New Bombers coach O'Shea doing everything possible to control the message

 

So I decided to stop in and take a peek at Camp O’Shea, Monday, get the season’s first whiff of pigskin and sweaty O-linemen.

 

Upon first glance, nothing stood out about the methods of the new sheriff in Blue Bomberville, the usual training camp sights and sounds greeting me: large men grunting, coaches barking and the occasional whistle interrupting the festivities.

 

In the middle of it all stood the man charged with turning this leaky vessel around, holding a piece of paper and wearing a T-shirt and shorts, even as a chilly, wind-aided rain pelted the last half hour of the proceedings.

 

There would be no rain jacket or pants for Mike O’Shea or his coaching staff.

 

Muzzles, on the other hand, have already been deployed.

 

Ripping a page from ex-coach Mike Kelly’s book — the one copy that hasn’t been burned, I suppose — O’Shea has banned his assistant coaches from doing interviews.

Not just on Monday, not just this week, not just during training camp — but for the entire season.

 

If you eventually want answers from offensive co-ordinator Marcel Bellefeuille about why his air attack sucks like a shop-vac, sorry, you’re out of luck.

 

If down the road Gary Etcheverry’s confusing defence is confounding his own players more than the opposition, well, we won’t be able pick his brain about that, either.

 

New running backs coach Buck Pierce? Muzzled.

 

The always smiling Marcus Howell, the pride of St. James? Off limits.

 

Part-time magician and O-line guru Bob Wylie? He felt guilty even saying hello to one wag on Monday.

 

It’s a startling bit of control freakishness in the normally accessible world of three-down football. Rare, if not unheard of.

So, what gives, coach?

 

“It wasn’t hard to come up with that,” O’Shea explained to the dunces taking notes. “My decision was easily just to control the message, and make sure you’re only hearing one voice and only one opinion. That way there’s no confusion for the players.”

 

Control the message? Good lord, I’m having a flashback.

 

Wasn’t that one of Kelly’s mantras in that gong show of a 2009 season?

 

But not even The Professor went this far in his war with the inked-stained wretches of the press. He only wanted to mimic the NFL by limiting his co-ordinators to one day of access per week.

 

O’Shea doesn’t want his hired help to utter a peep from now until November.

 

“I’m trying to serve the players as best I can,” he continued. “If it comes from me, and only me, then they can come into my office and talk about that with me. They don’t have to worry about talking to their position coach and then the co-ordinator and then myself about three different interviews that were done after a practice or a game. It’s important.”

 

Ah, I’m starting to see where the seed for this petty notion was planted.

 

If that bit about players answering to mixed messages from their coaches sounds familiar, it’s because it is: it happened here during last season’s train wreck.

 

Head coach Tim Burke one week deferred the decision about who to start at quarterback to co-ordinator Gary Crowton, leading to Justin Goltz feeling “betrayed” and Pierce throwing up his hands wondering who was calling the shots.

 

“Watching from afar for the last bunch of years... it was an easy decision, I’ll put it that way,” is all O’Shea would say.

Curiously, no other CFL head coach has found it necessary to make that easy decision.

 

Former Montreal boss Marc Trestman implemented a ban to deflect from the hiring of controversial assistant Jeff Reinebold early in the 2012 season, but it was short-lived.

 

Kent Austin runs an airtight ship in Hamilton, but doesn’t have a problem with his assistants opening their mouths in front of a microphone.

If you hire assistants with the same philosophy, what’s the issue?

 

A strong leader, and by all accounts O’Shea is one, should have no trouble with this concept.

 

It’s not like Bellefeuille and Etcheverry are prone to flapping their gums wildly in the breeze. Both have been head coaches. They know the drill.

 

Muzzles are fine for pit bulls.

 

They don’t look so good on people.

paul.friesen@sunmedia.ca

Twitter: @friesensunmedia

 

http://www.winnipegsun.com/2014/06/02/new-bombers-coach-oshea-doing-everything-possible-to-control-the-message

Lawless writes/says some questionable things from time to time but he would never be dumb enough to bad mouth Bob Irving on the radio... Irving is a legend arond these parts and Lawless respects that

this is the most accurate post here so far....

 

 

 

 

 

Apparently, Friesen did the "FULL FRIESEN" on Mike O. and it resulted in a typical bomber reaction. A veritable lockdown.

How did that work out for Maggot Kelly?

No problem with Wpg Media. Jimbozo Bell has already told O'Shea that Bob Irving is his official media caddy and all info goes thru CJOB BOB.....

Most of the other radio outlets just wanna have fun and send reps to the game (a la Ace Burpee, Philly, Bunkhouse Buk (Wheeler), etc.

The FP is the official newspaper of the Bombers and have money invested in the team . . . they don't wanna rock the boat too much so guys like Tait, Campbell, etc. serve the purpose of unofficial house organs (as opposed to the official one, Bob Irving)

Lawless is the wild card at WFP as he's got the columnist license and also has the 2 hour daily radio gig at TSN. He can get a ton of digs in at the Bombers, and if they flail like last year I'm sure he'll GO NEGATIVE!

TV stations in town all have significant investment/interest in bomber games. CTV is part of Bell/TSN so they simply do smile 'n giggle reports. CBC hardly does sports, but Mitch Peacock goes to all press conferences and usually gets as many questions in as Lawless or Sara O.

CKND has Shoeless Joe - they don't do much other than hi-lites and a bit of grief.

The Wpg boards are usually more favourable to the bombers than unfavourable, especially their own JeffBannon.com site.

So in essence Friesen is the only one with Billy the Kid status, Lawless lurking about for interesting angles (so far his top one is Jeff Rabb being rebuffed by the Bomber board)

CJOB - the bomber radio rights-holder is usually 90% favourable to the team (understood) and the only time Irving gets mean or nasty is during play by play when things go to heck in a hand-basket. After the losses he's usually found trying to talk people down off the ledge.

Did anyone get lost 2-3 sentences into this? It was like trying to read a tolkien novel for the first time..

 

 

Well a lot of effort had to go into the nicknames.  I mean, turning "Jim" to "Jimbozo"?  Brilliant!

 

Maggot Kelly was a bit underwhelming though.

 

Kelly Savalas never caught on!  btw - Maggot was Kelly Savalas' character on the great mid 60s movie THE DIRTY DOZEN. You wouldn't want to know what Maggot was all about but I'm sure you can look it up!!! 

 

You mean TELLY Savalas?

 

 

Even Nate has to laugh at this... Too funny!

What is the message anyways? Just in case I want to control mine.