17to85

when Bellefeiulle talked about having to teach Denmark how to waggle that was a huge red flag but who knows.

There are two things that make all the difference in the CFL, Coaching and quarterbacking. And do you think that it's a coincidence that Hufnagel had 3 qbs he could throw onto the field? Good coaches get the most out of their teams. If Tim Burke had been coaching Calgary or Saskatchewan they'd have been shitty teams this year too.

special teams is probably the one area you're better off hiring a Canadian anyway just since the kicking game has so many different quirks.

good coaches make good players great and bad players good. Bad coaches make good players bad and get themselves fired.

Getzlaf, Muamba, Laurent, Cornish, Harris But he's quite possibly 6. really you have Getzlaf that high? Hmm what am I missing?

I'd make that trade in a heart beat. O'Shea should be able to get someone who can put good special teams on the field get me a proven OL coach who can actually develop some players for us.

When they threw him the ball Etienne seemed to make some things happen, but he didn't see the ball much. Was he not getting open? Did they ignore him in the game plan? Did the qb just never have time to go through reads to find him? All things that we really don't know. I do know that I much prefer receivers who catch the ball when it's thrown to them as opposed to guys who might get open a lot but drop a lot as well.

I think on the call in show Kelly went too far by insulting people directly like he did, but man if he had stuck to just attacking their stupid comments man that woulda been something I was immediately a fan of.

Calgary needs to get off their asses and build a new stadium ASAP cause Mcmahon is really showing it's age. It may not be the worst one in the league at this point but it's not good either. You live in Calgary like I do. I don't get a sense that any new stadium is on the horizon. Do you? I went to school with Nenshi at U of C and I would bet good money that the day he was at the Stamps game this year for the flood ceremony was the first time he had ever set foot in McMahon. He wouldn't know a football from a bucket of KFC. A new stadium has to be championed from the highest levels of civic government, and what with all the dough that had to be blown on the Saddledome this year I doubt McMahon is going to be a priority for a long time to come. That's true, with Edmonton building a new arena Calgary is going to want a new arena before anything else because they have to keep up in the long cock competition between the cities.

No it's not about showing he's in control, it's about calling the media ******* out on their bullshit.

Maybe. But there is a pretty wide disparity between what coaches have to deal with from the media here versus any other place in the CFL. Winnipeg is the only place where the media really "grills" the coaches and GM... in Toronto, BC, etc, nobody cares enough and in Regina the media eats right out of the Riders' hands regardless of how poor they are doing. Even in 2011 when the Riders were 5-13, it was tough to hear a negative word spoken about the Riders in that province. Nope, the amount of media bullshit that coaches have to deal with is highest in Winnipeg and its really not even close. Im pretty sure the fans are more sensitive to this than the coaches. The only coach we've had who couldn't effectively handle the media was Mike Kelly and he would've had a hard time in any city. What do you mean??? This interview with the Media was the best ever: From http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/sports/football/bombers/blogs/bomber_insiders/The-Mike-Kelly-tirade-50896892.html It was the one thing Kelly did very very well. Flat out tells the media he's not talking about it... they keep asking about it he keeps telling em no ask a new question. Just crazy to me how the media in this city will have their one narrative and if they can't get that out of the people in charge they can't do anything else so they better make this out to be a coach not knowing how to handle the media... That's the biggest reason they all piled on Joe Mack too, Mack was less vocal and out going about his disdain for the media but he treated em a little like that too and they hate when they get cut out like that.

those stats for the flu are useless without comparing them to the normal yearly average. How about some info about those people who died, I'll guarantee they were already sickly people, you know the old or something, people with shaky immune systems to start with. Call me when the flu starts taking down healthy young people, then I'll worry.

No it's not and that's the problem. Need to at least be talking about it because it's going to take a long time to get from the talking about it to actually opening it stage and that place isn't getting any newer in the mean time.

Calgary needs to get off their asses and build a new stadium ASAP cause Mcmahon is really showing it's age. It may not be the worst one in the league at this point but it's not good either.

well there's only so much we can say about that and it was all covered in the first part of the thread, because it's the offseason and new material is scarce the conversation here has simply evolved, it happens, my advice would be to deal with it.

maybe that's why he said he'd only go to Calgary, wanted to go to university there.

I don't like the way a lot of things happened in 2012 to be honest. I think firing Lapolice when they did was a knee jerk panic move and he should have got the rest of the year because they did compete better with him than without him for the most part. It was a typical Bomber thing to do. Think you're in a real good spot and first sign of trouble fire someone and start blowing things up and replacing them with someone worse. I don't for a second think that the roster was the biggest reason for this team falling like it did. It may not have been the best roster out there, but I don't think it was as bad as it was made to appear either.

I'd put that as Problem #1B. His biggest problem was a completely delusional approach to roster management (QB and free agency in particular). Huffer & Trestman wouldn't have made the playoffs with that sad sack line-up. Well, maybe they'd have coached them into the semis, but theres no way in hell they'd post a winning record. Yet Lapolice coached them to a grey cup game... Not buying that the roster was THAT far gone that a good coach couldn't have squeezed something out of it because we saw Lapo get something out of those guys, even if not for a long time and I don't think Lapo was all that great of a coach.

People get so focussed on drafts thinking that it's all set in stone because of rankings. Well Winnipeg fans should take a step back and realize that drafting is not an exact science. The Jets are a good example, they've gone off the board to varying degrees with all their top picks so far and I don't know anyone that's really unhappy with the end results of that so far, and NHL prospects are scouted in advance a hell of a lot more than CFL prospects. Walters seems to prefer a lot of the more "safe" picks based on what we know while Mack liked the most athletic guys a lot. Ultimately with the way Mack brought in players you need a real good coaching staff because they need some fine tuning in a lot of cases and he never put that staff in place.

Depends 1/2 on MOS and his ability to lead this team forward; and 1/2 on Walters' ability to find us a starting QB. My bet is we bring in either Collaros or Willy, and that they struggle somewhat behind a lesser OL than they had previously. Good leadership will coach everyone up somewhat though, and that impact will come at various stages throughout the year. I'm less worried about co-ordinators as most of this board. Schemes are important, but good leadership can help players rise up to overcome deficiencies. Winnipeg hasn't had a good leader at the helm of this football team since arguably Dave Ritchie. It'll be real interesting to watch it unfold, because I believe MOS's leadership will be a big story in 2014. Unless MOS is a Kelly-era tyrant (which I don't believe he is), this team will be on the upswing. but I don't see a coordinator solely as an Xs and Os job, there has to be some leadership coming from that position as well so that's why who they hire is pretty key too, Need some coaches who can get the most out of players and make them better players. Mack was very much a potential guy, loved him some athletes that maybe needed some coaching to become players and then failed to get coaches who could do that. O'Shea hires some good teachers for this team things will be on the right track.

are we still going to try and pass this off as fact? Come on, listen to what he said, it was a flat out admission that they failed to replace that kind of leadership! The really stupid part is that the following offseason they failed to address that aspect again and even got worse givng Burke the gig. Macks #1 problem was he didn't know how to hire a coach.

Is this actually true? What are we basing this on? That Henoc will only play on a team that has Cauchy on it? I'm not sure that's cast in stone. Word is that Walters didn't want Muamba #1 overall Mack did and Mack won out.

I think we know that Mike Edem would be wearing Blue and Gold right now if it were up to Walters, and that probably would have meant Cauchy would have spent most of the season on ST, if he had started at all. Mike Edem would be a Bomber. Henoc Muamba wouldn't. Walters isn't invincible. I like him but he's not bulletproof with his drafting approach either. Nobody is. Right now people are just still riding the anti-Mack hate train so therefore Walters is the greatest thing ever and Mack the devil himself. We'll see just how good Walters does in the next couple seasons.

Hey you're putting in the effort to defend an indefensible position, you can try and back track and say it's not bitterness over the guy thumbing his nose at the Bombers but it's not flying with anyone cause we all know your reactions better than that.

A draft is always about improving your club in the future. If you are relying on the draft to make you better right now you're setting yourself up for disappointment. Case in point: Henoc Muamba. Yeah he was on the roster in his rookie year but it wasn't until closer to the end of his second year that he really developed into a starter.