Tracker

I hope that Nichols can take off a couple of times per game without putting himself unnecessarily at risk so as to add another element of uncertainty to the opposing defence.

Edge to Edmonton due to Reilly vs Lulay.

When I watched that, I thought that would be the play that caved the Bomber defence in.

As bizarre as parts of this game were there were some promising takeaways: Andrew Harris is finally being used to his potential and is responding well, Lankford and Adams really stepped up and gave pretty good imitations of legitimate CFL receivers, Carmichael wasn't publicly embarrassed, Nichols got better as the game went on, the O-line did its usual sterling job, and the D-line made life miserable for Durant. Our linebackers still suck, though, and this has to get fixed. As good as Knox was last game, he was equally lost last night. A game for the ages, though.

Lankford has had a hard time finding steady work for good reasons. He has very good straight line speed- among the best in the league, but as stated above, he is careless with the ball and he has trouble reading his blocking, which makes him indecisive. We need better.

Kuale might have been the most wrongest player ever to have been signed by the Bombers.

This game looks like a toss-up. Bomber passing game is mediocre at best, but Alouette defensive backfield is suspect. Montreal's front seven is good, but our Oline ought to be up to the task. Alouette passing game is not great but our D-backs have been weak, so a toss-up. Maybe special teams will decide the game.

Your quarrel is with Bauming. I cannot fully disagree with him, and last year at this time was some evidence that O'Shea is slow to learn.

Maybe he would become head of player personnel?

Are you saying its a department of redundancy department?

And, if at first you don't succeed, skydiving is not for you.

There are exceptions as you have noted, but it is far more common for players to fawn over the departed coach. And BTW, Kelly was "a players' coach".

Almost every time on every sport, when a coach gets canned, the players flock to the microphone to say how much they loved playing for him. I suspect that, for the best players, a coach who gives them a chance to win every game is held in higher esteem than a "nice guy".

Durant is very good at the 10-15 yard passes which is what killed us against BC. With the liability of Hurl in the middle, I expect that plus Carmichael's area to be the main targets for Durant.

BB, I disagree with your premise that Durant is better than Nichols. That may well have been true if Durant was at the top of his career, but I would take Nichols tonight every time. Our overall talent is better but that means squat when the whistle blows to start the kickoff. It all comes down to execution and the truth is that we have a crappy defence, not on paper but in performance. Time for the team to prove it is a contender, and there is no reason for the Big Blue to lose this one.

yup.

To tell the truth, for at least 90% of players, its all about the money. The odd one, like Dressler may choose to be in a given place because its close to home, but those are few. Would a player sign for less because O'Shea is here? I doubt it. If they signed in expectation of playoff money, they were disappointed.

Go to the 1290 archives and you can hear it verbatim. The gist was that O'Shea doesn't admit when he/the team has made an obvious mistake and say something like, "We made a mistake. We'll learn from it and move on." It's just ignored, and that may be why we have had so many instances like the Drew Willy era where the coaching staff didn't seem to learn.

On the afternoon show on 1290, Darren Bauming had a couple of interesting tidbits from his chat with O'Shea. The first thing Bauming had of interest is that O'Shea never admits to making a mistake. The second thing is that they are going to start Carmichael against the Alouettes, because " they want to see what he's got". I could have sworn that he's already shown what he's got and it isn't good enough.

Disagree. It proves that nothing is foolproof to a sufficiently determined fool.

Another sad example of how talent and brains do not always come in the same package.

True, but once you get past Dressler and maybe Denmark, the pickings were pretty slim. Not too many all-stars.

Well, there is a 'Stones tribute band in England whose best number is "Hey, MacLeod, get offa my ewe".

It would be nice if the O-line started playing like all-stars. Haven't seen them blow too many D-men off the line of scrimmage so far. They've done a good job of protecting Nichols for the most part.

Could it be that the "Swaggerville" culture we had not that long ago has been starved to death by a succession of dreadful coaches and GMs when our beloved Bombers were more likely to be humiliated than win?