I was plesantly surprised to see Montreal beat B.C. at home.  It gives me some hope that if the Bombers 'd' continues to improve and if Marve even marginally improves his game the Bombers will be in decent shape once Willy returns.

Did B.C. play poorly or did Montreal play that well or was it a bit of both??

 

 

 

 

 

Bomber still have a legitimate shot at 3rd in the West... or even third in the east... I don't see Mtl or Ott doing much down the stretch... I can realistically see the bomber going 5-5... optimistically 6-4... down the stretch... 8 or 9 wins will definitely be good enough for the playoffs this year...

Yes. As another poster said, Mtl is in turmoil. Ottawa has the same problem as us, unproven coaching. If Ottawa has an edge on us I believe it is Henry Burris and his experience. We don't have a veteran leader like that, someone that can teach the players how to win. We have to rely on Mike O'Shea for that and thusfar the results have been sporadic at best. Marcel Bellefeuille could have been that guy but I don't think he is up to the challenge either. We sorely lack the coaching and/or veteran leadership required. I wish we had a Buono type here to serve as an adviser to O'Shea.

We also have a multiple time Grey Cup champion defensive coordinator with a couple decades of CFL experience.

 

True. It's ST that really baffles me. With O'Shea's experience as ST coach and him bringing in his pal, Pat Tracey, I can't understand why ST play has been so poor this year. Calgary will feast on our STs if that doesn't change fast.

 

Interesting scenario next year in Calgary with Dave Dickenson taking over as HC with the Stamps. Will he bring back his brother Craig as ST Coordinator & let Mark Killam go?  Killam is a pretty good young coach & has had a lot of success with the Stamps as ST Coordinator. He may be available. Or Dave just may decide to leave the present Stamps coaching staff in place. 

 

It doesn't look like O'Shea is willing to deep six his buddy Tracey or he would have done it already.

 

 

I think that remains to be seen, any major ST flubs that cost them games from this point onward will be duly noted and should be accounted for.  I can't see O'Shea added ST coach to his duties as he's maxed out but if Tracey doesn't at least attain consistent performance, replacement is possible.  Dyce in Sask. might be a possible contender.

Montreal special teams sure look well organized last night. 

I'm just gonna say this, watching other games and all, I've noticed that every team makes special teams mistakes, every one of them... all 9 teams in the league, games are so close for the most part this year that, lots of teams are losing those close games because of a mistake on special teams, missed FG, punt return TD, etc etc.. blocked punt, you get the idea...

 

I'm just curious, if the numbers are out there, and yeah i think special teams is a problem here, and yeah it is surprising because o'shea was a great special teams coach but... wonder how many mistakes we have made on teams comparable to other teams in the league, do we make more? the same? less even? Is the biggest issue on teams the fact that our mistakes happen at the worst possible times? Is it a coaching issue or is it players on the field just messing up? 

 

Le'ts look at the Grey Cup last year as a perfect example, was it coaching that caused Reed to make the illegal block on Banks return near the end? or was it just Reed being stupid? I'd guess it's the latter really. What can a coach do really if a guy makes a bad decision on special teams, rosters are limited as is, you can't sit a guy on special teams and make him watch from the bench really, can you? You just don't really have the well, you don't have the bodies really to be able to do that.  

True other teams make ST mistakes....but do they also make more big plays?

Let's face it, if our special teams made just a handful less mistakes so far this year, we'd have 5 wins, and nobody would even be talking about it.