TBURGESS

In the last 10 years, we've replaced one HC, PLAP with Burke mid-season and gave him the job the next year. Back in '04 Daley took over from Ritchie and got the job the next year. In '98 Hoffman took over from Reinebold, didn't get the next year as HC and we hired Ritchie who had won a GC and who had never been out of the playoffs as a HC, so you don't have to keep the interim HC on. It's about who you hire as the HC in the off season, not who you appoint as interim HC.

I guess you've been wrong for 10 years then. Moving on from a bad coach, and that's what O'Shea is, can make a big difference. It can make players worry about their jobs that gets them out of their comfort zone and maybe makes them play better. Players may have 'tuned out' the old coach and may not be able to 'tune out' the new one. The new coach may pull the QB when he's not being effective. He may call the game more aggressively. He may demand changes from the coordinators to match his philosophy. He may sit players who aren't pulling their weight. He may change the way practices are run. He may want to bring in his kind of players from the NFL cuts. He may take the gags off of the players when they talk with the media. Keeping a losing coach just because you made the wrong decision to keep him at the end of last year doesn't do anyone any good and you only lose 2 seasons if you gift the new HC the next season AND he doesn't do any better than the fired one.

If you actually read what I typed, you'll see that I expect that things would stay pretty much the same over the end of the season but they need to sell hope which they can't do with Mike 'win every 3rd game' O'Shea. As I've said before, if the GM even suggests keeping the interim HC on, he should be fired too. The appropriate time to fire O'Shea was at the end of last year, but they decided to ignore CFL history and keep him on even tho most HCs don't get 3rd year out of the playoffs and the couple who did never amounted to anything. There's no reason to keep him on for the rest of the year unless he manages to turn it around RFN. Sometimes the Devil you don't know is better than the Devil you do.

The old fatalist 'lets do nothing cuz it won't get any better anyway' argument, read in your best Eeyore voice. Might as well call it what it is the 'lets keep my guy around cuz I like him' argument. Three things can happen if we fire O'Shea, better, worse, or about the same. The highest probability IMO is about the same, but management will have to do something to try and win back the fans if we go 1-6 and they can't fire the whole team so firing the HC as good as gets. No... that doesn't mean we have to keep the Interim coach or the GM or even the CEO for that matter. It means we should have seen this coming last year, but we did't.

Maybe that's why Willy's taking less hits. The coach is yelling "DUCK!". Personally, I think it's stupid to have an open mike during the play. Let the players play and the coaches coach.

O'Shea should have been fired at the end of last season, but they'll give him more time even if we lose bad this week.

We agree that GM and coach are two very different things. You lose me when you bring up Mike Kelly's record as a coach.

Sure, but Jones had a winning percentage of 72.2% as a HC, coming into the season. He's been successful ever since he got to the CFL in 2002. He's won GC rings with 4 different teams including one last year as HC. Maybe we should revisit this at the end of the season to see if it's still true.

I'd happily take Jones and his ego over Walters and O'Shea. I'd also take Carter with his ego over any receiver. I could go on. My point is the best generally have big egos.

The way the 'Eye in the sky' official works now is next to useless, but if they were in charge of all things challenge-able, they could make a huge difference. Of course, the HC's wouldn't want to give up control or another way to change the outcome of games.

Chris Williams

You may be crazy, but that's not a bad idea. I have a couple more: Take the ability to ask for a review away from the HC's and give it to the Eye In The Sky official. That should result in significantly less challenges. Put a clock on challenges. 30-45 seconds. If it can't be overturned in that amount of time, then go with the original call. Slow motion and enhanced video should only be used for 'in or out of bounds' calls. Interference challenges should only happen on the obvious ones, not the 'too close to call in real time' ones.

The end of our season's as tough as the beginning with Ottawa and BC twice each. You know them right? The two top teams in the league right now. Sadly, it looks like Labour day and the Banjo bowl will be our big games again this season. Regina has a better offense than we have even with Gale in for Durant. We have a better defense than they do, so it will be strength against strength and weakness against weakness which will make for a couple of good games that likely won't matter much when it comes to playoff spots.

If that's even brought up in management meetings, then they guy who says it, cough Walters cough, should be let go too.

It's not the firing of the HC mid-season that hasn't worked out. It's the promoting a rookie HC then giving him the HC role for the next season that's been the problem. Put someone in charge for the rest of the season and make the real decisions in the off season when the best candidates are available.

We have won 1 freaking game this year. We haven't won back to back games for almost 2 years. It's been years since we've even scored more than 30 points. O'Shea's record is 13-27. How much worse do you think it's going to get under a different HC?

To put it in perspective, Willy's being paid more than BLM, Harris and Collaros, all of whom are way better QB's. That's why you don't give a guy big bucks for potential. You give them big bucks only after they reach their potential.

Did Adams practice this week?

I'm very much a win is win and a loss is a loss person. I'm also a 'How did we manage to win or lose' person.

Adarias Bowman

The missed FG, wasn't so much a break as it was 3 Bomber mistakes in a row followed by a great play by Banks. First Dressler didn't go on the field and he's the freaking holder. Second, O'Shea didn't call a time out when he saw the mistake. Third our "Most accurate FG in history who's making 170K" missed. Hamilton did get a huge break when both teams were offside on the TD. I never said otherwise. The good: We won. We got 6 (7) turnovers. We got a historic "Madden Glitch" TD. We got a lucky bounce back. We took advantage of their mistakes. We won TOP. The bad: Only winning by 4 after 6 (7) turnovers and we're not likely to have another 6(7) turnover game this year.

Edmonton's putting up more than 30 points a game so far this year. We've maxed out at 28. We better hit a couple of those deep balls this game or it'll be a long night.

I'm happy we won, but I'm not blind to the reasons why we won and I don't think this kind of win is repeatable very often. I don't see anyone calling Willy total garbage, a bum, or ignoring his accomplishments (279 yards, 8.7 yards per completion). I do see them commenting on his fumble and his inability to hit an open receiver deep because they're part of the whole picture. Some fans love to ignore the mistakes and gloss over the amount of luck and bad play by the other teams that's involved in our wins. That's fine, but they go too far when they use their view of things to complain about other posters who see both the good and the bad.

Actually 6 turnovers + a lucky bounce on a Kickoff + the Madden glitch catch + a dropped TD catch by Hamilton, but I get your point.

Nice to see a win. I don't care how ugly it was. Masoli fumbles 3 times and throws 2 ints. He was THE difference maker tonight and that's not to take anything away from the Bombers. Macho Harris' KO recovery was the play of the game for us, with a high five to Leggett's pick 6. Gotta say I was chewing my nails in the 4th after Willy's fumble, but it turned out nice again.