TBURGESS

Nope, we say we just beat Montreal... I guess we're not the worst team in the league.

Check.

You're still not getting it. Because BC has a game in hand, they control their own destiny and we don't control ours. They need to win the extra game AND win as many games as we do. As long as they do that, no matter how many games are won, they get 4th place or better in the west. In short, us having the head to head series doesn't mean as much as them having the game in hand.

Check your facts. They have a game in hand. If they win it, they go ahead by 2 and the tie breaker doesn't matter.

We don't actually control our destiny. BC does. They have a game in hand. If they win the extra game and match our win total, they get the the last playoff spot unless Montreal or Toronto gets it.

No surprise that O'Shea is starting Nichols again, even tho he's already had several chances to work out his problems. Montreal provides the best chance for Nichols to get a win. When he does, O'Shea and a bunch of folks around here, can do the Itoldyasos. The real test comes the week afterwards when we play Edmonton.

At the beginning of the year most people thought that we had a great team on paper. Backup QB after double-doosh took the money and ran was the only weak spot personal wise. Turns out that backup QB is the least of our problems. I still think we have the players to win more games than we have. I don't think the coaches are getting the most out of the players we have.

Isn't Toronto the team we always dump our under performing QB's on?

No it won't. Win or lose, it doesn't tell us anything more than we won or lost.

If we lose to Montreal, trade Nichols to Toronto for Franklin straight up. If we're going to lose, we might as well do it with young QB's with an upside.

The games against the +.500 teams revealed who our team is. The game against Montreal won't reveal anything.

How much more? 1 year? 2? 3?

You're suggesting that we keep everyone except some scouts? You think that's enough to turn this around?

If Nichols can't pull out a win against Montreal, then he's no good to us anyway.

That doesn't surprise me. You're willing to overlook pretty much everything that O'Shea does wrong. Lets try this another way... Hall is done no matter what, so we need a new DC. GM's get to choose their HC's, so replacing Walters means replacing O'Shea unless you want to give him the GM/HC job which is ridiculous because he's a below average HC with zero GM experience. Replacing the GM equals blowing everything up, which I know you are against. Keep Walters and O'Shea means more of the same and the same means no playoff wins in 4 years and a team that is regressing badly at this point. That's a pretty hard sell.The only thing it has going for it is consistency, which is only a good thing if your team is playing well. Consistently mediocre isn't a good thing.

Edmonton's defense isn't much better than ours, but their offense is way better.

I don't care about salvaging Nichols season or career. I care about salvaging the Bombers season. The $400K has already been spent. It's now about is next year's $450K worth it considering how Nichols has been playing. If you want to give Streveler the best chance at success, you start him against Montreal, a team that he's already done well against. Boost his confidence and get him some more valuable game reps. If he's losing, then you can put Nichols back in to be the savior. He'd love that role and it would get the fans back on his side.

Using the same logic... O'Shea is in charge of the team. He hires the coordinators, makes the final player decisions like who the starting QB is, and the big in game decisions like going for 60+ yard FG's. It all goes back to O'Shea if the guys he hires can't do their jobs or his decisions aren't very good.

If O'Shea takes no blame for the offense, that's on PLAP and no blame for the defense, that's on Hall, Then it stands to reason that Walters takes no blame for bringing in players, that's on the scouts. I guess we keep all upper management in the off season for continuity and just get rid of PLAP, Hall and the scouts. That will fix everything

Sports isn't about a good environment or players liking you or about protecting your players. It's about winning games, playoffs and championships. O'Shea became our HC in 2014. He's below .500 in wins and hasn't even won a playoff game yet. Rick Campbell and Chris Jones also became HC's in 2014. Both have won Grey Cups. Jones took an equally bad Riders team to the one the O'Shea inherited to the playoffs and won a playoff game in his 2nd year. Jason Maas and Dave Dickenson became HC's in 2016. Both have winning records and have won playoff games. Campbell, Jones, Maas and Dickenson's teams are all ahead of us in the standings this year. Not making the playoffs, or not winning a playoff game should be a firing offence this year.

You're way high. We haven't been hot enough at the right time to win the Grey Cup for 28 years in a row.

What are the odds of us becoming hot at the right time?

You're saying that Peterman (127 Yards), Simonize (69 Yards) and Wolo (393 Yards, 26th in the league) are as good as imports? That's some pretty big BS right there.

Please stop using the inexperienced excuse. He's in his 5th year as a HC.

It's not about Harris. He's one of the best RB's in the league regardless of passport. It's about Peterman, Wolo, Simonize or ex-NFLers or ex-NCAA stars. An import over Demski may be an upgrade on offense, pretty certain an import returner would be an upgrade over Demski. It would be better if we had an import OT last game so we could put Neuf in a spot he can actually play well. It would be better if we had a couple of decent import receivers. It would be better if Bowman, an import, lived up to his billing. It would be better if our scouts did a better job bringing imports in. PLAP takes a ton of crap for using the short game so much, but he only has one (import) deep threat, a QB who isn't accurate on the deep throw, and a suspect OL. Harris, our best player on offense and great at making guys miss, gets the ball a ton. His catches are mostly going to be the short ball. PLAP is trying to put the players he has in the best spot to succeed. Give him better players and he likely changes some of what he does. (Queue 17's PLAP's gonna PLAP).