17to85

The fact that he's always an automatic allstar selection and always shows up in the MOL category for the bombers and the way the commentary always hypes him up the reputation suggests he's a top teir o-lineman. I don't think he is, I think he's a good journeyman player but hardly elite.

Well considering Edmonton fired their coach immediately after the season ended I don't buy any excuses from the Bombers.

You shouldn't need 3-5 weeks to decide to fire Tim Burke, there's a year and a half of evidence showing that he needs to be gone RFN.

He didn't do much beaking off, he mostly just told the truth, and the fact that the coach holds a grudge because of that is just more evidence that the coach has no place being a head coach.

The concerning thing about that interview is how Miller says they have lots of time... I'm not sure he does. There's 2 other teams looking for coaches and at least one other team looking for a qb (maybe another depending on what Hamilton is doing with Burris) Taking this long to decide makes it harder to get ahead in those regards especially when those other teams already have a GM in place. Little more urgency is needed from Miller here I think.

don't worry too much about Jones, there were a lot of questions about whether he actually wanted to play football anyway. Plus I'd think the team was justifiably gunshy about taking an offensive lineman from Weyburn.

I understand that they want to protect players, but honestly like in hockey the best way to protect the kids is to teach them to be aware of everything. If you know a hit might be coming you can prepare yourself for it.

Some of the things he's said and done as a head coach have been dumb so it's a fair comment to me.

or maybe Miller just wanted Walby to come to practises and slap some of the wussiness out of the current o-line.

It's not about what their background is, it's about whether they'd be a good head coaching candidate or not. I'm not saying don't hire an offensive guy, I'm saying don't hire an offensive guy just because he's an offensive guy, hire someone because they're the best option.

On another note, I am really tired of reading all these comments from people how they want to hire an offensive guy for head coach... I hate that attitude. Should hire the absolute best head coach (because it is different than being a good coordinator) and trust that as a head coach he will hire good people to run the various parts of the team. I mean for **** sakes we had a **** offense with Kelly being an offensive guy and with Lapo being an offensive guy. I want someone who is a head coach first and foremost not trying to be a head coach and an offensive coordinator.

DId Taman not hire Daley? I presume he'd argue that hire was all Lyle, and that Marshall in SK was all Granpa Miller. Interesting how Taman is so adept at deflecting blame. So Chamblin is all Taman. So far I am not overly impressed -- I see a lot of blown decisions and quite a bit of focusing on the minutiae. Not saying CC is like Burke or Daley but he's hardly the second coming of Mike Riley. It was widely speculated that at the time it was Bauer who wanted Daley.

Funny I think January is over rated league wide just by being the best of a bad bunch here. He's not as solid as his reputation suggests.

But here's the thing to consider, Lyle Bauer hired some brutal head coaches (kelly, Daley) Mack hired some terrible coaches (Lapo, Burke) but Taman has done OK hiring coaches (just thinking of recent bomber types) so really it all comes down to a GM being able to identify good head coaches or not and lately the GMs here just haven't picked the right people so I'm not concerned about a rookie head coach failing here because if the right GM gets hired they'll hire the right coaches.

probably 5 since Alex Hall was here most of the year too.

Goltz in a way represents Burkes #1 problem as a head coach (and maybe Crowton as well?) They don't want to work with players. **** up and you're banished to the dog house.

You mean guys like: Burke, PLAP, Kelly, Hawkins, Reed, Hall, Marshall, Cortez, Bellefeuille and Taffe? All guys who were unproven, said to have the right qualities and failed at least in their first season. Being said to have the right qualities and actually having them are entirely different things you know. Of course I understand that. The point is that we don't know if they have the right stuff until we give them a chance and if we are wrong, we are back to square one and we have to spin the rebuild wheel yet again. Another point is that all the successful newbie HC's have vet staffs all around them. We simply don't have the vet staff in place to support a newbie HC to give them the best chance to be successful. Thankfully it's not our jobs to know or not know. Hire a GM who can identify who has the right stuff and who doesn't. There's a reason that Burke was passed over for one head job and Marshall many for example, some guys you can tell when you look deeper whether they have it or not.

that's not the word I used.

You mean guys like: Burke, PLAP, Kelly, Hawkins, Reed, Hall, Marshall, Cortez, Bellefeuille and Taffe? All guys who were unproven, said to have the right qualities and failed at least in their first season. Being said to have the right qualities and actually having them are entirely different things you know.

And unless Tim Burke is a masterful liar when he says he doesn't know his status, why would MB know Burke was going to be fired before Burke knows. Well maybe Burke is just too dumb to see the writing on the wall and MB isn't? Burke is going to be fired I don't think there's any question of that it just comes down to a question of when.

Question though, would those other backups have developed and looked good with the coaching this team had? That's why it's an unfair comparison. Goltz did have some good moments and is quite effective in certain packages. Given all the other issues on the team I think it's very unfair to the kid to write him off as useless. His CFL career is likely done just because that's how it goes for young qbs but that doesn't make it a fair comparison.

proven or not is less concerning to me than whether or not they can actually do the job. Every great coach was unproven at one point, just hire someone with the right qualities.

DeMarco who has been so impressive that Buck Pierce has passed him on the depth chart?

I think Ottawa would rather have access to the NIs quite personally. I think there are enough options at qb that depending on who is available if they don't take a qb off someones roster they will trust in the ability to get a FA qb. Hell I think if Austin really is on the outs with Burris that he's the guy Ottawa will be targetting simply because he's a big name they can easily market. i get that having the sort of access to NIs that the league is giving the Redblacks is a once in a lifetime opportunity... but the only thing in our league more important than NI depth is having a top QB. so as Mike says... if Ottawa's powers-that-be have identified one QB as "their guy", then they must obtain him at the expense of all else. and I just think there's enough options they'd be happy with that they will opt to have their pick of what NIs are available rather than going for a qb.

Based on how his season went do you forsee a lot of NFL interest in the guy?Yeah, I see more NFL interest in Muamba than Matthews, quite frankly. Matthews when he did play looked like he had gone to the Kamau Peterson school for dropping passes into your midriff during the off-season. Matthews confirmed he had NFL interest last season and intends on pursuing the NFL next year. There is zero percent chance the Bombers protect Matthews. yes but last year he was coming off rookie of the year and a generally pretty damned good season, this offseason he's coming off an injury plagued year and a season in which he under performed. Things change in football, I'm not sure the interest will still be as strong. Not like there's a shortage of receivers in the states for NFL teams to pick from. Maybe he goes maybe not but right now I think it's far from a sure thing like everyone assumed it was before.