Captain Blue

Lirim has been arguably worse at punting than place kicking this year. They shouldn't have confidence he can do either spot right now. What?? He's been one of the best (if not THE BEST) directional punters in the league, bar none! I guess we'll just reach a stalemate then. Too often he's putting the ball down the middle of the field and making it easier on the return team.

Lirim has been arguably worse at punting than place kicking this year. They shouldn't have confidence he can do either spot right now.

His punting has been fine. Can't blame him for crappy coverage on returns. He has continually put punts right down the middle of the field when they should be going near sidelines.

He has a been consistently poor all year. Terrible punting frequently and his kicking just cost us another game. Its time to move on.

Maybe I'm in the minority here but I'm not too torn up about this. Our MLB spot is low on the list of problems this team has. Hurl has done well, and now with Wild they still have the ability to play in 34 fronts. It have been awesome to have him back, he's a great player for sure, but now we can spend that money elsewhere.

Doesn't make much sense as a conspiracy either, basically this was a nothing game. Bombers weren't going to make the playoffs and the Stamps weren't going to miss them either. To be absolutely clear before I post my following comment, I would like to state once again I don't think it was fixed. However, I do disagree with your comment. Betting can still be big on "nothing" games and things like who wins or by how much matters.

All I really want is some actually investigative reporting. This often just gets swept under the rug and then a short one liner goes into some "quick hits" type article later in the week about how the league apologized. Ask the league for a comment and follow up on it. Keep at it. Maybe dig a little. I don't particularly believe the fix was in, but I am not opposed to someone following up on it. Make the league sweat a bit.

Its a real close call. The only thing that changed from the time when they pointed at each other and the snap was Adams' left foot moving back, not remaining ahead.

Have to check the game video to see if they can see if the official signalled okay. Replays on Twitter have the official clearly signalling okay to Adams, however he does look to line up a bit behind. Still the ref said it was fine.

Yup, O'Shea just said Adams and the official pointed at each other to signal that he was lined up correctly. Don't know who threw the flag. Really does sound pretty fishy by the refs. Osh was adamant that Adams was lined up correctly both when he saw it in game and when he watched a replay, AND pointed out the flag was really late.

I'd consider Noel Thorpe and Tommy Condell. Would like a coach that really excels at the Xs and Os aspect of the game. Someone who has strong ideas for either the offense or defense and can elevate that side of the ball. With no experience offensively and only his time as a player counting on the defensive side of the ball, one of the reasons I was down on the O'Shea hiring at first is that he will be forced to delegate so much. I expected him to have an impact on the ST and that has been a consistent problem.

They hire Tillman and I'm really going to struggle to support that team. I don't think I can cheer for him

I've got to admit, maybe its apathy from such a bad season, but this doesn't really make me more excited about the roster. Defense isn't our main issue, and if we're going to keep playing 4-3 fronts then I would imagine Hurl stays there. Most likely Wild takes away snaps from Simmons. We seem to be doing a good job of fortifying a position that's low on the priority list, is basically what I'm saying.

I know people are terrified of MB getting promoted in the event of an Osh firing, but really, the best and most likely candidate is Hall. And I would actually like to see it.

I'm so good with this. His roster is terrible. Bring in someone that can find more than one American talent.

Happy to have Veltung over Willie. I think the talent difference between the two is significant.

I'm happy to be rid of Greaves. I don't know much about Capers, but I am hoping like crazy he can start. If you can put him and Longo into the lineup, its hard to think they can do worse than Neufeld and Greaves. Now if only we could get rid of Picard.

The first sign of adversity happened the second half of last season. I was willing to wait and give them a chance. A full year to scout and recruit and find better players. Heck, it isn't even the record that is the problem with this team. If they were at least competitive in games and still losing, I could see the progression to being a better team. I know this team had a lot to fix and a ways to go, but the problem is this team isn't getting better. They aren't even competitive anymore. And you can throw out the Willy excuse, but how many other teams lost their starting QBs this season. It is football, injuries happen. I'm really on the fence on Walter / O'Shea ... Part of me thinks they still deserve one more year, but I do know that right now there is absolutely zero fun sitting and watching these games in the stands. I'm tired of the mediocrity and I'm not the only one. Proof will be in the pudding with season ticket sales for next season. The team may be forced to make a change just to make their mortgage payment. Patience is only useful if there are signs pointing that a team or organization is headed in the right direction. You hit it on the head - its not that they are losing (though a Sask loss really is a let down) but how they are losing. I can't look at this team's direction and feel confident that it is going to change anytime soon. Jumping into the discussion overall: I support stability, its something this team needs badly, but there are two points here that need to be made when discussing patience: 1) Keeping a bad GM/head coach/player/fill-in-whatever for the sake of stability is insane. Retaining a coach doesn't make him better suddenly. The Lions continually employed Matt Millen, and that didn't lead to success. A bad fill-in-whatever doesn't suddenly become good because he's been given more opportunity to make mistakes. 2) The cause and effect relationship between stability and success isn't X causes Y. More likely, its success causes stability. Good coaches are going to stick around longer and their teams are going to be competitive. Is that team successful because they retained the coach or because the coach is actually good? Conversely, bad organizations (hello, Winnipeg) make bad hires, so their coaches get fired faster. The reason they are failing (or, most of the time) isn't because of impatience but because they were bad decisions or hires in the first place.

Absolutely. I wouldn't turn down guaranteed Grey Cup appearances and wins.

I think this is a step in the right direction but probably not enough to change our season. Overall the roster and coaches still have too many problems. However, it definitely is something that should help the team, so kudos to Osh for getting rid of Tracy. Lirim is having a huge negative impact on our ST unit and I think now with Tracy gone the blame will finally go to him.

Lirim's been consistently poor this season. Horrendous punting, bad XP kicks. Usually I'd agree and say that a lot of fans would be upset with an American, but at this point someone to at least split duties, and potentially overtake both, would be great.

The guy is a fkn troll because he was cut... Wonder what he would have said on twitter when we were all saying he was the weak link on the OL He becomes active with the fan base on social media and he's a troll? If you scroll down his tweets beyond today, he's been disgustingly optimistic about the Bombers and their chances in games. Very supportive of the team and his former team mates. But like the rest of us, today seemed to be a final straw. Its most likely how he's wording things. To me it comes off as trying to spark anger at the Bombers. 'You deserve better!' Perhaps that's not his intent, and Tweeting certainly doesn't do him any favours, but its all about wording. If he had said "I think O'Shea needs to hold players more accountable. He would show penalties on the screen to us, but that clearly isn't working right now" then I think it would be more reasonable criticism.

I think its both. The roster is bad. Really, really bad. I don't think a really good offense is even a possibility until we have a decent OL and QB. It will help to have Nichols there but its not like he's great either. Regardless, asking someone to build an offense with Brohm or Marve is equivalent to handing someone keys to a car with a dead battery. We're struggling to find Americans at positions that shouldn't be hard to find good ones - RB, WR, DL to some extent. Kudos to Walters for finding Bass and Adams, but we need more than just a couple of additions a year to turn this team around. For all the praise that Walters gets as some Canadian scouting guru, there are still problems. How bad is Goossen that he can't earn work over Dom Picard? Addison Richards is halfway to a redshirt season. Walters has had some good ideas and even perhaps a good overall plan, but its not coming together. I think AKAChip did a great job elaborating on Walters' problems last week. The roster is bad but the team is also being hampered by poor decisions, and that's on O'Shea. The only roster changes we seem to make are just due to injury. Hat tip to AKAChip for this line, but when was the last time a player lost his job for poor play? No one is being held accountable. He is loyal, but I fear that he thinks loyalty will somehow improve a player. That over time it'll just all come together. I'm all for patient, but making changes halfway through a season no longer counts as overreacting. Change your roster or expect the same result. Also, its never a good sign when the part of the team your coach is most experienced with (special teams) absolutely blows.

But look at the core of the cover team - Rempel (33), Pontbriand (32), Shell (33), Cronk (28) Our gunners are Shell and Morgan - how does this make sense... Jones, Sherman were our best guys last year - after Unamba, Sears, Randle, Wild... It was a garbage punt but Pontbriand and Cronk missed their gaps. morgan and jones are both very good but raw.. both have made a huge play in back to back games.. shell cronk and rempel are experience but shell is the only one worth his role imo. get wild here asap to dump rempel.. only good thing he has brought is snaps.. The real issue is why is our entire PR unit (except Shell) made up of Cdns... we have good, fast imports that can do this - Simmons, Bass, Randle... Personnel decisions are hurting this team I actually disagree with both of you. The "core of the cover team" really isn't guys like Cronk, Pontbriand, and Rempel. They're in there for blocking, or in Cronk's case snapping. I don't think the problem is Canadians either. Simmons played some special teams today anyways, and I think Randle did too. Why play Bass when he's such a good LB right now for us?

I'll take Richie Hall over both of them - and I know that Hall did a terrible job in Edmonton. Hmmm. Trying to think of his Edmonton tenure. I think Hall would be a great candidate for interim HC. He can still control the defense, and maybe he will start making changes on the roster finally.