TBURGESS

Again... not one single person said that... 7-11 or 8-10 is close to .500... 9-9 is exactly .500 ...10-8 or better is over .500... I think that's universally accepted terminology... So you're saying if the team goes 11-7 next year... gets 2nd in the west... maybe makes it to the west finals... that's not good enough for you? The post right before mine said 7-11 was the magic number this year, so yes at least one person said it and there are many more who would just be happy to make the playoffs not matter what after the last few years of futility. Close to .500 means close to .500. It doesn't mean under .500. If I meant under .500 that's what I would have typed. 11-7 would have got us 3rd in the west and 4th overall. Yup... that would have been good enough for me. It's certainly better than the 5 wins which made us the 8th best team. I doubt we win an additional 6 games next year or 120% better than this year, but sure... I'd be happy with it next year. gncXX... This isn't moving the goalposts and I'd be ecstatic if we went 18-0 next year and won the cup.

9-9 is .500. One or two games above 9-9 is close to .500. That's not making anything up. That's what folks around here think. Some would be happy with just making the playoffs at 7-11. The last 4 years have set the bar so low that simply making the playoffs would be considered good enough.

Guys who have jobs that they're not likely to leave for a lateral move. Why not just wish for Austin or Hufnagel while we've got our heads in the clouds? Guys who have jobs because other teams want them. That makes them more, not less desirable. It would cost more than picking from the coaches the other teams don't want but that money doesn't come out of the SMS so who cares and they're much more likely to be useful right off the bat. There's lots of reasons one or more might want to take our OC job: Might want to coach where it matters instead of Toronto where they get maybe 10K out to a game. Might want to get out from the shadow of their HC to prove that's not the reason they're good at what they do. Might want to get a direct shot at being an HC sooner than waiting behind their current HC's. They might be able to do that by mid-season next year. Might want more money than they are currently making. Might want to have the Assistant HC title for their resume and O'Shea said he's OK with that. Why not Austin or Hufnagel? Sure if we were replacing O'Shea and Walters, but unfortunately that's not happening. And then come to Winning instead where we fire coaches like it's going out of style? Not great for the resume because a lot of coaches have had their reputations damaged coaching in Winnipeg for a variety of reasons. Even things like token assistant HC titles and more money aren't enough to lure people out of good situations. Be a realist here, would love leave a good stable environment to come to Winnipeg? Is that really the best career move for any of those guys? Better off correctly identifying an up and comer and hiring him. Coaching contracts are paid out even when we fire them, so getting a 2 or 3 year contract means stability in an unstable career and I doubt anyone who has choices would take the job for less than a 2 year contract. Lots of coaches have failed in Winnipeg. That's why we fire them and that's what hurts their reputations. Being a realist, I gave you lots of reasons why good coaches would come to Winnipeg and we haven't correctly identified an up and comer in the last 25 or so years so what makes you think we will this time around?

6 other teams lost their starting QB for large parts of the season. Only 1 finished below us in the standings, so losing Willy's not the only problem.

So O'Shea's poor records of the last 2 years means he only needs close to .500 next year to get even more years as our HC? Way to keep bar low folks. I thought MO would need a playoff spot to keep his job this year. Turns out that the Bomber management thinks 5 wins was good enough so I have no idea how low they set the bar next year.

Guys who have jobs that they're not likely to leave for a lateral move. Why not just wish for Austin or Hufnagel while we've got our heads in the clouds? Guys who have jobs because other teams want them. That makes them more, not less desirable. It would cost more than picking from the coaches the other teams don't want but that money doesn't come out of the SMS so who cares and they're much more likely to be useful right off the bat. There's lots of reasons one or more might want to take our OC job: Might want to coach where it matters instead of Toronto where they get maybe 10K out to a game. Might want to get out from the shadow of their HC to prove that's not the reason they're good at what they do. Might want to get a direct shot at being an HC sooner than waiting behind their current HC's. They might be able to do that by mid-season next year. Might want more money than they are currently making. Might want to have the Assistant HC title for their resume and O'Shea said he's OK with that. Why not Austin or Hufnagel? Sure if we were replacing O'Shea and Walters, but unfortunately that's not happening.

Theres no such management 101 to cover what you're saying.Nobody hires personnel with the idea that they will fail. You might have a backup plan, but if you're thinking the personnel you hire might fail, you're setting yourself up to fail yourself, and really,,why in hell would you do that? That may be your management style, but it sure as hell isnt mine. Everyone you hire might fail and you should know that going in. If you assume everyone you hire won't fail, then you are setting yourself up for failure, not the other way around. Insulating yourself from failure goes a long way towards being seen as the right guy for the job. My management style is to define exactly what I expect, to expect a lot from my people and to give them personal responsibility for their own jobs. I don't expect either them or myself to be infallible.

I never suggested that Walters set up the scouting department to fail. I said he set up the scouting department in part to insulate himself in case they did fail. Mack didn't do that and took all the heat for the bad drafting and lack of depth. Walters has a scouting department to blame. It's not a conspiracy. It's management 101. I don't think that O'Shea kept MB and Tracey only so he had coordinators to fire this year, but it sure worked out well for him. If he had the foresight to fire them last year, he'd be a better HC but he'd probably be unemployed right now.

Tracey was hardly a young up and comer. He was one of O'Shea's coaches at Guelph.

I honestly don't think we can do any better than O'Shea as our STC. Maybe a good place to bring in a young guy to get experience while having O'Shea do the real work.

MB came to the end of his contract so it cost nothing to get rid of him. I don't know where the rest of the offensive coaches contracts stand, but I'd guess they are all either over this year or next. Any offensive coaches with a contract for next year will have a leg up on their replacements because the team won't have to pay twice for the same position coaches if we keep them. It is funny that losing Willy is an excuse to keep O'Shea but not an excuse to keep MB.

You can't be serious with this post. He kept 2 people on that he knew couldn't do the job, so that he could have them around to fire , to save his job? There is no list. At least one that were aware of, so you don't know if other team's coordinators are, or aren't, on this list/no list.You seriously think that he'd still be around now if he'd fired Tracey and MB last year and still had a similar record? The other alternative is that he actually thought those two coordinators were good at their jobs, which brings his ability to tell good from bad into question. The list I'm talking about is the names that the fans and media have been putting together. PLAP, Buck, Khari, Howell, etc... Better choices would be Brady, Condell, Cortez. Guys who have options who we'd have to pay more and who would want to move to get a shot at a HC job and/or to get out from the shadow of good HC's. I doubt O'Shea would want to pick one of them though because they would all be better choices for the HC job too. If it's one thing we've learned about OS'hea, it's that he will put what's good for the organization ahead of what's good for him. He didn't hire Etch to have a throwaway coach, he basically had to hire him because there was no one left.MB? yech. Retaining MB instead of firing both mediocre coordinators, the brain thrust acquiesced to the feeling to the safety of having someone you know as opposed to not looking for the next one. And for continuity. He was wrong. But to suggest he kept a bad coach as a buffer is ridiculous. And just how do you know MOS doesn't have your list in mind? When had O'Shea ever put the good of the organization ahead of his own opinion? When he kept Kuale or MB or Tracy or Bryant or Hurl? He hired Etch because he was a longtime friend same goes for Tracey. Keeping either of them after last year was a recipe for continued failure. Not only did O'Shea keep coaches around that he should have fired for the good of the organization, Walters set up a scouting group to take the heat for any failures to bring in better talent. It's management 101... Have someone to blame or you're going to take the heat yourself and probably get fired.

You can't be serious with this post. He kept 2 people on that he knew couldn't do the job, so that he could have them around to fire , to save his job? There is no list. At least one that were aware of, so you don't know if other team's coordinators are, or aren't, on this list/no list. You seriously think that he'd still be around now if he'd fired Tracey and MB last year and still had a similar record? The other alternative is that he actually thought those two coordinators were good at their jobs, which brings his ability to tell good from bad into question. The list I'm talking about is the names that the fans and media have been putting together. PLAP, Buck, Khari, Howell, etc... Better choices would be Brady, Condell, Cortez. Guys who have options who we'd have to pay more and who would want to move to get a shot at a HC job and/or to get out from the shadow of good HC's. I doubt O'Shea would want to pick one of them though because they would all be better choices for the HC job too.

O'Shea should have let MB and Tracey go at the end of last year. He kept them on, in a large part, to have someone else to fire to keep his job this year. If he'd pulled the trigger when he should have, he wouldn't have lasted this year as there wouldn't be anyone but him to blame. The list of possible OC's is so Winnipeg. Whose failing career can we try to salvage? Which of our old players can we give a job to? Which Winnipeggers or those with a Winnipeg family can we give the job to? Who can we promote from within to a job they've never done before? A better way to go about this would be to ask which teams are running the best offenses and can we hire their OC away from them? It would not only make us better but our competition worse.

Willy's a good QB, but elite's a top 3 guy and Willy's not there right now. Not sure I'd even put him ahead of Harris TBH. Time and injuries will tell if he ever makes it to elite status.

Is Wally Buono been an Offensive coach ? Is O'Shea been Wally Buono?

I hope the new OC isn't Buck because his very limited experience is under MB and we all know how horrible that offense has been. I don't expect that PLAP would take an OC job over his cushy gig at TSN. I suspect he's only leave for another HC shot. Wouldn't want him anyway as his offenses were vanilla and take what they give you instead of going after the defence and making them adjust to what we're doing. I don't think Khari's a good choice either. 1 year as an OC in 2011 under MB in Hamilton. He's been a QB or receivers coach since then. Hardly a guy that looks like he's ready to take the next step to OC.

It's all about where and how those minutes are logged. The offense comes out of the gate flat and leaves the defense on the field for 20 minutes of the first half, do you not think that has an impact on the rest of the game? Granted it's not always as simple as saying that the offense failed to sustain drives .. there were times where the defense simply couldn't get off the field .. but the defensive side of the ball was capable of making adjustments as the game went on .. and at least gave the team a chance. Sure the lack of offense is a contributing factor, but the defense came out flat a bunch of the time too and gave up tons of yards in the first half. The second half defensive adjustments in the last 3rd of the season were good. No doubt about it. Still doesn't turn a 7th or 8th ranked defense into a good one.

The oppositions time of possession was 31:58. Those 2 minutes aren't the difference between being good and being worn down.

The defence was better than the offence, but that doesn't make it good. We were 8th in Points allowed, TOP against and Net Offense against, which is horrible. We were 6th is points against which tells me that our bend don't break worked, but not really that well. I get that a lot of folks want to just blame the offense for our defenses problems, but we gave up tons of yards in first halfs and that's before they were tired. Quite frankly, our defence couldn't get the opposition off the field quickly enough most of the time.

Good to see MB has been canned and that it happened quickly. Too bad it doesn't go higher than MB though as he's nowhere near the only problem.

Our FA signings have been mostly hits with a few misses thrown in. I wish we could say the same thing about our scouted players or our draft picks.

Montreal fired their HC mid season and made other coaching changes. Not a big surprise that they've decided to stay with them for another year. Personally, I don't think much of Popp as a HC, but then again, he's better than what we've had for a bunch of years. I like the decisiveness of the move. No BS, just make the decision and stick with it. Meanwhile in Winnipeg, we haven't had the end of season post mortem from O'Shea or Walters, nor have we been told who is coming back next year. Would be nice to hear from the coordinators on what they think went wrong too, but I think that's too much to ask for with the 3 stooges in charge. One of the coaches might say something that wasn't pre scripted.

The key to making good decisions is to know whose opinion matters. MB's proven over and over that his doesn't.

You think the Bombers really want MB's notes on players? The exit interview will take an hour at most. What the Bombers will do, however is drag it out, then say they can't make any announcements because of the Grey Cup, then they'll talk about the season review then it's the Christmas season so it wouldn't be nice to fire him. I'm guessing sometime in January before we get the final decree.