Good Bad & Ugly

[Blue In BC]

I called it a mini dynasty last year and I'll stick to that.

I am entitled to my opinion no need to pile on like that.  Patience has paid off.  You have routinely called for just about everyone during our incredible run (few years ago) to be fired.  The game was very bad and Bombers laid an egg.  Just one game after years of dominance.Heavily overstated on the negative. 
We are not the laughing stalk of the league.  Yes those loses hurt but it's so rare to make the big show that many times.  We will win a couple more cups minimum in the next few decades.  Pass on new OC
Backup Qb yes
Tony yes
New returner yesThere will be no banning of words on the forum.  Patience is relevant when you are at the top, middle or bottom of the league.  It's the one of the pillars of any great organization imo.  Don't get too high or low, don't over react or make too quick of judgments.  Stick to the plan and create consistency in players, schemes, coaches and management.  But for sure change is in the air.  We do need to take a long look in the mirror and be honest of the failings of the club (early season and GC).  I'll preach patience as long as I'm on here. Patience brought us two cups and 5 apperances to the big show.  Pretty happy with that.  Many others on this forum have taken the long view and had the patience in the early days of MOS/Hall/Walters to see the light at the end of the tunnel.  That light certainly dimed a wee bit but it will still show us the way imo.  There is no clear definition of reality on a football forum.  Just a lot of debate and opinions.

A good debate about a rebuild but I don't see it.  Retool for another cup run.  Likely rebuild in 2026.  New paint job maybe, leave the old engine and transmission for another year. ;)Yeah winning the West sucks.  Winning the Final sucks.  We suck. None of this makes any sense imo.

I would like to see us bring in a decent #2 QB that could we develop and fill in as needed.  I would like Wilson to be our #3.  Strev will find work elsewhere if he is healthy.

Clearly you've never run a business. Have you ever heard of " continuous improvement " which is the hallmark of successful businesses. Did we improve in 2024? Overall the answer would have to be no.

What an improvement is or isn't can be debated. Business adds and deletes / fires staff all the time. When to make a given move it is at times a calculated risk.

Edmonton fired their HC this year. Should they have been patient? Will BC fire their HC? Other teams have already released OC's and DC's. More will follow shortly.

I'm on board with a change at OC although I'd like to hear who might be a new candidate. A year from now that might be Collaros. Today, who knows. A change for the sake of change alone is not a good idea.  OTOH, did we see one new wrinkle from our OC?

Perhaps what we need is a consultant to add another set of eyes or ideas. Something similar to Younger and Hall this season where we did see change in strategy.

[Blueforlife]

Clearly you've never run a business. Have you ever heard of " continuous improvement " which is the hallmark of successful businesses. Did we improve in 2024? Overall the answer would have to be no.

What an improvement is or isn't can be debated. Business adds and deletes / fires staff all the time. When to make a given move it is at times a calculated risk.

Edmonton fired their HC this year. Should they have been patient? Will BC fire their HC? Other teams have already released OC's and DC's. More will follow shortly.

I'm on board with a change at OC although I'd like to hear who might be a new candidate. A year from now that might be Collaros. Today, who knows. A change for the sake of change alone is not a good idea.  OTOH, did we see one new wrinkle from our OC?

Perhaps what we need is a consultant to add another set of eyes or ideas. Something similar to Younger and Hall this season where we did see change in strategy.

Don't say things about me that you have no idea about.  You have routinely done that recently.  Don't say things about me that are not true.  This is a football forum, not a PJ forum.  Stop taking personal shots.  Thanks. I have used continous improvement in my career and in my businesses.  It can be a part of patience.  It's hard to improve if you keep blowing up the house but that is a fine line.  This was evident in the decade before this run.  I like consistency; yes we need change and improvement, never said we didn't. I have well versed in continous improvement and organisation change management;it's a key pilar of my degree in Industrial Engineering which has been polished during my 20 years of work experience and a decade of running my current business.

When your organization is a tire fire yes you need to gut it and start again.  I don't see a rebuild (yet) and I would to retain Buck.  Offensive consultant sure, fresh ideas yes.  Edmonton is a tire fire, not sure what they need to do.  BC I would tweek as they are getting close.  I am an Oilers fan, they are in a similar situation as the Bombers.  Old team that needs to win now or soon.  Both have had a lot of success as of late and have fell short in the playoffs.  Both will need  a rebuild but not immediately imo.

[Blue In BC]

Bombers are a team with a few too many older players. It's time to move on from several. In 2024 we lost about 24 players from the overall 2023 roster. Some of the replacements came from the 2023 PR like Garbutt, Haba etc.

I'd say we'll see something similar going into 2025. Retirements, losses in free agency or players being released.

Who falls into which category is fluid but pat is never an option. Making SMS room for those that earned it has a cost elsewhere.

More interesting transactions today with what seems to be outright release of 5 players from the PR. Early we saw players moved from PR to IR and then back to PR and now released. I'm not sure if that is the end or the temporary cancellation of the PR post season.

Released: Murphy, Hubert, Smith, Karamoko and Ogbevoen.   Two of those were drafted in 2024 in the Canadian and global drafts. Karamoko was from 2022.

That leaves us with only 2 global players on our entire roster. Sheehan and Weitz.

[Throw Long Bannatyne]

My question,if we had managed to win who the heck would they had picked as player of the game.
Most likely still Arbuckle. Can't think of any bomber deserving.

Willie had an excellent game, his best of the season.

[Jesse]

Don't say things about me that you have no idea about.  You have routinely done that recently.  Don't say things about me that are not true.  This is a football forum, not a PJ forum.  Stop taking personal shots.  Thanks. I have used continous improvement in my career and in my businesses.  It can be a part of patience.  It's hard to improve if you keep blowing up the house but that is a fine line.  This was evident in the decade before this run.  I like consistency; yes we need change and improvement, never said we didn't. I have well versed in continous improvement and organisation change management;it's a key pilar of my degree in Industrial Engineering which has been polished during my 20 years of work experience and a decade of running my current business.

When your organization is a tire fire yes you need to gut it and start again.  I don't see a rebuild (yet) and I would to retain Buck.  Offensive consultant sure, fresh ideas yes.  Edmonton is a tire fire, not sure what they need to do.  BC I would tweek as they are getting close.  I am an Oilers fan, they are in a similar situation as the Bombers.  Old team that needs to win now or soon.  Both have had a lot of success as of late and have fell short in the playoffs.  Both will need  a rebuild but not immediately imo.

He didn't take a single personal shot or talk about anything that wasn't a response to your post.

[Blue In BC]

Our potential free agents list just came out and we have 29 players listed at the moment. It's a little bigger than last year IIRC but a few other teams have even longer lists.

Let the work begin to see if we can re-sign a few before the end of the year if we have any SMS left. Certainly need to lock up some others in the new year before free agency. We'll have an idea of who is going to test free agency by then.

[Blueforlife]

He didn't take a single personal shot or talk about anything that wasn't a response to your post.

He took a shot that I have never run a business nor that I had heard of continous improvement, which both were not true.  He brought that up, I never talked about that in my post.  There was absolutely no need for him to bring that up.  Nice try though, I like to stick to the facts. 

He has been focusing on me at times and not Football and has said things about me that are not true; there is no value in continuing the debate about this.  I have asked him repeatedly to not make me the subject of his posts and to not post things that are not true, which he shown he can't stop doing.

This argument had nothing to do with challenging opinions.  I'll always call people out for saying things about me that are not true. 

The truth shall set you free.

Let's just leave it.  This place is for talking about ball not me.

[55StickCar]

After thinking about it I am putting 1 player in the Good;

Willie Jefferson.

I think that is all though.

Boy did we have a bunch of uncharacteristic Bomber mistakes in that game. Everything that could go wrong went wrong.

[Pete]

if you had told me that Jefferson would have his best game of the year, that our oline would have a strong game, Grant would be pretty much a non factor, and Kelly would be injured I would have thought we'd win easily.
  But the Performance by Zac and the game plan by Buck/O'Shea offset all that

[ModAdmin]

He took a shot that I have never run a business nor that I had heard of continous improvement, which both were not true.  He brought that up, I never talked about that in my post.  There was absolutely no need for him to bring that up.  Nice try though, I like to stick to the facts. 

He has been focusing on me at times and not Football and has said things about me that are not true; there is no value in continuing the debate about this.  I have asked him repeatedly to not make me the subject of his posts and to not post things that are not true, which he shown he can't stop doing.

Let's just leave it.  This place is for talking about ball not me.

Yet you continue to talk about you and make it about you.  I don't see anything in B in BC's post that warrants a response like that from you.

Let's continue to talk about football, yes, but don't take every post that challenges your opinion as a personal attack.

[TecnoGenius]

Willie had an excellent game, his best of the season.

I think Willie really got motivated by the 2nd & 17 whiff on Cody in the '23 GC.  Willie could have won the game right there had he caught Cody instead of slipping on the ground.  He had his hand nearly on him.

I'm so proud of Willie.  He tried to put the game on his back and win it all.  In a sane world he would have, but so many on O let him down.

I really hope we keep him and he keeps playing and he gives it the same effort in the '25 home GC.  Maybe the supporting cast will finally rise to the occasion around him.

[TecnoGenius]

if you had told me that Jefferson would have his best game of the year, that our oline would have a strong game, Grant would be pretty much a non factor, and Kelly would be injured I would have thought we'd win easily.
  But the Performance by Zac and the game plan by Buck/O'Shea offset all that

This is totally it.  We completely took care of the big risks/fears.  All of them.

The done-deals / just-play-bomber-ball aspects then laid the biggest egg ever.  And almost every break went TOR's way.

[Stats Junkie]

Just an observation from the Grey Cup

On the successful DPI that O'Shea challenged in the 4th quarter, the officials placed the ball at the wrong spot.

The ball was placed at the T47 which is where the DPI occurred. That was only an 8 yard gain from the previous LOS (W55). By rule, the minimum gain on a DPI penalty is 10 yards which means that the ball should have been placed at the T45.

This error did not cost the Blue Bombers the game and Winnipeg did score a TD on that drive.

[Throw Long Bannatyne]

I think Willie really got motivated by the 2nd & 17 whiff on Cody in the '23 GC.  Willie could have won the game right there had he caught Cody instead of slipping on the ground.  He had his hand nearly on him.

I'm so proud of Willie.  He tried to put the game on his back and win it all.  In a sane world he would have, but so many on O let him down.

I really hope we keep him and he keeps playing and he gives it the same effort in the '25 home GC.  Maybe the supporting cast will finally rise to the occasion around him.

Willie knows when his contract expires and when he needs to make a big statement, it's been reported he's at the head of the line outside Walters office waiting to re-negotiate his contract.  No problem paying him the same that he earned last season, but his days of receiving bumps are probably over.

[TecnoGenius]

On the successful DPI that O'Shea challenged in the 4th quarter, the officials placed the ball at the wrong spot.

I'll check it out.  At that point in the stadium nobody cared and just wanted it to be over.  People were booing the challenge.

P.S. I haven't gotten to that part on the PVR yet, so I don't know how egregious the DPI was, but command only overturned 4-6 uncalled DPIs after the "memo" mid-season.  I got the feeling in the stands they were showing us pity.