Fatty Liver

If Madu wasn't actually injured than that's pretty poor planning not to have any backup RB on the game day roster. At least the Bombers have Volny if Grigsby gets hurt..

Man is Brandon Banks ever tiny.

Madu is on the Injured list, not sure how serious it is.

Hamilton DB just intercepted a pass and than threw the ball into the stands. Why no penalty?

Looks like Hamilton might be in the market for a RB next week unless Madu is back for the next game. Gables probably gone for the season.

I can think of I don't think we'll "pass" on him. We're limited in what we can offer. BC can get a better deal from other teams. It's the downside of having no assets - it makes it tough to acquire assets. I can think of 3 assets right off the top. JFG, Sherman and Bucknor. I'd hate to see any of them playing on another team but if you're going to play poker you need to have real chips.

You driven around The 'Peg lately? Roads are bad all over the country. A lot of it is simply to do with weather. Go to North Dakota or Minnesota, where they get the same weather, and see how nice their roads are compared to ours. Must be a Canadian thing then. When looking for answers to humanity's great questions, always start with money. As in having a tenth of the population means our budget for capital works projects is a tenth of theirs. Less really, as we prioritize the tax dollars differently, with health care getting a massive chunk of the pie. Although their budget for miscellaneous wars is much higher than ours. The roads they construct have a base that's twice as thick as ours, that's why they don't experience similar road heaves when the temperatures fluctuate. In addition, for the US typically road repairs is the first idea that politicians trot out anytime there is a downturn in the economy. Job creation, yada yada yada, but the long term effect is not the creation of a sustainable job, so their economy cycles thru mini-recessions quite frequently, which helps keep their roads under constant repair. Which is why sections of road on the I-29 are getting ripped out and replaced despite being nicer than sections of the 75 that were poured 2 years ago. The reason the interstate highway system is structurally overbuilt in the U.S. is because it was designed to transport the military for defencive purposes at a cost of over 5 billion dollars. All other roads in the US are built to the same standards as the roads in Canada and are in about the same condition. Frost does play a huge role in the deterioration of roadways so in general highways in the south last longer and require far less maintenance. Areas that have a clay base (lake bottom) subject to freezing such as are found in the Red River Valley are notoriously difficult to maintain. Fact of geography.

Great game, lots of back and forth between two good offences, much more entertaining than the low scoring defencive battles that have been so prevalent this year.

I don't take Neufeld's injuries lightly, he has missed over 50% of the games this year so I'm not sure he is going to be part of a solution moving forward and suspect he is damaged goods. If he can't stay in the lineup it depletes the Natl. talent along the line even further. May well be that if Neufeld can't stay healthy he is moved to backup position and spot duty so that they can prolong his career another 3-4 years. Next season Swiston and/or Hinse have to step up along with Goosen so that the Bombers have a core of Natl. O-linemen to build upon in the future. If 2 of the 3 wash out or fail to improve the line won't look much different next year than it does now in regard to ratio. Not holding my breath on free-agency and the acquisition of any staring quality Natl. O-liners falling into the Bombers lap either. I can't recall a single decent O-lineman who was headed for free-agency last year that didn't re-sign with their club before they hit the open market. It takes excess quantity of quality candidates for any movement to take place and that just has not been the case recently.

I disagree. There's huge value in keeping a defense off balance and guessing. A few passes per game to Fitzgerald, and a few runs up the middle for Pontbriand would help do that. I never said replace Watson with Fitzgerald in the slot. There are much better ways to break tendency that would keep the ball in the hands of playmakers. For the most part, defenses won't lose track of eligible receivers, especially downfield. So you're basically tossing a 2-3 yard pass (vertically, might be a much longer pass in real distance for the QB) out to Fitzgerald or Pontbriand in space and hoping they can maybe gain a few more yards. You're looking at maybe a couple opportunities per game for either guy who plays those tight end spots where the QB can check down to them when they are wide-open. You hit that once for a first down, and it's probably closed for the rest of the game because the LB/DB who is responsible for that flat was probably cheating downfield or looking into the backfield. There's no purpose in running plays for those guys regularly, they just don't have the speed or quickness to win 1 on 1 against coverage. If they are redesigning the offence, spend time figuring out how to get the ball to Denmark, Watson and Kohlert more effectively. This is exactly the situation the Bombers would want to create. By causing the opposing D to pay more attention to Pontbriand or Fitzgerald it creates more space and more time for the skilled receivers to get open. If the D continues to cheat by ignoring those two, than the Bombers can continue to take advantage of what is given. The goal is to gain consistent first downs using as many tools as possible to keep the D. from focusing on singular targets, it doesn't all need to tie into dramatic 30 yard gains. When Ricky Ray is at his best this is exactly what he does, he takes what is given and punishes with the long ball when the D. tries to cheat. We might not yet realize it but Drew Willy is quite possibly the heir apparent to Ricky Ray as the best throwing QB in the CFL.

Again referring to the last Coach's Show, O'Shea explained that Romby is here because of his speed and his ability to outrun coverage. He has shown flashes of in past games but I think the real problem with Romby has been getting on the same page with Willy and developing timing. Willy has been off on most of his long balls and corner routes since the second game of the season and not just with Romby.

On this weeks Coach's Show MOS had a very similar response to a caller's question about occasionally using Pontbriand as a FB. O'Shea said that they had no package in their playbook to accommodate such a setup, he then went on to obfuscate by pointing out how it didn't make sense to hand the ball off 3 yards deep in the backfield. This tells me Marcel has a rigid playbook that doesn't easily accommodate adjustment either in personnel or play during an entire season much less being able to make adjustments on the fly during a game.

Here are two of my favourite Mfranc quotes directed at Bomber fans on Riderfans. "I am sure we could care less what some Joe Sixpack Bomber fan thinks." "Pretty lame to come on a Rider board and post this crap." Pot meet kettle.

Seriously, that video made me laugh so hard I had tears rolling down my cheeks. If that video wasn't a mockery I truly feel sorry for the good people of Regina. And no, I won't be visiting Regina any time soon based on those attractions.

Read somewhere that Sears hamstring injury is not fully recuperated, this would be the only logical explanation in my eyes.

Kelly earned the job in training camp when he defeated all candidates for that position and there were many. He continues to produce when thrown to and make spectacular catches and score critical TD's even though he is often covered. He has done nothing to lose his job and no other player has done enough to unseat him so far. We seem to have this discussion every second week with the same result. Kelly has his lovers and his haters and that's just the way it's been since he set foot in Bomberland.

Another hi-jacked thread re-directed towards RR issues, this is growing tiresome.

LOL - no kidding. What a bunch of bozos. Here's hoping they break, the kids here need to get back to school. Shame on the dumbass BC politicians & teachers who use the kids as pawns. Teachers need to be ruled as an essential service & not be allowed to strike. No kidding, anybody want to babysit a 3 and 6 year old? They're driving me crazy and cutting into the time I waste reading football forums!

Brohm heading home? After the injury to Willy & the way he played? That tells me all I need to know. To be a starting qb in the CFL takes sacrifce. And if a player isn't willing to do that, well?? I know it's tough to be away from family but the season ends in less than 2 months & Brohm has 6 months to be with them then. I think that is the wrong decision. Don't forget the players made plans three weeks back for this bye week and most likely paid for tickets etc. I doubt it's last night that he decided to go home. Good comment made by Doug Brown after the game. He said that if Dave Rictchie was the coach of this team, bye-week would be officially cancelled with Willy's injury. The team has two weeks to prepare for their next game and they will need every practice opportunity possible to get Brohm up to speed asap. Blowing off a week of preparation time on player's vacations is a missed opportunity for Brohm and the offence to get on the same page. Two on-field practices in the week before Hamilton is just not enough to get Brohm in sync. I agree whole heartedly with DB's analysis. I think that would violate the collective agreement so cancelling the bye week for the entire team would be a non starter. I think anyone who stays would have to be voluntary. Now, having said that if I was Brian Brohm & I knew I'd be starting the next game in 2 weeks, I'd want to stay in Winnipeg to prepare & not go away during the bye week. If Brohm paid for plane fare home, he should get the club to reimburse him for the airline ticket. Same with Marve. These guys are professional football players & if they crap out on the field because of a lack of preparation then they're finished as players with Winnipeg. In Brohm's case maybe forever. They should have stayed in Winnipeg voluntarily & hit the books so to speak. Study video to get prepared. Get in the weight room. Spend time with their qb coach. Throw to any receivers who stayed around town... Brohm and Marve can go work out with the Rifles. Practicing by themselves isn't going to improve their game-day performance, they need to get familiar with the bus they're driving. Hopefully enough O players are hanging around town to help them out, not everybody loves the company of their families!.

The issue of what a team can do with their bye-week might have been addressed in the recent CBA so it may be a non-issue. I don't have much sympathy for players who have 4-6 months off each year running off for an extra week break in mid-season when they still have A LOT of work to do. Sadly reminds me of the BC Teacher's Assoc. Hope the break will help recharge their batteries against Hammytown because they can't afford to stink the joint out.

In all honesty I think Edmonton has a one year head start on the Bombers in rebuilding. They went through similar growing pains with Reilly last year that the Bombers are just working through now with Willy. On another note, I hope O'Shea comes back after this week with a vision of what he needs to do to further the progress that has already been made this season. Time for him to take charge and stop letting his coordinators make the decisions that lead to the same errors and weaknesses being exposed week after week. This means play calling as well as personnel decisions on all 3 teams. I think so far O'Shea has leaned heavily on his coordinators to make decisions for him but sooner or later he has to realize that this is his team and he has to take charge.

or Maybe Kuale isn't as big of a problem as some are making him out to be, Kuale got hurt last night, missed the entire second half really... see what happened when he wasn't in the game? the lions ran the ball down our throats, Kuale is just one player. It's not just one player. I will agree having Kuale out in the second didn't make much of a difference and Kromah could have been more effective. Our defense is a "bend but don't break" D which is what it did up until around mid 4th quarter. Then what happened is what happens every time you have the Bend don't Break D paired with an ineffective offense, the D is exhausted, beaten up and finally breaks. The Etch D needs a good offense to be effective, without it we get what happened last night. Very frustrating, especially when you watch Bighill, Elimimian and that B.C D do their thing. Made me jealous. Doug Brown said that what allows Bighill, Elimimian to be so effective is that they are allowed to play "clean" meaning they are in essence rovers that are allowed to react to the play without having to susidize a weak D-lines play like the Bomber LBers. This is why they achieve such high tackle numbers because they are not assigned blocking duties and simply track the ball wherever it goes.

The D kept the score close until the Arceneaux TD with 3 mins. remaining in the game, can't ask for more than that.

Brohm heading home? After the injury to Willy & the way he played? That tells me all I need to know. To be a starting qb in the CFL takes sacrifce. And if a player isn't willing to do that, well?? I know it's tough to be away from family but the season ends in less than 2 months & Brohm has 6 months to be with them then. I think that is the wrong decision. Don't forget the players made plans three weeks back for this bye week and most likely paid for tickets etc. I doubt it's last night that he decided to go home. Good comment made by Doug Brown after the game. He said that if Dave Rictchie was the coach of this team, bye-week would be officially cancelled with Willy's injury. The team has two weeks to prepare for their next game and they will need every practice opportunity possible to get Brohm up to speed asap. Blowing off a week of preparation time on player's vacations is a missed opportunity for Brohm and the offence to get on the same page. Two on-field practices in the week before Hamilton is just not enough to get Brohm in sync. I agree whole heartedly with DB's analysis.

Willy pushed it tonight, I believe that was about the 4th time in the game that he decided he was going to take off and gain yards himself. With Solly and Bighill roaming wild that was a poor strategy and everyone had to know the price was going to be paid in blood at some point. The clock was ticking down on the half and no points could have been scored so it was all the more unwise to risk injury. O'Shea or Marcel should have told him to stop with the running and save it for later in the game if needed. Hope to god it wasn't Buck on the other end of the headset advising him what to do!