TBURGESS

Your worst grade is a C, which is average. If you were right, we'd have an average to above average team and we don't. You're a really really easy marker.

i'd like to see Goosen starting at guard for the rest of the season for two reasons: First, for experience. Second to allow for an additional Imp to start elsewhere. I don't want to see Bryant or Kuale or any other player that they are looking to replace in the off season get any more game time. It's time to give the backup guys a chance to prove they belong or that they shouldn't be invited back next year.

Best thing about this site is the practice updates. Thanks.

Mr. Dee you've changed my pick from Hammy to Argooooos. You better be right.

Bryant's faster. Kelly's got better hands. Neither scares the opposition. 6 of one and half a dozen of the other IMHO.

As opposed to non Grey Cup hosting years when we don't try to field a very good team? We try to field a very good team every year. We just don't succeed often enough.

It's not the number of players that matters. It's the number of players who can upgrade the current starter that matters. Booker and Hickman are only on the 44 due to injury. Neither are expected to be upgrades to our starters.

I'm not disregarding how bad we were. You're disregarding that any new group was likely to produce better results at least in the short term, because the comparison is one of the worst teams in Bomber history. Fill the staff with college coaches and we'd probably be better this year. That doesn't equal being on the right track. If you give up the stupid idea that comparing this years team to one of the worst teams we've ever had and start comparing this team to the other teams in the league, or even our average teams, you'd see where we actually stand. I've been hearing about this process that will turn us into a good team a couple or a few years down the line for over 20 years. Most of time it's just wishful thinking, but that doesn't stop fans form angrily arguing that it's obviously going to get better and we just have to believe in the current group is going to be way better than the last group.

Nope, I'm not suggesting blowing the whole thing up and starting over and for the umptenth time, I'm not saying we haven't made ANY progress. I'm saying we haven't made ENOUGH progress to say we're obviously heading in the right direction. Any half competent staff would make some progress when your comparison is one of the worst teams in Bomber history. I think Miller and Walters have done pretty good jobs. I like the idea of a larger scouting staff, but it hasn't provided many upgrades. Our best new players came from other scouting staffs. Maybe it will this offseason. I like the idea of additional coaches. O'Shea has the built in excuse of being a rookie HC who has to learn. I'm expecting him to get better next year as he will be higher on the learning curve. I don't see him as the next Buono or Huffer like a lot of folks do, but I'm more than willing to give him a 2nd year. Our OC and DC have lots of experience and they both are who we thought they were. Neither are guys I'd trust this this rebuild on. I'm not sold on our special teams coach either. They may have been the best we could attract last year, but doesn't make them good enough or the best coaches we can attract going forward.

and it's that stupid notion that is the reason you don't see the progress. I'm not over stating anything,you are simply choosing to believe that wins are the only thing that demonstrates progress and that is a ******* stupid mentality. It's not a stupid notion. W's are how teams are judged, unless there aren't enough W's for a positive spin, then folks like you are forced to look for something else point towards progress. It's not black and white either. I see some progress, just not enough to say we're moving in the right direction or that we're that much better than last year.

You're doing it again. Making up things that i neither said nor implied then arguing your side of your made up story. No one, including me, expected the team to become good in one season. Far from it. We didn't make enough of the right changes in the off season IMHO and we haven't made enough changes during the season. I didn't expect an instant fix and I'm not bitching that it isn't faster than can be reasonably expected. None of those things have anything to do with how much or how little better we are than last year anyway. If you haul your head outta your hiney you might be able to follow along. My perspective is... We're still not good enough. We're in a downward death spiral. That's not the right direction. We're doing nothing about it this year. We're hoping to get better in the off season from the draft, free agency, and scouting new players.... Just like every other team in the CFL. No you're basically disregarding the progress the team has made and insisting that wins and losses are the only thing that really matters. What I said is exactly what you are saying. You need to expand your focus and look at the big picture. I'm not disregarding the progress. I'm just not overstating it like you are. The big picture is we still aren't good enough and that we still have a long ways to go. W's are the only thing that matters.

They signed him to play QB? Really? I guess it's try and save this season at any cost time. Good luck with that.

You're doing it again. Making up things that i neither said nor implied then arguing your side of your made up story. No one, including me, expected the team to become good in one season. Far from it. We didn't make enough of the right changes in the off season IMHO and we haven't made enough changes during the season. I didn't expect an instant fix and I'm not bitching that it isn't faster than can be reasonably expected. None of those things have anything to do with how much or how little better we are than last year anyway. If you haul your head outta your hiney you might be able to follow along. My perspective is... We're still not good enough. We're in a downward death spiral. That's not the right direction. We're doing nothing about it this year. We're hoping to get better in the off season from the draft, free agency, and scouting new players.... Just like every other team in the CFL.

So I guess that Calgary lost to Montreal makes them a team on the decline. You guessed wrong. Losing 5 in a row and 7 out of our last 9 makes us a team in decline. Losing one game to an inferior team doesn't.

I get it. Folks who are looking for positives want to compare this years team to last years, because that's the only positive comparison they can find. Who cares if we are slightly better than last year? We're still not good enough to win enough games to make the freaking playoffs let alone be contenders. We're losing by less points? Oh boy! The important word in the sentence is still losing. It's easier to watch these games because we're close? I'll give you that one, but that's not enough to say we're headed in the right direction. IMO: We are better at QB, DB, kicker, returner and maybe slightly ahead at receiver when Moore's healthy but he hasn't been for most of the year. We are worse at D line, LB's and even starting 3 Imps on O our line. We still have a Canuck talent and depth problems. Our track record for finding new starting grade talent isn't good, even though we've beefed up our scouting. (Other CFL teams found our best new guys.) We aren't doing anything to get better this year. O'Shea said the new guys we are bringing in now are for next year.

If you're just trying to measure progress then all you can do is look at where they are starting from and gauge whether or not they are headed in the right direction. We should be comparing our team against the other teams in the league this year, not against last years historically horrible team. If we'd gone 1-5 in the first third and 5-1 in the second third, then I'd say we are heading in the right direction and I'd be pretty pumped about our chances of making the playoffs this year. That's not what's happened. We pulled out some late comebacks in the 1st third of the season and we've been heading in the wrong direction since then, culminating in a bad loss to the former worst team in the league. That's way more important than how we look compared to last years losers. Quite frankly, this team isn't much better than last years team. Willy's the biggest difference between 3 and 6 wins and neither record is good enough.

The team needs to be held to a higher standard than better than one of the worst teams in Bomber history.

Picard is 100% better than Sorenson and was a move that Mack should have made. Taman outplayed Mack to get both Picard and Labatte thereby fixing a poor O line and upgrading the Canadian talent all in a single season.

I'm just disappointed that Walters has decided to sit on his ass & not bring in players to challenge the starters we have or for injury replacements. It's business as usual & I find that so frustrating as a fan. Management won't do anything to make the team better. It's almost like Wade Miller has told Walters to quit spending on the football operations side for this year & they've written the season off. Not saying Miller has but it seems strange that everything is status quo & we are on a 5 game losing streak. I didn't say I wasn't frustrated. I doubt they've decided to stop spending on football ops. Walters and O'Shea believe, rightly or wrongly, in the players they've brought in. They aren't going to make any real changes until the offseason when they sit back and go over the whole team again. You and I and others disagree with it, but it is what it is.

Mack did the best he could in the situation? Nope. He should have known which way Labatte was leaning. Lots of folks around here 'knew' that Labatte was going to sign in Regina. Mack should have taken Picard before Regina did and at least upgraded our center spot when he lost out on Labatte.

I disagree. This is already a competitive team and when healthy maybe even a decent team. What we need more than anything is depth so that losing a player like Moore or Wild doesn't leave the team without adequate players in those positions. Sure there's some places that could use upgrades, but to suggest that this team isn't competitive already is just ludicrous. They have been competitive in almost every game they've played this season. If we add 4 or 5 difference makers we're one of the best teams in the league. Or is that what you mean by competitive? Being one of the best is the only way to be competitive? Cause that's equally ridiculous. If you consider being in most of the games competitive, I guess we're competitive, but I don't look at it that way. I call top half of the league competitive and I sincerely doubt we will be there at the end of the season. Winning more than you lose is competitive, losing more than you win isn't. Losing 8 out of 9 games isn't competitive. We were great in the first third of the season, competitive for the first half of the season, but we aren't anymore and we're still trending downward. 4 or 5 upgraded players won't get us to top spot in the league. It will put us in the top half, which is where we need to be to not only make the playoffs, but have a chance of winning it all.

Losing interest? Nah.... I'm a die hard fan.

Willy wasn't playing well. He threw 3 INT's and 2 others to Ottawa DB's who didn't catch them. He wasn't going through his progressions. He was locking in on one guy and throwing it to him. He was getting hit over and over and over. Often the best thing to do in this situation is bring him to the sidelines and let him watch to see what the other team is doing. Sending out to continually fail isn't in his or the Bombers best interests and those last 4 minutes of reps weren't worth anything towards making Willy a better QB. Add in the wear and tear on the injured shoulder and the risk of more injury to our starting QB and it was really stupid to leave Willy in. Almost nothing to gain and potentially lots to lose.

Folks love to point to a few specific plays in each game and say: 'If these plays / penalties / turnovers didn't happen, we would have won". The problem is this team isn't good enough to stop making mistakes or stop turning the ball over or take advantage of the calls that go our way. We are so close to failing each game that any bad call or big play that goes against us or pick causes us to lose the games. We're just not good enough to come back from these things that happen in every football game. I couldn't care less if any of our coordinators are back next year. MB's average to below average. Etch's defenses are routinely owned by the run and are figured out by mid-season. Our special teams coordinator has been horrible. Going forward with any of these guys if there are any better coaches available is the definition of doing the same thing and hoping for different results. I'm not certain that O'Shea is the right guy for the job either, but I'm willing to give him another year to see if he can turn this around. We're 4 or 5 difference making players away from being a competitive team. A couple of O lineman, a receiver, a MLB and a DE are on my wish list. We need a couple of them to be NI's too. We need to use Free Agency to get better. If anyone will give us a 2nd rounder for Watson, we need to make that deal. In short... 6 wins are better than 3, but neither are good enough, even in yet another rebuilding year.

We're done for this year. When you can't beat the worst team in the league, you become the worst team in the league for at least a week.