rebounded after the Banjo Bowl, he's more than earned the right to come into next year as the starter. I expect big things from him out of the gate next year. 

Nichols play doesn't concern me......Lapo's playcalling, however......

Look, I respect the fact that there are people that look at what Nichols did in years past and say that it is theoretically possible that he becomes that guy again down the line but we have to face the facts that it’s becoming less and less likely. Let’s also remember that he was fairly mediocre his entire career outside of the first 2/3 of 2017. I appreciate what he did to help this franchise when it became clear that Willy was finished but at this point, I think that relief ultimately has done more harm than good. 

I agree that Nichols has been better since the Banjo Bowl when he could have completely lost it and basically ended his career but let’s call it like it is, he played just marginally well enough to beat a QB-less Rider team and get thoroughly embarrassed offensively in Calgary. He absolutely played well enough down the stretch to allow the other phases of our team drag us to victory but there was a point earlier in the season where he not only wasn’t winning games, he was essentially singlehandedly losing games. 

I know O’Shea isn’t likely to make a change at this point (though his relatively quick hook of Willy still gives me hope) but keeping Nichols as the starter is the classic “safe” play. The bombers likely lose Bighill next year and the many of the Bombers’ other best players are a year deeper into their 30s (Harris, Dressler, Randle, Darvin will be 30). Is there any reason to believe that if the rest of the team isn’t quite as good as it was this year that we can even repeat 10-11 wins and a western final appearance? It’s not going to happen.