Tracker

I am hoping for nude limbo competition with a flaming bar.

I am hoping for nude limbo competition with a flaming bar.

O'Shea came out today and said that the only way to beat Calgary was "the underneath stuff", so get ready for more of the same. A boring game may be the only hope for victory.

Don Jonas and Ken Ploen come to mind.

This has nothing to do with loving or hating O'Shea the person- it has to do with the way he manages the team and that includes his assessment of talent and even his not knowing what he can challenge, and usage of timeouts in the last game. I respect and like many clergy I have met but would want none of them as a coach. O'Shea was one of the greatest linebackers to ever play the game but his record is his record.

Don't say things like that when there are sharp objects within reach.

What makes a good quarterback worth his pay is his ability to anticipate and execute, adapting his throws to the receiver and defence. I believe Willy is sadly lacking.

You are correct in that statistics do not tell the whole story- for instance Willy is statistically the second-best QB int he league but I doubt that any team would trade Willy for their starter but we sure as heck would. As far as the defence is concerned, they have yet to be able to stop critical game-deciding drives by the opposition with any degree of consistency.

"Accurately, far enough and on time"

Walters had more than enough reason to can O'Shea by the end of last season and didn't. This season so far is as bad as last so we have little reason to believe there will be changes. O'Shea will have to beat a nun to death at center field during a game while eating kittens to get fired.

I championed the hiring of Walters but was very leery of his hire of O'Shea but willing to give O'Shea a shot. When O'Shea's management of the team the second season (including his defence of Bellefeuille) was no better than his first, he lost me. Right now I am about 50-50 on Walters and every game or loss (pretty much the same thing) where we see the same mismanagement , Walters drops in my confidence.

Ummmm.....we haven't had that working well for us when it has happened so far this season, but you were using sarcasm- right? Right?

On 1290 today, Rick Ralph cited statistics which place the Bomber defence in the middle of the CFL pack- not good but not bad either. That description seems to fit the current defensive cast but in order for the Bombers to compete with their gibbled offence, the defence has to be outstanding each and every game. That seems to be too much to ask of any defence.

BBF, does it not bother you that O'Shea was retained after two seasons of futility, plus his inability to assemble a scouting team to bring in standout players?

If Willy continues to blow cold and cold, we will be fortunate to be 6 &12.

Bomber history (and those of other teams) are rife with one-hit wonders who looked wonderful for one or two games and then faded out. Willy is very close to falling into that category.

Lulay-Jennings, Tate-Mitchell, Reilly-Franklin, Durant-Gale (probably), Burris- Harris, Ray, Glenn. Oops- that's 12 and that's bad math on my part, but it still puts Willy at #13. Brain cramp: I forgot Collaros and that bumps Willy down to #14 -in my opinion. The backups I have listed have shown more promise than Willy- again, in my opinion.

While we are on the subject of quarterbacks, a sobering thing is to look at the quarterbacks across the league in comparison to Willy. Darned few here would not trade Willy for the starters on any other team, and only three other teams(Toronto, Montreal, Hamilton) have backups who are worse than Willy, and Collaros is a maybe. That means that in a nine team league, Willy is the 15th best QB.

There has to be a happy medium. Yes, the best ooze confidence to the point where it looks like ego, but at some point it becomes the hallmark of a jack-hole.

Having a speed demon receiver is valuable only if you have a quarterback who can deliver the ball accurately, far enough and on time.

It would seem that Walters and O'Shea both suffer from the same maladies: inability to recognize talent and unwillingness to admit mistakes and make necessary changes.

Jones might be a good example of the cure being worse than the disease.

So now its come down to hosiery?

In hindsight, O'Shea's performance was a craps shoot as he had no head-coaching experience and the combination of a rookie GM plus a rookie head coach was a real long shot. We did that with Reinbold and the results were terrible.

Aaron Kelly had a fixed limit of catches (three, I think) that he could make in a season. Some were spectacular enough to make fans and coached drool but they were too few and too far between.