TrueBlue4ever

Remember when Justin Beiber played the halftime show and was booed mercilessly in stadium? That performance was the high point of the TV ratings that day, with 6.1 million eyeballs (the game itself drew 5.5 million). When Keith Urban played Calgary in 2019, the female audience at home (including all the wives at my Grey Cup party) suddenly started watching more in earnest (and they hung around for the cringe interview). As JCon noted, the show is meant to draw new eyeballs and boost ratings, which in turn means more advertising dollars.

Yeah the cable is a bit annoying. Hear you on that.

Lower deck or upper? Mine are upper deck and I love them, but now the field view is obstructed.

With the addition of the new Ring of Honour and Grey Cup Championship signage, the signs are not flush with the concrete rim but are about a foot higher. I have front row seats and instead of seeing the bench from my seat, I now can barely see the field numbers unless I lean forward. The bench and sideline hashmarks are out of my line of sight. My wife can only see half the field if she sits properly in her seat. The engineers did not think this one through when they put up the framing beams. Expect a bunch of complainant calls to the Bomber office after the game. Every fan I spoke to in the upper deck area around me is not happy. Fix should be easy enough. Lower the signage to be flush with the concrete rim, or raise every seat in the upper deck 5 inches, like they did at Canada Life Centre when the new loge seating blocked the view.

It would be a refreshing change if that was the case. I think sadly Mike has a point that winning trumps all in sports and bad behaviour gets glossed over with winning. I mean, Michael Vick killed dogs and went to jail, and even he got chances with three more teams, made the pro bowl, and was awarded NFL Comeback Player of the Year. What should be required at a minimum for Kelly to return would be a very transparent showing of the steps he took to rehabilitate and an honest and public measure of contrition for what has happened. Given that he is still involved in a civil suit where he proclaims his innocence, I don’t see that happening. If the CFL follows most other pro leagues their approach will more likely be “Come back quietly and we hope the story drifts away over time with no oxygen to feed it in the media and fan bases.” Maybe they will find an out in saying “he has not satisfactorily done with is required by him” and they extend the indefinite suspension so long as the civil suit is ongoing, the league moves on all year without him, and he has no job opportunity next year and fades away to the USFL or whatever secondary US league exists now.

I think Booch’s idea is a neat twist, maybe with a 20-30 minute run time instead of 60. If we could eliminate game delays like commercial breaks that would keep the length more reasonable, but the TV and radio folks would never sign off on that, the league isn’t going to run those game at a financial loss. Not sure what the answer is, but some nice outside the box thinking here to create a more useful pre-season.

Those games would take forever to play, wouldn’t they? Isn’t the average NFL game actually only 11 minutes of live game clock action for a 3.5 hour telecast? I’m with WBBfan, more pre-season games, not longer games. 3 minimum with a neutral site game, or 4 (having said that I remember how by the 4th pre-season game back in the 1980’s people were ready to see the real stuff, and the last game was essentially all starters anyway). But I agree that there aren’t enough reps for the new guys who come in looking to take a job, so any change is worth looking into.

Your post yesterday seemed to say that though. Now maybe your words don’t mean what your words mean, and this opinion is misunderstood. But I just wanted to quote your post directly and not be seen as twisting anything or misrepresenting you.

OK, but that’s what I am asking. Who? Pigrome is the only notable name that jumps to mind. And he wasn’t going to beat out Collaros or Brown, and he failed at his chance to be the short yardage WB and was replaced by the veteran incumbent Prukop who did a much better job at the sneaks. And then when he went to Ottawa he did nothing special there. I’m trying to recall a cut who went somewhere else and made an impact and was an obvious mistake in being cut. We hold on to vets for sure, but do we really know that better options have been ignored? Only proof would be if they got scooped and outperformed elsewhere. Otherwise maybe the lack of better newer recruits who should bump the old guard falls on the scouts who aren’t finding better talent.

I imagine if a team today said “we are calling ourselves the Penguins or the Maple Leafs” there would be a ton of scorn online, yet we don’t really hear how goofy it is. Don Cheery pointed this out when the Ducks branded themselves. A name is just a name at the end of the day.

So in the last 5 years, which newbie player cut in training camp by the Bombers has gone elsewhere and become an impact player?

Thank you. This is an argument I can accept. I have never said O’Shea is infallible, so making that assumption about my post is inaccurate and unfair. But I have found more than a bit of the criticism of him to lack perspective and be so inflammatory as to border on the absurd. His roster has been called garbage, putrid, a joke, and other over the top things. And it has been even stated that O’Shea should be shown the door by the club if he can’t smarten up and be better. And when you suggest that he has given away our competitive advantage, a quick check of the team’s results shows just how competitive we have in fact been, as to underlie the lack of perspective on the big picture, that he and the players have put themselves in position to win 4 straight Grey Cups because of the strength of the roster some claim is so flawed. Just as you say he did not set the team up in the best way to succeed, I could say that some players did not perform like they should have in spite of the coaching, critical mental and physical errors cost us as much as if not more than coaching or roster strategy did, and just plain luck played a big hand in determining the outcome. Neither of us is 100% right or wrong with our assessment. Where the “bad roster” argument gets out of hand for me is where it is suggested it is all part of an O’Shea agenda to deliberately undermine the team (and his own job) with a weaker roster (which is only based on opinions by certain posters who claim without hard evidence that player X who we haven’t seen play is clearly better than player B who has been on the roster) in an effort to get on a soapbox and proclaim, what exactly? And that he needs to be called out and explain himself to justify his decisions, and the media are cowards with no balls for not doing so. Well forgive me for saying I don’t think he really needs to say too much to defend himself on this issue, since his job is to win games and field the most competitive team he can, whether someone likes the way in which he does it or not. And by that measure alone he is about as unassailable as any coach we have ever had here, on par with Grant and maybe ahead of Murphy in terms of winning and success. I would love a good measured debate on it, but just like some deal in absolutes, some deal on hyperbole and unrealistic expectations. People say we are good but not good enough, I would say that we are much better than merely “good”, that those people think that anything short of absolute perfection is mediocre, and wrongly feel he deserves to be called to the carpet for not achieving an essentially impossible standard. Just the way I see it.

“Coach O’Shea, you turned around a club that had missed the playoffs in 5 of the previous 6 years and was an all-time worst 3-15 before your arrival. You’ve had 7 straight 10+win seasons in a row, an all-time club record, and 7 straight playoff appearances, and you’ve been coach of the year more than any other coach since you started 9 years ago. In that time your roster has featured 15 CFL award winners and 43 CFL all-stars, which is tops in the league. No team has won more in the last 7 years, and other than the Stanps, no team has won more since you started your head coaching gig. You coached the team to back-to-back Grey Cup victories. You’re the 4 time defending Western Division champions, something this league hasn’t seen in over 40 years. No other team has more playoff wins, Grey Cup appearances or Championships during your tenure. You are on track this season to become the all-time winningest coach in the club’s 93 year history. It’s obvious that you are failing at putting out the most optimum roster to smugly satisfy a personal Canada-first agenda that is failing us competitively. Explain yourself! Asking on behalf of fans who know better”

Is he also selling gold running shoes, bibles, and self portrait trading cards as payment for his private e-mail access? I’ve heard rumours.

@SpeedFlex27 , your insomnia has come back to bite you. Was nice knowing you.

Mike says thank you. At least I think he would. Your efforts are appreciated.

Did you ever think that maybe it’s you?

Montreal says hold my beer.

Thank you for playing “if I had one wish, I’d wish for a million wishes”.

Ok then, looking forward instead of looking back. Here’s and either/or hypothetical for people: If you had to choose between these two options, would you rather - 1. Have a guaranteed Grey Cup win this year but no guarantees for even making the playoffs next year, or 2. Missing the playoffs this season but getting a guaranteed berth in the Grey Cup game next season at Princess Auto Stadium?

The last time I would have seen it was in the 1980’s when you had to roster 11 starting Canadians including special teams IIRC. The standard make-up was 5 Canadians on the o-line, starting fullback, two slot backs, and on defence the safety and the nose tackle, for 10 there, plus the kicker/punter (one doing dual work, or both being Canadian). And the Bombers once had an extra Canadian start with House/Poplawski at slot, the 5 OL (Walby, Bonk, Bastaja, Moors, Nemeth, and later Bauer, Black, Molle and Rodehuskers), Kehoe, Huklack or Hudson at fullback, Bennett, Flagel, or Allen at safety and Mikawod at nose tackle. Add Cameron/Kennerd and we had 12. The extra starter was Darryl Sampson at halfback, as his mom was Jamaican I believe so he actually qualified as a Canadian starter, so we could roster 13 Canadian starters.

And I agree there. We can count up a half dozen plays in that game, and any one of them flips the other way, and we very well see a much happier outcome. So many games can come down to those half dozen plays as a strong factor in switching the outcome. The agony and ecstasy of sport.

I can agree with that belief too, although maybe it would have made no difference even if we got more push. Maybe it would have made all the difference in the world (and a compelling argument can be made). Whether the lack of push was coaching schemes, bad rotation implementation due to bad roster decisions leaving no usable back-ups, or just plain we got outplayed by the opposition that day, who can say with certainty? Maybe a different roster deployment would have made the difference, maybe not. It’s opinion, not fact. And maybe all the what ifs on plays I suggested would have made no difference (i.e.Brady doesn’t fumble in the red zone but we still get nothing because something else like a gassed field goal happens, no one knows for sure). I just see what actually happened in plays and can say “that tangibly cost us something” as opposed to “not dressing that guy was clearly the wrong decision” as the more accurate explanation for why we lost that day. Again, just my opinion.

If Brady doesn’t fumble in the red zone….. If Holm doesn’t miss the assignment forcing Bighill into a “second too late” back-up coverage over the middle on that Montreal TD…… If Collaros makes the proper check down read to Demski on the goal line instead of underthrowing Lawler by 6 inches for a crushing end zone pick….. If Willie J doesn’t overrun contain on Fajardo on 2nd and 19 and make a sack instead of a 15 yard scramble to set up a manageable 3rd and 4 on the last drive…… If that 3rd down deep pass gets knocked away…. If that game winning TD pass is 6 inches lower and hits the turf or 6 inches higher and gets knocked away….. If……. That’s why I will disagree with the “roster management” narrative peddled by some around here by and large. Our roster that has been put together has been good enough to go to 4 straight Grey Cups, something no team has done in over 40 years. In the end it wasn’t the player A over player B dressing in the 42nd, 43rd or 44th place on the roster costing us the game, it was mistakes by the stars who are no-brainers to be on the roster and who carried the team all year who just did not get it done on that day. Sports…….

I would take Gerard Gallant over him. Berube is being talked about as the next head coach of the Leafs. Murat Ates of The Athletic gave a breakdown of possible candidates here (hope there are no firewall issues with the link): https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/5475821/2024/05/07/winnipeg-jets-nhl-coach-bowness/