TBURGESS

I've got the Bombers in 2nd followed by BC and Edmonton, but it's pretty darn even among them. The next 2 weeks will be very interesting.

It's the GM's job to find talent, not DD's. No adversity?

Fun game to watch. Amazing how many big plays and yardage considering the weather. Hamilton had 9 lives. Turnovers cost Ottawa big time. The bad snap on the one was a pure giveaway. The forced fumble in OT, was a great takeaway.

Yup. I should have typed DD instead of BLM. Thanks for pointing it out. I fixed it in the original post.

I bring up the roster and injuries because folks were saying that Dickenson was handed a championship team and didn't have any adversity. He was handed a very good team with a bunch of big time holes to fill. Was saddled with some big injuries and still managed more wins than any other rookie HC ever in the CFL, tied for the 2nd most wins ever and even got more wins than Huffer got last year. Dickenson had a young MLB (Singleton) who was given enough playing time to push the vet MLB (Reed) out. Dickenson first started Singleton instead of Reed, then cut Reed. Sounds like a coach who doesn't stick with the vet too long. O-Line. Dickenson's O line has been in a consistent state of flux both as an OC and a HC. He still gets them to provide great protection and create holes for the RB's even when he's had to start DL on the OL. It's in least in part due to the way he designs and runs his offence, so yah, I think he'd have figured a way to make our O line look better. Doing things differently is exactly why I think that Dickenson would have done better. No one is suggesting that Dickenson stepped into as bad a situation as O'Shea did. They are suggesting that Dickenson wouldn't have done any better with the situation than O'Shea did. You call it trolling to suggest that Dickenson would have done better.

I'm not ignoring your premise. I don't agree with it. MOS made a ton of errors in his first 2 years. Better talent would have netted more wins, but I don't think he got the most out of the talent he had or that he made the right decisions on players, coordinators or in-game. His learning curve was huge and rocky. DD's has been smaller and smooth. No question that DD would have won less often with an inferior team, but that's not what we've been talking about. The theory being suggested is that he'd done as badly as O'Shea under the same circumstances. I've given a bunch of reasons why I don't buy it. As for Milanovich... yup he got stupid this year. Chose Ray. Chose Willy. Chose to cut his top 3 receivers mid-season. Likely going to be fired.

Because anyone can say they want two of the best available coordinators, even me, and that certainly doesn't make me HC material. Unless you can deliver them, it doesn't mean squat. O'Shea ultimately failed at bringing in good coordinators, not once, not twice, but all of them. His second go round was better but Hall was out of the CFL as a DC if we didn't hire him and PLAP was a year too late. Handed a good team, but he had to replace a ton of talent... Jeff Fuller, Jon Cornish, Eric Rogers, Keon Raymond, Juwan Simpson and Rich Stubler just to name a few. As outlined before he's had to make a bunch of in season changes and he's kept on winning. That's facing and beating adversity. Dickenson's got the most wins for a rookie HC. 1 more and he ties for 2nd place in most wins in a season with Buono, Matthews, Trestman and Hufnagel. Win out and he's got the best record ever in the CFL. That's phenomenal even if he wasn't a rookie HC. Dickenson didn't hire poor coordinators. O'Shea did. The Canadian depth wasn't any good and O'Shea still went with 8 starting NI's, which isn't any kind of solution. I don't know where your getting that I'm trying to say that anything DD has done this year proves that MOS was **** in his first year. Yes, O'Shea was bad in 2014, but that's on him, nothing to do with what DD is doing this year. I don't agree that Dickenson would be as bad as O'Shea was in 2014 under the same circumstances and I gave a bunch of examples of why. Having a great GM certainly helped Dickenson. Probably why it's bad to hire a rookie GM and a rookie HC (& CEO) at the same time. That's no excuse for O'Shea's mistakes. A better excuse is that his only previous coaching experience was 4 years as a STC where as Dickenson had 7 years of increasing responsibility (RBC, QBC, OC).

And, he couldn't deliver either of them.

If I'm getting this right, you're saying if something way worse than what happened to O'Shea in 2014 happened to Dickenson, then he would look just like O'Shea did in 2014. I guess the conjecture stuff isn't as easy as you thought it would be.

So you want the assumption to be that Dickenson would have made all the same decisions as O'Shea did. He'd have the exact same roster. He'd stick with vets who weren't playing well too long. He'd start 8 NI's even tho he didn't have 8 viable NI starters. He'd keep the O line the same. He'd not try 3 INT's, He'd hire horrible coordinators. He wouldn't realize they were bad until way after the common fan did. He'd make excuses for players. Yup... under the assumption that Dickenson wouldn't have made any different decisions he wouldn't make any difference, but that's not reasonable to assume.

To be fair everything hasn't gone Dickenson's way. From BlueInCGY on that other site:

So what? Milanovich is making the same error as O'Shea. Doesn't make either of the right.

Of course it's conjecture. What else could it be? The idea that Dickenson would have made any of the same roster decisions that O'Shea did is also conjecture as is the idea that he'd be saddled with Willy. Maybe Tate would have followed his OC to Winnipeg. I'm not suggesting that Dickenson could bring over Calgary's roster depth. I am suggesting that he'd make different decisions which could have given us better results. I'm also suggesting that he wouldn't have made anywhere near as many rookie mistakes, because he'd made very few of the this year.

Dickenson as our HC instead of O'Shea? As an OC and ex QB, I doubt he'd have chosen Willy and anointed him as the starter as the first presser. If he'd got Willy, I doubt he'd have kept him in games he was obviously not producing and getting beaten up. I doubt our O line would have looked as bad under Dickenson's offense. He's managed tons of O line changes in Calgary including using D lineman on the O line and the offense kept producing. We wouldn't have had to put up with 2 years of Bellefeuille, which would likely have resulted in more wins. I'm sure he wouldn't have chosen Etcheverry as the DC, which would have likely resulted in more wins.

We all want to believe that that last 10 weeks are where we will be going forward, but there are no guarantees. This could be the start of a bunch of years where we make the playoffs and compete for the Grey Cup or it could be a blip and we go back to mediocre or just plain bad. If O'Shea and Walters had 2 good years vs 1 bad, then sure extend them for 3 years, but it's the other way around. 4 or 5 years for people who haven't proven they can even repeat making the playoffs is a bigger risk than paying a QB big bucks before they proved they could do the job consistently because we have to pay out the GM and HC contracts no matter if they do good or bad they do.

I doubt it's the standard for a coach with 2 out of 3 losing years.

How does giving Willy a stupidly big contract he didn't deserve = getting a bunch for him in a trade?

How do you figure?

You also thought that Willy's big extension was a great idea.

Typical Bombers. Reminds me of the Willy situation. He showed some talent and the Bombers rewarded him with a huge long term contract. O'Shea finally shows something after 2 years of almost complete failure and they want to give him a 3 or 4 year deal. How bout they give him 2 years and we see if he even gets a 2nd winning season before we go all out with a long term contract? I don't like the idea of 5 years for Walters either. I'd rather see a 2 year extension. Tons can change in a couple of years and I'd rather we didn't have to pay Walters out if he doesn't maintain this years level.

The last 20 years show that it won't be always the WEST or always the EAST. One division would, however, give us a better chance of the 2 BEST teams in the GC.

I'm for single division. The best teams get the bye. The second best teams get a playoff spot. Neither of those are guaranteed under the current system. The Grey Cup has a higher probability of the 2 best teams in the league meeting when you don't guarantee that one is from the east and the other from the west.

I'd take Carter next year (No one should be taking him this year). Yah I know he's a head case and may be a bad team mate, but talent trumps everything else for me and he's one of the most talented receivers in the league. Folks around here would start loving him as soon as they hear Nichols to Carter for a TD over and over.

They have a point. Leggett's first INT was the easiest one he'll ever get. Thrown to a spot by a RB, after the receiver fell. The only Lion in the picture was getting up from the ground. That one's a giveaway more than a takeaway. The last fumble wasn't caused by the Bombers. It was picked up by the Bombers, but it was Lion on Lion action that caused the fumble. Not sure about the 3rd one... could have been the Heath INT on the bad throw by Jennings or the Fogg INT on a bad throw by Jennings (Doubt it's this one as the bad throw was caused by Bomber pressure).

As much as i hate the mic'd up games, you can't just refuse to wear them. Fine seems about right to me.