TBURGESS

Man Franklin played great for a rookie in his first start. Who gets 300+ yards passing and a TD plus 50+ yards rushing and a TD in their first start? Really close game until the 4th. Two good teams taking their shots. I love that kind of football. Edmonton owned the time of possession, but scored FG's so Toronto could hang in there for a long time by scoring a couple of TD's. The Esks turned the game around when ran that punt back for a TD. Toronto pretty much gave up and got shellacked from that point forward.

That was real interesting. Thanks for the link.

Intersting stats on: http://www.stampeders.com/article/cgy-wpg-preview-150829 (Copy/Paste doesn't create a nice table so I'm just putting the link in)

It's just some competition and to have someone on hand in case Lirm goes down.

Great game for Montreal. Hamilton fell back down to earth. Nice to see them lose at home. Montreal rushed very well, owned the clock and made the most of their breaks. They certainly looked like a different team than they did under Higgins. I wonder if they can keep it up? They've officially got the cross over as I type, at least until we play on Saturday.

I guess we get to see if those who think Picard's no good are right or wrong. I expect that Goosen is a big step down at center. Neufeld at RT is interesting. Don't we have any IMP tackles who can do the job? Will we start 8 or 9 NI's? Gotta say this looks like the worst starting O line we've had all year. Good thing that Marve can run.

The Riders and the Bombers seasons hinge on how they play each other. Neither team's going to the cup. At least one is going to be out of the playoffs, likely both. Our big games are against each other, BC and Montreal. The Riders "GC" game will be the LDC. Biggest rivalry, at home. Ours will be the Banjo bowl. If the Riders win both, they're back in the hunt. If we win both, they're completely eliminated from the playoffs. I'm looking forward to both games as a measuring stick of where we really are in the league.

Yes, we've had a bad run of hiring coaches, no doubt.But you simply can't say - "hire the right coaches", there is no such magic concoction...unless it's a fairy tale book. We haven't just had a run of bad luck for 15+ years. We chose rookie coaches who we hoped would become good coaches. We fired coaches during the season when good coaches have jobs and replaced them with more rookie coaches. That's a systemic problem. My solution is to hire coaches who already know what they're doing, who have a history of winning and not to replace HC's during the season so you have your choice of the best coaches.

But the other 4 teams didn't win the Cup...so they failed..right?What about two years, not winning the cup? Firing offence? And, if you'll notice I did say wrong guy - Burke and LaPo - too soon fired. Those are the only two I mentioned. They are, at least, in the recent past. Nope, the other 4 teams didn't fail. They just didn't win it all. You argument that everyone who doesn't win the Grey Cup are the same is dumb even for you. I'm talking about not making the playoffs and losing more games than you win. Both are hallmarks of bad coaching, bad players or a combo of both. No, your talking about hiring inexperienced coaches, when in reality, all teams do it. And if you're talking about dumb things to say, how about what you said about the Bombers hiring the wrong coaches every couple of years? Show me the book where they list the good and bad coaches, because you seem to have the only copy. We've had almost no success hiring inexperienced coaches since '97. That's the point, not what other teams have done. What we've done. If we'd hired a few good rookie coaches, then I'd probably have a different opinion, but as I've pointed out over and over, we haven't hired the right rookie HC's. Hire the right coaches and they'll stick around longer assuming they want to and assuming you don't have a GM who wants to bring in his friend instead. Book of good and bad coaches? Yah, that doesn't exist although you could make a pretty good book of bad rookie coaches that the Bombers have hired.

Pretty good game. Burris was great. Stupid penalties ended up killing Ottawa. Lousy crowd, but it sounded OK considering how small it was. Toronto keeps coming back in the 4th. Can't count on that all the time. 3 Teams @ 6-2 and 3 @ 3-5.

But the other 4 teams didn't win the Cup...so they failed..right?What about two years, not winning the cup? Firing offence? And, if you'll notice I did say wrong guy - Burke and LaPo - too soon fired. Those are the only two I mentioned. They are, at least, in the recent past. Nope, the other 4 teams didn't fail. They just didn't win it all. You argument that everyone who doesn't win the Grey Cup are the same is dumb even for you. I'm talking about not making the playoffs and losing more games than you win. Both are hallmarks of bad coaching, bad players or a combo of both.

We get in this situation not because we fire guys every couple of years, but because we hire the wrong guys every couple of years. It's make the playoffs or look for another HC at the end of this year and making the playoffs isn't looking probable right now.What you're saying is that there are 8 teams every year who have hired the wrong guy.And how the hell do you know you're hiring the wrong guy? Oh, that's right, according to you, we have to hire an experienced Coach. Or a re-cycled coach. But if they're any good, wouldn't they be employed? And isn't every HC who is hired, new at some point? Yes, sometimes we hire the wrong guy...hello Mr. Burke. But we do fire way too soon also...hello Mr. LaPolice. Just when it looked like LaPo was beginning to figure it out, we had to fire him, because, you know, he was new, and we haven't won in so long....well, you know how it is. Hire and fire...that's what we do. Perfarful. No. I'm not saying that 8 teams every year hire the wrong guy. The 3 teams who don't make the playoffs probably have though. Every HC was new at some point, but we've only hired one newbie since 1997 that has a winning record and we fired him to bring in Mike Freak'n Kelly. That's probably the only time we fired an HC too soon though. A valid argument could be made that we fired Richie too soon back in '04. You wanted more of Burke or PLAP or Kelly or Daley or Hoffman or Reinbold? I guess you have a stronger stomach for losing than I do.

We get in this situation not because we fire guys every couple of years, but because we hire the wrong guys every couple of years. It's make the playoffs or look for another HC at the end of this year and making the playoffs isn't looking probable right now.

3-5 isn't a tiny bit better than 5-3.

Great game. Riders lose another by 3. Some good hitting. Some bad tackling. More shoulda, coulda woulda for Regina. They're close to winning, just like we were under PLAP. Who'da thunk that the Riders/Stamps game would be better than the Eskies/Hammy game?

Yep I'm really stumped on how it is perceived around here that we are in a better position here in bomber villa but it might change when we go to 3-6 unfortunately. man.. do you two ever get tired of being so depressed and pessimistic? id never wanna get outta bed lol. I'm not depressed at all and it's pretty hard to be optimistic since Willy went down. I'm actually pointing out the difference in attitudes between Montreal and Winnipeg. I prefer their attitude to ours.

Montreal goes 3-5, losing their starting QB in the first game, beats BC in their own stadium for the first time in 15 years and they think this isn't good enough we need to fire the HC to turn it around. Winnipeg goes 3-5, loses their starting QB in the 7th game and thinks that we're on the right track and we need to keep everyone for continuity. Winnipeg fans crow about how bad those BC and Montreal teams are, and take shots at the 0-7 Regina team.

I just want to see the best players playing. I couldn't care less if they are imports like Milt and Roberts or NI's like Walby and House. At the very least, the league should have reduced the number of required NI's by 1 when Ottawa came into the league. It would have meant the worst player on each team would be eliminated and replaced by a better player for less money. A win win situation if there ever was one. No it wouldn't mean that the best starting NI's would never get a chance. It would mean the worst NI's wouldn't get a job. Reducing the number of jobs held for inferior NI players wouldn't change the CFL very much, except maybe for better football.

What a boring game. I was hoping for a tight defensive struggle. Boy was I disappointed. Edmonton fumbled and threw Int's. 7 or was it 8 turnovers ain't going to get you a win no matter how well your defense plays and they didn't play that well either. I'd start Franklin from now on if I was Edmonton. Other than the INT that he threw off his back foot while getting hit and that botched snap that he tried to hand off way too high, he had a good game IMO. Hamilton absolutely owned Edmonton in Edmonton. Collaros looks like the league's MVP QB. Their attacking defence is relentless and their special teams are great. Short of some more big name injuries they look like they are destined to be GC champs... but it's still early and other teams could catch up.

Montreal's not out of the hunt for the last playoff spot. They're tied with us at 3-5. Riders aren't even out of the hunt if they manage to beat us a couple of times,

Hmm... beat BC in BC for the first time in 15 years and you get fired? WTF?

I think Montreal's defence has looked better without Bowman, so maybe he has reached his best before date.

Good for Montreal last night. They haven't won in BC in forever. They ran the ball down BC's throat and BC had no answer. Not pretty, but effective. Wpg/Mtl/BC all tied at 3-5. Ham/Tor/Cgy/Edm all tied at 5-2,

Simmons complained about playing time then traded a full paycheck for a PR paycheck and his agent's crowing about it.

I'll go with Greaves because Neufeld was an upgrade when he went in then got hurt yet again. Bucknor gets picked on and exposed on a regular basis. Sometimes he's up to the task and folks talk about how good he is. More often, he ends up chasing his man down the field. Hurl's gone from horrible to almost average. I'm hoping to see Simmons take his spot in a few weeks once he gets the defence down, but I expect O'Shea will stick with Hurl. Picard's not as bad as lots around here make him out to be. He's better than anyone we had last year and obviously better than Goosen or else he'd be starting.