Captain Blue

People might want to update their view on Hurl.

Why did O'Shea put them in that position? With a 20-14 lead the Bombers are stopped on offense deep in their own end. O'Shea sends LH out to punt from his own end zone. Lirim out-kicks the coverage and the Argos bring the punt all the way to the house. Score: 21-20 Argos. The game is over at this point as the momentum shifts in Toronto's favour and the Bombers never score another point. Why doesn't O'Shea have LH take a safety giving up two points. The argos then can: a. Scrimmage at their own 35-yard line, b. kickoff from their own 35-yard line or, c. Accept a kickoff from the 25-yard line of the team who conceded the safety touch. Either way, we preserve the lead at 20-16 and probably gain tremendous field position? Isn't this another coaching blunder of epic proportions by O'Shea that proves he doesn't know what he is doing out there? Am I wrong about the safety? With points so hard to come by prior to that TD, I am good with punting. In general actually I prefer to punt, I think giving up two and giving them the ball again is generally a poor idea based on such a strong fear of losing field position. The problem was the bad coverage and several missed tackles on that play. Really the game changing moment.

Couldn't challenge. No timeout Yup, burned it just before the three minute warning. Bad decision there.

It was read option, Marve should have given it to Marshall. That's not on MB. What is on MB is the call in the first place. I don't like the decision there. Time is precious, would rather have called a straight pass play. At the very least you hope for a flag. Our line was terrible and even worse with Daniels out. Trusting them was folly.

I feel bad for Marve. Talk radio has laughably high expectations. Dude's gonna have to throw for 300 and run for another 100 at this point.

Sitting Collins is a complete mistake. Horrible decision.

We need to use the read option a ton. Marve is still a limited passer. Simplify things down, force the defense to make choices.

Too often I think people confuse restraint with not being angry (or in this case, caring too much). You can be absolutely ticked off with things and just handle it differently than some would. He's called players out. He just doesn't scream and jump on the sideline. I have some concerns with him, but his sideline composure is really not one of them.

But he wasnt hurt. You ARE following the posts right? Miraculously, I am following. Though I find your condescension hilarious given that at the point of the picture, Rob Bagg actually didn't know whether he was seriously injured or not.

Making fun of injuries isn't cool, no matter the team or player. Don't think it was meant maliciously but could have chosen a more appropriate picture for sure.

Nothing I like better than to see a team grind out the clock with power running. There was some discussion on 1290 today regarding our running game, and the need to get Marshall and Cotton more touches. It's not good enough for our two running backs to have a combined total of 10 carries in a game. Got to be more than that. Eh, that might be where we disagree. I agree that we should run more than 10 times a game, but I wouldn't run a helluva lot more. I love our pass game, and I think running the offense through Willy and distributing to the receivers is the best option for this team. I don't think our OL is good enough to run consistently and expect to win a lot of games.

I think Cotton is the perfect lead back for this system. They're gonna use a time share anyways so really "starter" is not as important, but I like having Cotton used early on and then bringing in Marshall for some inside yards later in the game.

Smith looked awful. A windup and steps needed just to make a long or hard throw. Struggling with reads and pocket presence. Very poor accuracy. Maybe he winds up becoming a good player, but he wasn't yesterday. I think Bomber fans tend to like other teams' young QBs simply because they're not on our team. For some the grass is greener always on the other side. I'm not even a big Marve fan but I would take him over Smith right now.

I'm interested to see if Chapdelaine gets the nod as interim HC if Chamblin gets canned.

I think the discussion is maybe not less after a win, but just different. It's easier to talk about the positives and negatives of the game because there are less people here that are interested in yelling at the top of their lungs. Less rants about 25 year Cup droughts and firing all the coaches. I know after a loss I tend to comment less because there's less discussion and just more shouting.

It was his decision to throw the football. He should never have the green light to ever do so again until he can prove he can take his head out of his ass & know how many yards there are to go for a first down. And for cryin' out loud, just kick the damned ball deep. The days of directional punting are over with the new rules. Ya added that in with an edit.

Oh, and Lirim's job should be getting shakier by the day. No mishaps on FGs/PATs but several terrible, terrible punts. There's no consistency in his game and its hard to have confidence in either of his kicking roles. He may also want to know the down and distance before deciding on a fake.

Pretty fun game to watch. Drew Willy was absolutely outstanding tonight. Throwing bullets and running all over the place. Without him this car has no engine. Loved what Veltung brought to the game too. He's so smooth out there. Kudos to Adams for having a big game too. The man everyone loves to hate called a good game tonight. Thought Bellefeuille did a good job of going with what was working and attacking several weak links in the BC secondary. Earlier in the week I had mentioned that he was drawing Moore towards the QB near the snap, and today with Veltung in his place we started to see the added wrinkle of the toss to the WR and potential for quick routes off it. Ran a lot of motion with Veltung and read-option with the RB. Who wasn't terrified after that first BC drive? Defense did a good job of figuring it out right after that, holding them to 6 points, three of which came from a phantom contacting the kicker call. I'm still concerned overall about them but credit for shutting them down. Lulay does a great job on the short game and they limited the damage there. I've got a few concerns about our OL. They really struggle to run block consistently. Pass blocking I think they fare much better. Weak links remain on the inside. Dom Picard does a great job of standing around blocking no one. And if a DL does make contact with him early on, that's a battle he's going to lose consistently. BC sure does like to talk a lot. A win was so satisfying tonight.

MB is definitely a problem. His plays are lackluster and predictable. By the end of the half the other team has figured us out. Like others have pointed out, look what he did to Calvillo in Montreal. People can talk about his work with Calvillo all they want. It was worth considering his work with Calvillo when we hired him, obviously, by looking at his prior work and seeing his successes and failures. He's been here long enough that we can judge whether he is the right OC for us based on what he is showing as Bomber coach. I see an offense that's been able to attack downfield often yet still manage to maintain a high completion rate from their (starting) QB. I think almost every fan in the CFL feels their OC is too predictable. Its always easy to look back on it. Part of me feels that fans want some ridiculous trick plays consistently, but that's not part of the discussion here, just a tangent on my part. I think if you study the offense week in and week out you can see the wrinkles he keeps adding. The formations and movement prior to the snap for instance have shown a clear desire to show the current opponent one thing, and present further options in later weeks. Little things, like having Moore head towards the QB with the potential of taking a hand off. All this isn't to say MB is perfect. He deserves his share of the blame as the guy who's in charge of the offense. Still, MB gets little of the praise when the offense works and seemingly the most blame when the offense doesn't. Meanwhile, Willy struggled against blitzes early in the season, there are still several OL struggling to maintain blocks consistently, and Brian Brohm flat out can't hit an open receiver. Anytime Willy gets hit we're reminded that MB's offenses have had QBs take a lot of hits. This is a valid criticism if applied correctly, but often I think here it isn't. For example, Tyler got blown backwards and beaten immediately on the play Willy got hit on. Other times Willy has failed to identify the direction of the blitz, resulting in a hit. None of this is on MB. Now, there have been times when we've reduced the protection in favour of spreading out the offense, and in some of these cases I think the criticism of getting his QB hit is warranted. The thing I'm most hoping for is Willy to stay healthy, because I think he can be outstanding in this offense. And if he isn't, then at least we have more film to work off of when fans are evaluating both Willy and MB. Having Brohm play is complicating the evaluation and probably providing a more negative outlook on this offense, in my opinion.

Okay, I'm going to go out on a limb here and go against the crowd on this one. I don't think Bellefeuille is a particularly great OC, but I don't think he's the problem either right now. I think Willy has thrived in this system, and I think it actually does play to his strengths. Willy's also gotten better at reading and reacting to blitzes, which was a big problem early on. At this point I think any system would be downright awful with Brohm at QB. I don't think Marve is going to be the answer either, but we're at the point where its his turn to see if he can make something happen.

What really irks me about this theory is that it flies directly against logic. Imagine you're hired as CEO or GM or HC of a football team. You're gonna want to keep that job and you're gonna want to win some freaking football games. When you're looking to hire other positions, you will certainly consider people you know and/or share similar viewpoints on football. But you're not gonna hire someone just cause he's a buddy, and risk having that person bring the team down. You're going to do everything you can to find the right people. Now go back to the real situation here, except remember that the people that rise to success are often the most driven and most competitive people in the sport.

I love how as soon as there is some sort of link between staff and/or players, fans assume they're automatically best buddies and the only reason they got the job was due to that relationship. I'm sure there are times when that theory holds true at least a bit, but holy hell guys its a 9-team league and everyone knows everyone at this point.

Or...the most likely scenario is that your calculations are either wrong or missing something.

This place is just as bad as RiderFans after a loss.

My guess is they weren't thrilled with Marve's short yardage work. Marve makes sense for read-option plays, particularly in the red zone and on two point converts if we ever figure out that we should be doing those.