Can we win 2025 with this coaching staff.

[theaardvark]

OK, we know MOS is not the issue.  JY with Hall behind him has been a dominant force and was NOT the issue yesterday.

Buck, however... when things are going good, Buck looks great.  But facing adversity, not to use a cliche, but he seems to get a "buck in the headlights" situation.

A long halftime to make adjustments, and we came out flat.  We should have been shredding their D, and we kept throwing in the McInnis zone.  And to their hottest DB.

When your QB says I can grip the ball, you don't have him throw a deep pass.  Heck, you don't have him throw at all when you have 7 OL dressed and a FB and have the league MOP in the backfield. Or you leave in your #2 who barely got a chance to warm up.

Not sure Buck on the sidelines > Buck in the booth.  The team has struggled mightily on O this year, with some of the best O tools in the league.

Might be a consideration for the grey cup at home to bring in a more dynamic OC.  Does Lapo make more in the studio than as an OC?   

[dd]

Agree. Our offense struggled mightily yesterday, specifically our passing game. And we abandoned the run which is also puzzling.

When our passing game struggles, I don't understand why we don't revert back to a dink and dunk passing game to keep the ball moving. Look at the passing game the Argos used with Arbuckle--all short yardage passing routes, short yardage curls, designed to be high percentage/low turnover/keep the ball moving. Why didn't we try this?? We seemed to bomb it and go 2 and out ALOT yesterday. We abandoned ball control. I just don't understand why.

We seem to go to this hit and miss attack when it comes to the big game. Instead of being conservative and use the short passing game to keep the ball moving, we go for home runs and punt.

Don't disagree with new OC concept, but doubt it happens with MOS, he sticks with who he's got. good or bad and in this case, bad.
 

[Blue In BC]

I think we'll see a change at OC. It's been a problem for 3 seasons. Predictable and conservative most of the time.

Regardless, our primary issues were players, overall talent level and depth. As I've mentioned we didn't improve our DL or our returner. Then early season injuries to Schoen and Woli didn't help. Depth at receiver was not good all season.  Many of us questioned we retained some players on the PR.

Whitehead was a 1 season rental and was average most of the time but did make a few good contributions. He was consistent except when it mattered most.

I don't know if Cole was injured but Wilson didn't seem to make an impact after his return. Younger may have determined that Cole made too may assignment errors. Making lots of tackles isn't always the entire story.

Hindsight is great. The coaches may have made the correct choice. They look at film and know whether assignments were done correctly etc etc. I didn't particularly see Wilson getting beaten but I couldn't even tell on TV when he was on the field.

He did take a bonehead penalty on the blocked punt but we did end up with a pic to get the ball back quickly.

[theaardvark]

I'm almost thinking that Buck out leveled himself.  He knew they were thinking we'd rely on BO20 for the bulk of our game, so he decided to do the opposite.  When that wasn't working, the D probably stiffened up for the return to BO20, so Buck decided to stick with what wasn't working to fool them.

When his QB said "I got no grip", and the opponent knew he would have trouble throwing, Buck decided to throw the ball, to again catch them off stride. 

Its almost like he was trying to succeed through failure. 

Love the guy, and he's a great position coach and motivator, but he's no tactician.  And he certainly has shown no ability to adjust to adversity.

Maybe as an HC, he'd do better, but it really seems like he struggles with the X's and O's...

[blue_gold_84]

Did Oliveira even get 10-12 touches? He was so poorly misused - again.

Yeah, I'm down to show Pierce the door at this point. Last night's pitiful offensive showing caps off a natural hat trick of failure in the big game. The gunslinger mentality is only entertaining when it works.

[TecnoGenius]

We seem to go to this hit and miss attack when it comes to the big game. Instead of being conservative and use the short passing game to keep the ball moving, we go for home runs and punt.

Our short pass game wasn't working either.  Remember the 3rd & 3?  Every short pass was contested and our RECs were dropping most of the balls.

I'm fine with the deep shots, because we must be BOLD to win.  However, Zach has to recognize double-coverage and where a DB has a step on our REC.  He made bad decisions deep.  And either he threw late or with too little heat, allowing DBs to get in place.

If the short pass was covered, and the deeps were double-covered, there should have been some openings in the middle, like that one nice one we had in zone.  Just like we leave some spots open for TOR's O, they left some open for us.  Why we didn't find them is beyond me.

And on that 3rd and 3... MTL had the same situation in the last GC and they called a 15Y pass in a guaranteed 1-on-1.  Why didn't we do that?  I wrote a mini-essay on this exact thing after the last GC!  We needed 3 so we threw for 3 and wonder why their whole D was at the sticks to knock the ball out.  That's the difference between Buck and Calvillo.  And if we didn't have the guts to throw a mid pass, just hand it off to Brady for a 60/40 chance.

[TecnoGenius]

I don't know if Cole was injured but Wilson didn't seem to make an impact after his return. Younger may have determined that Cole made too may assignment errors. Making lots of tackles isn't always the entire story.

I don't think WILL was our problem.  We pretty much shut down the TOR run all night, especially within the tackles.  And TOR was gunning to run because they had no mid/deep pass game.  Our stout run D is what switched TOR into short pass mode.

I was very proud of what we did against TOR's 3 RBs.  Their only success was on dump passes and a couple of outside plays where they were aggressively (partially cheatingly) blocking/holding downfield (which they got called for a couple of times).

[TecnoGenius]

Did Oliveira even get 10-12 touches? He was so poorly misused - again.

Hard to get Brady lots of touches when all drives but one are snuffed out quickly.  We had no rhythm, and were abysmal on 2nd & med/long.  The RECs weren't making plays.  They thought drops would be better.

[theaardvark]

There were points that we missed taking advantage of.  Franklin goes down, you ATTACK his replacement.  They juggled the DB's, had more than one out of position, and IIRC, it gets thrown into McManis' area. 

McManis is a gamechange.  Franklin was on a heater in the post season.  DON'T THROW THERE.  Its not rocket surgery.  You run routes through the coverage, and throw to the guy without McManis or Franklin on him.  There were some amazing routes, like Wilson coming across the field and running free in space with no one within 10 yards.  Amazing.  Was it a breakdown in coverage, or a great play?  No idea, but it worked.  And that's about the only play I saw that did.

[blue_gold_84]

Hard to get Brady lots of touches when all drives but one are snuffed out quickly.  We had no rhythm, and were abysmal on 2nd & med/long.  The RECs weren't making plays.  They thought drops would be better.

Adjustments should've been made, then. Pierce seems to struggle mightily with those.

[Throw Long Bannatyne]

I'm almost thinking that Buck out leveled himself.  He knew they were thinking we'd rely on BO20 for the bulk of our game, so he decided to do the opposite.  When that wasn't working, the D probably stiffened up for the return to BO20, so Buck decided to stick with what wasn't working to fool them.

When his QB said "I got no grip", and the opponent knew he would have trouble throwing, Buck decided to throw the ball, to again catch them off stride. 

Its almost like he was trying to succeed through failure. 

Love the guy, and he's a great position coach and motivator, but he's no tactician.  And he certainly has shown no ability to adjust to adversity.

Maybe as an HC, he'd do better, but it really seems like he struggles with the X's and O's...

I think Zach's gunslinger mentality has led Buck to throw out half LaPo's old playbook to the point they've dumbed down the offence together, convinced they can  score more points with fewer plays. Just seems lazy, watching LaPo's video analysis reinforces how much detail and intellignece went into his offence. Dinwiddie's game plan was actually closer to LaPo's than Buck's was.

[J5V]

I am sure Wade Miller will sit down with Mike O'Shea and those two will have a heart-to-heart, head-to-head discussion about the state of the Winnipeg Blue Bombers. Neither one of them will be satisfied with another Grey Cup loss.

The simple fact is that in 2022,2023, and 2024 the Winnipeg Blue Bombers lost the Grey Cup game to a better team just like they won the Grey Cup in 2019 and 2021 because they were a better team.

The challenge in 2025 will be the same as it is for every team in the CFL -- field the best team possible and hope that it is the better team at the end.

There is no shame in meeting that challenge, playing in five Grey Cup games in a row, and winning the championship twice. I don't see another team in this league that comes close to that accomplishment. Toronto may get there eventually but the best they can claim at this point is to have won it 2 of the last 3 years.

The Winnipeg Blue Bombers are still, by a wide margin, the most successful team in the CFL in the last five years and I see no reason to believe they won't continue to be. Will there be change? Of course there will. Will they face adversity? Yes. But this culture of excellence isn't going anywhere for the foreseeable future and this Bomber fan is excited to see what lies ahead for this team and it's fans.

[BBRT]

I am sure Wade Miller will sit down with Mike O'Shea and those two will have a heart-to-heart, head-to-head discussion about the state of the Winnipeg Blue Bombers. Neither one of them will be satisfied with another Grey Cup loss.

The simple fact is that in 2022,2023, and 2024 the Winnipeg Blue Bombers lost the Grey Cup game to a better team just like they won the Grey Cup in 2019 and 2021 because they were a better team.

The challenge in 2025 will be the same as it is for every team in the CFL -- field the best team possible and hope that it is the better team at the end.

There is no shame in meeting that challenge, playing in five Grey Cup games in a row, and winning the championship twice. I don't see another team in this league that comes close to that accomplishment. Toronto may get there eventually but the best they can claim at this point is to have won it 2 of the last 3 years.

The Winnipeg Blue Bombers are still, by a wide margin, the most successful team in the CFL in the last five years and I see no reason to believe they won't continue to be. Will there be change? Of course there will. Will they face adversity? Yes. But this culture of excellence isn't going anywhere for the foreseeable future and this Bomber fan is excited to see what lies ahead for this team and it's fans.

I tend to agree with you in terms of what lies ahead. It is hard to make it to the dance and lose 3 times in a row but at least we got to the dance. Now for the reality - People tend to remember who won vs. who came in second etc. It is that way in any sport. I for one believe there may be some significant changes in the roster come 2025 - maybe even changes in the coaching staff. IMHO the one thing that stands out roster wise is that we are getting too old in a number of places and maybe it is time for a few retirements.

[Blue In BC]

I don't think WILL was our problem.  We pretty much shut down the TOR run all night, especially within the tackles.  And TOR was gunning to run because they had no mid/deep pass game.  Our stout run D is what switched TOR into short pass mode.

I was very proud of what we did against TOR's 3 RBs.  Their only success was on dump passes and a couple of outside plays where they were aggressively (partially cheatingly) blocking/holding downfield (which they got called for a couple of times).

Argos threw a bunch of passes out to the flats and I didn't notice Wilson making plays out there. It didn't seem they were targeting Kramdi's side. Jones and Griffin made 4 DT's each. Kramdi and Wilson had 2 each.

We game up 90 yards rushing on 18 plays which is a 5 yard average per carry. That doesn't say we shut down the Argo run game.

I'm not going to re-watch the game ( deleted immediately ). Cole may not have made any difference but he did seem more obvious in his last 2 games all over the field.

Essentially our entire defence got beat repeatedly. Argos won LOS, TOP and were more physical. Ad our poor performance on offence and that's all she wrote.

[TecnoGenius]

I am big on KW's "puzzle piece" approach: look at the 1-3 players/positions that cost you the final game, and fix those (while trying to keep everything else fairly even).

I'm not sure what the piece is this FA.  What lost us the cup?  Well, a legit returner (bye Lucky) is the clear & obvious #1.

But beyond that... the whole REC corps stunk the joint out (well, maybe not Pokey), and "whole REC corps" is not an option as a puzzle piece!  So analysis will have to be done.  Would Schoen being in there have made all the difference?  Who knows.  But the unit as a whole came up extremely lacking, especially compared to the mostly-nobodies and rookies TOR has.  Unwanted Brissett playing 10X better than Demski?  That's not a sane world right there.

I'm not ready to throw any coaches under the bus as a puzzle pieces... yet.  But Buck is a big part of our lack of creativity and ability to win 3 in a row.  Every year he gets out-brained in these cups.

I also am not ready to throw Zach under the bus.  A lot of this isn't on him.  Like ageing, moody, mercurial, can't-win-a-WDF VAJ would be any better.

Lots of meat for discussion in the long off-season.