The Role of a CFL Head Coach

[Nickthesizz]

After another crushing defeat to the hands of the riders and some time to recover from the throbbing headache and pain from the loss the day before. I did a little bit of soul searching and some deep thinking while sitting at my desk at work today about the plight of the Bombers. Sure it would be easy to lay all the blame at the feet of the under performing veteran QB we just gave a big contract extension to, but in my day of meditation I think I've come to a realization that there are a couple things that could be hampering the Bombers and it runs deeper than just quarterback play.

Just a year or two ago everybody was celebrating the hiring of two Canadians at the clubs top positions, we were given hope with the signing of high profile Canadian talent and some big name american free agents. At this time the club was desperate for a turn around and had the cap space to make these quick changes. The club was also celebrated for having a much deeper Canadian prospect pool than they had ever had in recent memory. This turn around was exactly what we all wanted to see especially after Joe Mack had seemingly depleted our Canadian pool to nothing and was unable to find a quarterback.

Now I don't think the GM is the issue in Winnipeg and I actually think Walters has done a good job under the circumstances, my theory that I keep coming up with is basically comparing a head coach in the CFL more to a head coach in college football rather than comparing them to an NFL head coach.I think one of the issues we've been having here is not necessarily scouting but having a head coach that can recruit high profile american talent. Finding the talent is only half the battle and having an american head coach that is familiar with players agents, their college coaches, is able to tap in to these football pipelines in the south, and somebody these players are familiar with is a huge tool that some of the coaches in the league have over O'Shea that played his entire career in the CFL and went to a Canadian University. When people talk about recruiting in college football, one of the biggest things that is always brought up is the players went to that school to play for a specific head coach, I don't think young players who have generally never heard of the CFL are too excited to come play for a coach from Canada that never made it to the NFL which is ultimately their goal.

Football players coming up here I believe have to be convinced they will be put in a position to show their talent and be put in a position to succeed. Unless you know quite a bit about the CFL and know that Osh was an all time great up here I don't think that's a big sell to a player who will be coming up here essentially leaving everything behind and coming to make very little money rather than staying in the states and sitting on a practice roster.

A guy like Devone Claybrook in my opinion would instantly improve us in that area as he's played in the NFL and has a ton of experience coaching in this league as well as being from the southern american states.

 

Just my 2 cents....more like 10 cents.

 

 

 

Edited September 11, 2018 by Gotmilt

[Floyd]

What's with the 4-5 paragraph posts these days...

[Nickthesizz]

1 minute ago, Floyd said:

What's with the 4-5 paragraph posts these days...

This is my MBB thesis.

[Floyd]

Just messin with you - its all valid points...  but I actually think GM is the issue

We've gone from no free agents Mack to too many free agents Walters...

[Nickthesizz]

2 minutes ago, Floyd said:

Just messin with you - its all valid points...  but I actually think GM is the issue

We've gone from no free agents Mack to too many free agents Walters...

But that's the whole point of my post, we have to sign free agents to compensate for not being able to recruit high end talent from down south.

[DR. CFL]

It is interesting that people necessarily believe that being an Assitant Coach or a Co-Ordinator makes some one qualified to be a HC? The other interesting thing is how a name gets thrown around and it then develops traction. Why do HCs get recycled? Because the notion is they have experience and therefore it is less risk then rolling the dice on a new guy. 

[Floyd]

45 minutes ago, Gotmilt said:

But that's the whole point of my post, we have to sign free agents to compensate for not being able to recruit high end talent from down south.

I see that point... but its ultimately up to the GM and scouts to compensate for that...  

I don't see recruiting as a major problem...  JSK, Sayles, Alexander, Jeffcoat, Poop, Bryant, etc... there's a TON of very good D talent we've brought in - this SHOULD be the best D we've had in ages...

The receiving core IS a mess and its not the CDN side that is a problem - its Adams, Bowman, Dressler, Thompkins, Washington, Lankford, Flanders...  there is no receiver pipeline - the GM should have addressed this two years ago when it was apparent, instead he started signing free agents

I really thought Goveia would bring in REC talent...  even Rigmaiden...

Mayo, Sheppard, Gordon... all these guys looked like they had flashes - why didn't they develop?  Coaching or lack of talent...?  Hard to say.

Bottom line is that five years in, we do not have a slotback currently on the roster that is better than Clarence Denmark.

[17to85]

Mike O'Shea being Canadian is hand cuffing the team? I don't think so. Hell we have had several FAs claim that they came here in large part because of their respect for Mike O'Shea. 

No he isn't the problem with attracting players, he's not supposed to have to do the scouts jobs, that is Kyle Walters responsibilities. 

The biggest failing Mike O'Shea has had as a head coach is his choice of coordinators. Lapo and Hall were never the best choices. They were the safe choices. Guys with lots of experience including head coaching experience and they were largely there to be the training wheels for a rookie head coach with a very poor record at the time, again in large part because of even worse coordinators. Now we've gone round and round and round about why we had those first bunch of useless coordinators and why they went with the safe choices for coordinators this last time, but I do believe that you give O'Shea more time he will jettison Lapo and Hall and get some real guys in here. Hell there was already a ton of speculation that hiring Younger was grabbing Halls replacement while they could. Now it's just a matter of them tossing Lapo on his ass (again) like he deserves. 

[Nickthesizz]

2 hours ago, 17to85 said:

Mike O'Shea being Canadian is hand cuffing the team? I don't think so. Hell we have had several FAs claim that they came here in large part because of their respect for Mike O'Shea. 

No he isn't the problem with attracting players, he's not supposed to have to do the scouts jobs, that is Kyle Walters responsibilities. 

The biggest failing Mike O'Shea has had as a head coach is his choice of coordinators. Lapo and Hall were never the best choices. They were the safe choices. Guys with lots of experience including head coaching experience and they were largely there to be the training wheels for a rookie head coach with a very poor record at the time, again in large part because of even worse coordinators. Now we've gone round and round and round about why we had those first bunch of useless coordinators and why they went with the safe choices for coordinators this last time, but I do believe that you give O'Shea more time he will jettison Lapo and Hall and get some real guys in here. Hell there was already a ton of speculation that hiring Younger was grabbing Halls replacement while they could. Now it's just a matter of them tossing Lapo on his ass (again) like he deserves. 

If you read the whole post I added we were able to attract CFL free agents but are seemingly unable to find top tier talent in the states as the players are not familiar with him. Bet I’m right though. CFL is a recruiting game and most of the players want to make it back to the NFL.

[WBBFanWest]

11 hours ago, Floyd said:

What's with the 4-5 paragraph posts these days...

I agree.  I had to spend an entire 30 seconds reading it.  Maybe we should just all move to twitter and be done with it.  Language sucks.

[JCon]

23 minutes ago, WBBFanWest said:

I agree.  I had to spend an entire 30 seconds reading it.  Maybe we should just all move to twitter and be done with it.  Language sucks.

TL;DR

[WBBFanWest]

8 hours ago, 17to85 said:

Mike O'Shea being Canadian is hand cuffing the team? I don't think so. Hell we have had several FAs claim that they came here in large part because of their respect for Mike O'Shea. 

No he isn't the problem with attracting players, he's not supposed to have to do the scouts jobs, that is Kyle Walters responsibilities. 

The biggest failing Mike O'Shea has had as a head coach is his choice of coordinators. Lapo and Hall were never the best choices. They were the safe choices. Guys with lots of experience including head coaching experience and they were largely there to be the training wheels for a rookie head coach with a very poor record at the time, again in large part because of even worse coordinators. Now we've gone round and round and round about why we had those first bunch of useless coordinators and why they went with the safe choices for coordinators this last time, but I do believe that you give O'Shea more time he will jettison Lapo and Hall and get some real guys in here. Hell there was already a ton of speculation that hiring Younger was grabbing Halls replacement while they could. Now it's just a matter of them tossing Lapo on his ass (again) like he deserves. 

While there are things to like about O'Shea, especially from a player's perspective, I think that there might be something to the idea that him not having deep roots in the US is not helpful.  Our GM does a good job with the Canadian talent and that's critical in the CFL, but Walters doesn't appear to have those deep American connections either.  I had assumed that the people he hired to do US scouting did, but when it comes to unearthing overlooked talent, especially at receiver, we seem to have a disconnect and I can't help but wonder if an American HC would make a difference.   I think that O'Shea has just about reached his best before date.  He's shown, I think, that he just doesn't seem to have that ability to reach the next level, and he's had 5 years to do so.  I'm in the camp of those who are hoping that should we, at minimum, fail to win a playoff game, he needs to go and next time, a HC with deeper roots in the US.

[WBBFanWest]

2 minutes ago, JCon said:

TL;DR

#sorry

[pigseye]

I think you are on the right track gotmilt, but it's not just MOS or Walters, it's everyone on the football ops side, just no connections down south like there should be. I get the whole national talent thing but you only have to start 7, that leaves 19 other positions for imports which really make or break a team. This current regime has focused too heavily on nationals at the expense of internationals. 

[TBURGESS]

If O'Shea takes no blame for the offense, that's on PLAP and no blame for the defense, that's on Hall,  Then it stands to reason that Walters takes no blame for bringing in players, that's on the scouts. I guess we keep all upper management in the off season for continuity and just get rid of PLAP, Hall and the scouts. That will fix everything

[JCon]

7 minutes ago, pigseye said:

I think you are on the right track gotmilt, but it's not just MOS or Walters, it's everyone on the football ops side, just no connections down south like there should be. I get the whole national talent thing but you only have to start 7, that leaves 19 other positions for imports which really make or break a team. This current regime has focused too heavily on nationals at the expense of internationals. 

This is awesome. Once again, you're going to provide us some insight into the Bombers. I love when you can do this, like when you gave us insight into how the locker room was feeling from being inside it. 

Can you please share with us who the the scouting staff knows down south and who they should know? Thanks in advance. Very insightful stuff. 

[pigseye]

7 minutes ago, JCon said:

This is awesome. Once again, you're going to provide us some insight into the Bombers. I love when you can do this, like when you gave us insight into how the locker room was feeling from being inside it. 

Can you please share with us who the the scouting staff knows down south and who they should know? Thanks in advance. Very insightful stuff. 

To quote a fellow poster on here, 'I think' let's me off the hook or is that hypocritical? 

[JCon]

1 minute ago, pigseye said:

To quote a fellow poster on here, 'I think' let's me off the hook or is that hypocritical? 

But you said, "just no connections down south like there should be. I get the whole national talent thing but you only have to start 7, that leaves 19 other positions for imports which really make or break a team. This current regime has focused too heavily on nationals at the expense of internationals."

You say what ever you want to fit whatever narrative you want. 

[pigseye]

1 minute ago, JCon said:

But you said, "just no connections down south like there should be. I get the whole national talent thing but you only have to start 7, that leaves 19 other positions for imports which really make or break a team. This current regime has focused too heavily on nationals at the expense of internationals."

You say what ever you want to fit whatever narrative you want. 

I think, you read too much into things JC. 

[Nickthesizz]

6 hours ago, JCon said:

But you said, "just no connections down south like there should be. I get the whole national talent thing but you only have to start 7, that leaves 19 other positions for imports which really make or break a team. This current regime has focused too heavily on nationals at the expense of internationals."

You say what ever you want to fit whatever narrative you want. 

I think hes speculating just as I am speculating.

[DR. CFL]

6 hours ago, JCon said:

But you said, "just no connections down south like there should be. I get the whole national talent thing but you only have to start 7, that leaves 19 other positions for imports which really make or break a team. This current regime has focused too heavily on nationals at the expense of internationals."

You say what ever you want to fit whatever narrative you want. 

Ironically people loved to dump on Taman and he virtually used his connections and part time scouts in the US. This team now has significantly more financial resources, more scouts, coaches and staff and what do they have to show in terms of results?

[WBBFanWest]

15 minutes ago, DR. CFL said:

Ironically people loved to dump on Taman and he virtually used his connections and part time scouts in the US. This team now has significantly more financial resources, more scouts, coaches and staff and what do they have to show in terms of results?

Well, for one thing, we're not having to start Canadians like Brock Ralph.  

[DR. CFL]

26 minutes ago, WBBFanWest said:

Well, for one thing, we're not having to start Canadians like Brock Ralph.  

Instead we can start Neufeld....there’s an upgrade.

[WBBFanWest]

1 minute ago, DR. CFL said:

Instead we can start Neufeld....there’s an upgrade.

We're starting Neufeld at tackle due to two injuries.  He's the third level of depth.  You'd have to be pretty thick not to expect a drop in play from the third guy in..  Brock on the other hand was a starter.  Bit of a difference.

 

[DR. CFL]

It’s always about depth.....Ralph was like...Kamaul Petersen....Adarius Bowman....and every other guy that has good and brutally bad seasons....Neufeld is a depth guy you hope you never have to play but can’t replace.