Bombers @ Birds: ESF GDT

[GCn20]

2 hours ago, Tracker said:

For those advocating that O'Shea ought to be given another year or two to fix what is wrong with the team: O'Shea had viable alternatives sitting on the bench all year and refused to use them except in the last game for a bit. He has had three consecutive years of declining performances and has made only token changes. IMO. he has clearly shown that he is incapable of change. If nothing changes, then nothing changes.

What viable alternatives. Thats BS. Top to bottom our roster got as far as it was going to. Just BS around here suggesting we were sitting on a winning roster. Knute Rockne or Bud Grant wouldn't have gotten this team anywhere. 

Now the mob will come for me saying I'm an MOS apologist. Nope..I think it's time we move on but I'm not going to say that based on some fictional narrative.

The players that came off the bench last week and excelled just got to town with the exception of Bailey.

6 minutes ago, bigg jay said:

I mean we did just overhaul  our scouting department less than a year ago (Danny Mac aside).  We hired 3 new guys (Deslauriers, Jauch &  Sunderland) in January to replace Goveia & Penn so I could see them being kept on. 

They shouldn't is my point. At least not all of them

Edited 16 hours ago by GCn20

[BomberBall.]

2 hours ago, 17to85 said:

So question.... they kept Bailey on, did he take any snaps during the game?

I was wondering this during the game.  I never saw him.

[wbbfan]

20 minutes ago, GCn20 said:

What viable alternatives. Thats BS. Top to bottom our roster got as far as it was going to. Just BS around here suggesting we were sitting on a winning roster. Knute Rockne or Bud Grant wouldn't have gotten this team anywhere. 

Now the mob will come for me saying I'm an MOS apologist. Nope..I think it's time we move on but I'm not going to say that based on some fictional narrative.

The players that came off the bench last week and excelled just got to town with the exception of Bailey.

They shouldn't is my point. At least not all of them

Do you think we win/contend if we made the following changes? 

We started 9 canadians, if we take thomas off the ar and lawson backs up adams/woods. Then you take lawson jr off for griffin. Kola (who had an absolutely brutal game not just blocking but snapping) off the ar vanterpool on at G eli at C. Nat imp wj, and dress either jenkins/jaworski for a pick em of imp lbers/dbs lets say ayers. 

With that line up the als aren’t getting gaps they can drive a truck through, or 5+ second pockets. We get solid consistent pressure instead, and when we got pressure on davis by play design we did much better on D. 

Imo, that line up doesn’t fall multiple majors behind in the first half. We win, and stand a very good chance vs hamilton. 

4 minutes ago, BomberBall. said:

I was wondering this during the game.  I never saw him.

yes 5 snaps maybe. I had him making 2 big stops at the line on runs, but they ended up as gang tackles and credit went elsewhere. I know jones cleaned up one tackle i think kyrie the other. They got the stats (this happens a lot especially on the road) 

[bigg jay]

45 minutes ago, GCn20 said:

They shouldn't is my point. At least not all of them

Ok which one should be let go, in your opinion?

I think it's a bit too early to judge their work.  It's not their fault that the cupboard was bare when they showed up.  We should have had more 2nd year guys ready to step up this season. 

We have guys like Jenkins and Jaworski that look promising for next year but other than maybe Person, I can't think of anyone from last season who was in that position this year.  That all falls on Danny Mac and the previous scouting staff.

[GCn20]

36 minutes ago, bigg jay said:

Ok which one should be let go, in your opinion?

I think it's a bit too early to judge their work.  It's not their fault that the cupboard was bare when they showed up.  We should have had more 2nd year guys ready to step up this season. 

We have guys like Jenkins and Jaworski that look promising for next year but other than maybe Person, I can't think of anyone from last season who was in that position this year.  That all falls on Danny Mac and the previous scouting staff.

Not disagreeing but talent was lacking this year too

1 hour ago, wbbfan said:

Do you think we win/contend if we made the following changes? 

We started 9 canadians, if we take thomas off the ar and lawson backs up adams/woods. Then you take lawson jr off for griffin. Kola (who had an absolutely brutal game not just blocking but snapping) off the ar vanterpool on at G eli at C. Nat imp wj, and dress either jenkins/jaworski for a pick em of imp lbers/dbs lets say ayers. 

With that line up the als aren’t getting gaps they can drive a truck through, or 5+ second pockets. We get solid consistent pressure instead, and when we got pressure on davis by play design we did much better on D. 

Imo, that line up doesn’t fall multiple majors behind in the first half. We win, and stand a very good chance vs hamilton. 

yes 5 snaps maybe. I had him making 2 big stops at the line on runs, but they ended up as gang tackles and credit went elsewhere. I know jones cleaned up one tackle i think kyrie the other. They got the stats (this happens a lot especially on the road) 

No. I don't think we were a serious contender no matter what we do with our roster. I thought that my opinion on this was pretty clear

[wbbfan]

12 minutes ago, GCn20 said:

Not disagreeing but talent was lacking this year too

No. I don't think we were a serious contender no matter what we do with our roster. I thought that my opinion on this was pretty clear

So you don’t think we would’ve beat montreal with those changes, or been in it vs hamilton? 

Idk how you can look at this game and say lawson, thomas, kola off for griffin, imp, imp/eli doesn’t cover the spread when we took the lead as is. 

Hard to believe that take, especially with the lack of pressure and kolas wild snaps alone. 

[Goalie]

Adams is on the PR. Tells you what they think of him. The talent wasn’t there. Just cuz some rookies showed up against a Montreal team who didn’t give a **** doesn’t mean a thing.  Person is sitting beside Adams on the PR btw. Aka they gonna be let go. They will be FA’s. Adams and person won’t be back here so no they don’t make a difference. Jake Thomas is the whipping boy but he never cost us games on his own, all these players people go on about, they don’t help us win but they ain’t why we losing. 
 

they can fire hogan anytime because the O was pathetic all year. 

Edited 4 hours ago by Goalie

[17to85]

1 hour ago, Goalie said:

Adams is on the PR. Tells you what they think of him.

Do you really feel like he's a worse player than Jake Thomas? Because we didn't need Thomas as a Canadian on the roster... this is the whole same argument! You just take it on faith that the coaches are making the best roster decisions they can which can be very easily shown to not always be the case. 

[JuranBoldenRules]

11 minutes ago, 17to85 said:

Do you really feel like he's a worse player than Jake Thomas? Because we didn't need Thomas as a Canadian on the roster... this is the whole same argument! You just take it on faith that the coaches are making the best roster decisions they can which can be very easily shown to not always be the case. 

I think Adams is an explosive athlete who has made little to no progress on knowing what the hell is job is on any given play in 2 seasons.  I don't think he's particularly useful.  But yeah they could use more useful DL.  I don't think they should have just sat on Person and Adams this year with Woods being up and down healthwise.  Get guys in until you get what you need.  It's hard with the way the NFL is now to get people up, but we certainly waste a lot of time on a lot of really poor American players.  Wheatfall another example.  Guy is producing a ridiculously low level for an American pushed into a 2-3 receiver role in a lot of games.

[17to85]

45 minutes ago, JuranBoldenRules said:

I think Adams is an explosive athlete who has made little to no progress on knowing what the hell is job is on any given play in 2 seasons.  I don't think he's particularly useful.  But yeah they could use more useful DL.  I don't think they should have just sat on Person and Adams this year with Woods being up and down healthwise.  Get guys in until you get what you need.  It's hard with the way the NFL is now to get people up, but we certainly waste a lot of time on a lot of really poor American players.  Wheatfall another example.  Guy is producing a ridiculously low level for an American pushed into a 2-3 receiver role in a lot of games.

I think what most people want to see is the attempt to get better at areas we know are a problem. Bring in bodies for Thomas until you find the right guy, try centres until you find a guy better than Kolankowski etc etc etc.

Instead we stand pat.

[Blue In BC]

13 hours ago, wbbfan said:

Do you think we win/contend if we made the following changes? 

We started 9 canadians, if we take thomas off the ar and lawson backs up adams/woods. Then you take lawson jr off for griffin. Kola (who had an absolutely brutal game not just blocking but snapping) off the ar vanterpool on at G eli at C. Nat imp wj, and dress either jenkins/jaworski for a pick em of imp lbers/dbs lets say ayers. 

With that line up the als aren’t getting gaps they can drive a truck through, or 5+ second pockets. We get solid consistent pressure instead, and when we got pressure on davis by play design we did much better on D. 

Imo, that line up doesn’t fall multiple majors behind in the first half. We win, and stand a very good chance vs hamilton. 

yes 5 snaps maybe. I had him making 2 big stops at the line on runs, but they ended up as gang tackles and credit went elsewhere. I know jones cleaned up one tackle i think kyrie the other. They got the stats (this happens a lot especially on the road) 

You can't just sit Thomas in order to add Adams without changing the ratio somewhere else. I would have preferred two import DT's rather than what we did. Whether we had better import talent is a question and what we did to find that during TC is another.

Regardless we've heard many thoughts about adding that 2nd import DT at the cost of Ayers for example and it was continually shot down by a few. Ayers is a good ST player but it's the trade off on the roster when choosing the DI's. 

The number of imports on the roster is a constant whether you start 7, 8 or 9 Canadians.

[bryan35]

2 hours ago, Goalie said:

Adams is on the PR. Tells you what they think of him. The talent wasn’t there. Just cuz some rookies showed up against a Montreal team who didn’t give a **** doesn’t mean a thing.  Person is sitting beside Adams on the PR btw. Aka they gonna be let go. They will be FA’s. Adams and person won’t be back here so no they don’t make a difference. Jake Thomas is the whipping boy but he never cost us games on his own, all these players people go on about, they don’t help us win but they ain’t why we losing. 
 

they can fire hogan anytime because the O was pathetic all year. 

If they don't help us win they are part of the reason we are losing. Shouldn't be on the roster if not helping the team to win.

[wbbfan]

2 hours ago, Goalie said:

Adams is on the PR. Tells you what they think of him. The talent wasn’t there. Just cuz some rookies showed up against a Montreal team who didn’t give a **** doesn’t mean a thing.  Person is sitting beside Adams on the PR btw. Aka they gonna be let go. They will be FA’s. Adams and person won’t be back here so no they don’t make a difference. Jake Thomas is the whipping boy but he never cost us games on his own, all these players people go on about, they don’t help us win but they ain’t why we losing. 
 

they can fire hogan anytime because the O was pathetic all year. 

Bailey was on the pr all year, same with cobb. Woods was before him, and so on. Doesn’t say any thing other than that we a suck at roster management. 

Talent, is the last issue in the world with adam lmao. 

Pr doesn’t exist any more btw, they both finished last year on the pr too. 

After the one game we brought person in and had great pressure rotating guys, we stopped using person more than 5-6 snaps a game and stopped having pressure. No one makes plays with out snaps.

We literally had no pressure all year except the couple of games where thomas’ snaps were heavily limited. Every game we lost on D, is heavily to due with jake thomas. 

25 minutes ago, 17to85 said:

I think what most people want to see is the attempt to get better at areas we know are a problem. Bring in bodies for Thomas until you find the right guy, try centres until you find a guy better than Kolankowski etc etc etc.

Instead we stand pat.

hes also had few and infrequent snaps. Instead of having him di and come in for 10 or a bit more snaps a game, where he can produce and learn, we starve him for reps and sit him 3/4 of the year. 

[White Out]

If you want to get angry again, watch the running play that put the Als to 39 points. This was the most pathetic, lethargic, embarrassing defense I can remember as Bomber fan going back to the bad old days. 

[HardCoreBlue]

6 minutes ago, 17to85 said:

I think what most people want to see is the attempt to get better at areas we know are a problem. Bring in bodies for Thomas until you find the right guy, try centres until you find a guy better than Kolankowski etc etc etc.

Instead we stand pat.

I think I would question was a player like JT trotted out each week being man handled every game because there was no better alternative, nothing in the pipeline, no body they could bring in to assess, JT's CDN and the least of our worries OR it was never considered replacing him because JT was going to play as he earned his stripes he goes out on his terms and we adjust the D scheme to compensate for this? If it's the latter, that's a different discussion to be had.

Imo some here gloss over this and underestimate it's impact on team dynamics and success. I'm obviously not suggesting our season failures land squarely on JT's shoulders not even close I hope he understands how appreciative we are in what he has done for this team and him bleeding Blue and Gold but when dissecting the season, performing it's autopsy, I think it's a little bit more complex we didn't have the upgrades available to replace our existing underperforming talent with little in season options available to us to adjust as needed.

[TBURGESS]

Problems, we got a lot, but Thomas and roster management is way down the list. 

Start with Collaros, thinking he's still got the arm he used to have, throwing into tight spots and getting picked off. Then Jefferson, who used to take over games, but can only shows flashes now. Then whoever made the decision to let Lawler go and rely on broken down Schoen.  Add in the guys who decided that our OC could learn the job on the fly instead of getting a real OC in and that everyone should get another chance instead of bringing in new talent. 

I worry that getting into the playoffs because we played a team that didn't need a win and won a game where we completed 3 freaking passes and Edmonton started the wrong QB at the beginning of the season, is going to tell those in charge that everything's OK so they bring back the old guys for one more kick at the cat.  

What we really need to do is to get rid of the expensive ex stars who aren't worth what we are paying them, work free agency with the cash we saved, and bring in a lot of new faces. 

[rebusrankin]

On Ayers, waste of a DI spot using it on a ST player. J. Smith is honestly as good or better.

 

[wbbfan]

Just now, rebusrankin said:

On Ayers, waste of a DI spot using it on a ST player. J. Smith is honestly as good or better.

 

I get using a DI on a killer teams guy. You can usually build a package on D with them in limited reps too. 

But, it’s very situational. When you use 1 di spot on a Kicker, and another on the kr, you just can’t use yet another on a cover guy. Especially not one who doesn’t play D at all. 

You also need to have a high level back up ni wr or db and probably 2 ni/global DL who can bring a lot of value in moderate snaps. 

Most teams are going two di’s on the dl already, and or a naturalized player. 

It’s even harder when your kr isn’t a back up wr or a viable db. If vaval could take that step it’d be huge. but I expect him to get an nfl look. 

[17to85]

45 minutes ago, TBURGESS said:

Problems, we got a lot, but Thomas and roster management is way down the list. 

Start with Collaros, thinking he's still got the arm he used to have, throwing into tight spots and getting picked off. Then Jefferson, who used to take over games, but can only shows flashes now. Then whoever made the decision to let Lawler go and rely on broken down Schoen.  Add in the guys who decided that our OC could learn the job on the fly instead of getting a real OC in and that everyone should get another chance instead of bringing in new talent. 

I worry that getting into the playoffs because we played a team that didn't need a win and won a game where we completed 3 freaking passes and Edmonton started the wrong QB at the beginning of the season, is going to tell those in charge that everything's OK so they bring back the old guys for one more kick at the cat.  

What we really need to do is to get rid of the expensive ex stars who aren't worth what we are paying them, work free agency with the cash we saved, and bring in a lot of new faces. 

But these problems are one and the same.... guys with tenure never get challenged or replaced. We build the roster assuming they can still play the bulk of the snaps... it's the same problem! You're in until you're too hurt to play and even then maybe you still get to play.

[Tracker]

15 hours ago, GCn20 said:

What viable alternatives. Thats BS. Top to bottom our roster got as far as it was going to. Just BS around here suggesting we were sitting on a winning roster. Knute Rockne or Bud Grant wouldn't have gotten this team anywhere. 

Now the mob will come for me saying I'm an MOS apologist. Nope..I think it's time we move on but I'm not going to say that based on some fictional narrative.

The players that came off the bench last week and excelled just got to town with the exception of Bailey.

They shouldn't is my point. At least not all of them

We had one a highly rated college center (Tui Eli) sitting on the bench while Kolankowski fell down a lot, we drafted a highly rated Canadian MLB and another (J.Jones) sit while T. Jones struggled on pass coverage a lot, and we had Echols and Cobb Sit while Mitchell and Corcoran wandered around, we had Jake Thomas waddle onto the field when the ratio allowed an import to replace him, and Cam Allen was sidelined too long. The D-line that we had second last game and was effective was gutted in the ESF. Maybe none of these changes would have saved the season, but O'Shea's stubbornness is more than evident.

[Doublezero]

7 minutes ago, 17to85 said:

But these problems are one and the same.... guys with tenure never get challenged or replaced. We build the roster assuming they can still play the bulk of the snaps... it's the same problem! You're in until you're too hurt to play and even then maybe you still get to play.

This is O'Shea's M.O. But it should not be surprising, given his own career. He refused to retire at the end of his useful football life and had to be released by the Argos. If it had been up to him, he would've kept playing believing he could still bring it.

[Super Duper Negatron]

“It speaks volumes for our organization in that we’re making sure all 21 Canadians on the dress roster, the guys on the practice roster, they’ve beaten out some very good football players. Just because you were here last year in that role… you’re going to be pushed this year. That’s a good feeling for our roster for sure.”

- Kyle Walters, 2017

 

Does that sound like how things have been run recently?

[wbbfan]

1 minute ago, Super Duper Negatron said:

“It speaks volumes for our organization in that we’re making sure all 21 Canadians on the dress roster, the guys on the practice roster, they’ve beaten out some very good football players. Just because you were here last year in that role… you’re going to be pushed this year. That’s a good feeling for our roster for sure.”

- Kyle Walters, 2017

 

Does that sound like how things have been run recently?

hell no 

[GCn20]

14 hours ago, wbbfan said:

So you don’t think we would’ve beat montreal with those changes, or been in it vs hamilton? 

Idk how you can look at this game and say lawson, thomas, kola off for griffin, imp, imp/eli doesn’t cover the spread when we took the lead as is. 

Hard to believe that take, especially with the lack of pressure and kolas wild snaps alone. 

Nope. I think we still lose.