Tracker

We need not only Nichols to step up but also someone on defence- preferably Bighill.

Head stuff works that way. You can be ok and have the rug yanked out from under you in any number of different ways and have a hard time regaining your mojo.

As are we all. The faithful need a reason to believe that they will not be let down after a promising start once again. Losing is not an option here.

This will be a challenge for Nichols and the receivers- Calgary have some very good DBs back there.

Losses to any team are inevitable, but against whom and how badly the team plays in the losses have to be critical criteria for assessing the coaching. Had the Bombers even split in Ontario and had played well, this game tonight would have had an entirely different flavour. O'Shea's expressions on the sidelines are entirely moot. How well the team plays is all that matters and for two games in a row, they have not played well. A loss tonight would be bad, but a replay of either of the two Ontario games would be a disaster.

While that amount of screwups sounds impressive as heck, not all of them led to gains for the opposition or scores. However, it bears noting that these were not against a premier team- they were against the worst team in the league who were laughable in their incompetence in previous games.

I do not think that the Bomber offensive performances are indicative of the talent on the team outside of the quarterbacking. Whether this is the result of Nichols or the coaching we do not know, but it wouldn't surprise me if LaPolice has had to "dumb down" the game playbook when Nichols is off to try to offset this and then whole offence suffers.

And so it begins....

And damned few players loved Wally Buono, Don Matthews, Don Shula, Scotty Bowman, etc etc. Coaching is not a popularity contest and if players can be coached to winning, they will overlook a lot of things. How often have you heard a coach get fired for good reasons and then have heard the players moan about how great the coach was?

Sad, but true. I do not think that the Stamps' DC is losing a lot of sleep over the Bombers' offensive prowess. Would be nice to prove him wrong.

You will never convince Rider fans of that. BTW: Ripper has gone AWOL.

Damn. And I picked the Riders to win, too. Oh well, a Rider loss combined with a win for Khari is never a bad thing and a decent consolation prize.

Bombers are in tough here. Calgary has gotten better with each game and the Bombers' collective confidence has to be shaky after the last two disastrous outings, and it would be fair to wonder if the team still has confidence in Nichols, not to mention the coaches. We are going to see if this edition of the Bombers is resilient.

You are assuming that this is binary choice: either O'Shea and status quo or back to the dark ages. There are probably several choices in between or even better than the current regime. Khari seems to have turned the Als' season around and the Riders are arguably little worse for Chris Jones' departure.

He was reported as having "a minor concussion" so likely a 50-50 decision.

As has been bandied about in this forum before, one of O'Shea's features is his rigid loyalty to "his" players and that is likely to get him fired along with his people that he has defended.

I would bet that most here in this forum who were watching that game knew that the Bombers were going to lose that game when the offence came onto the field with a minute or so in the game and just had to get a couple of first downs to salt the game away. When the offence failed and the Argos came out, it was a near-certainty that the defence was panicked and would put up no resistance.

Too many strings attached to be worth reading.

Apparently the Lenkovs are still very much in the running to buy the Alouettes.

I expect the Stamps with Arbuckle to drive right at the center of the line due to Bighill not playing as well as he has and the loss of Jeffcoat. Their passing game will test Fenner and the mobility our safety. Their defence will blitz and use d-line stunts to try to confuse the rookies on the Bomber O-line. If the Bombers cannot run, they will be in trouble, as the Bomber passing game has not scared anyone of late. The Stamps will absolutely try to take away Harris in the flats.

But but but I was really really impressed!!!

I would expect a fire sale of tickets in the last few days.

Sorry but the darned program posted the same reply multiple times.

Agreed that Nichols on one of his good days is very good, but I posit that Willy on his good days was also very good, and we know how that went. With Nichols, I think that if he was having an "on" day with the defence playing as well as if has on good days, yes, the Bombers could well win the Grey Cup . However, there are two problems with that scenario: you have to win three games in a row against the best teams and then all the stars have to align on Grey Cup Sunday. Those are pretty long odds and equivalent to quitting your job because you bought a lottery ticket.

And if you choose to go read my previous postings, you will find that when Nichols has done well, I have acknowledged that. All athletes, particularly quarterbacks, are responsible for their performances and I believe that there is now enough evidence in Nichols' play to infer that he may not be good enough to take the team to the Cup. I readily credit him for a very good 2017 and at that point, was a better pivot than now. But things change and something appears to have changed for the worse. Streveler may or may not be a better alternative but its time to find out if he can do more than plunge into the line.