Official Game Day Thread - Winnipeg @ Montreal, October 3, 2026

[Tecno]

I wonder if it's even possible to win with an immobile QB anymore.  It's not that MTL or EDM are so darn good, it's that their QBs are a threat to escape for an easy 1st down (or big downfield pass on the run) every single snap.  That hamstrings the pass-rushers as they always have to worry about contain.  And the opposite is true when you have Zach & Dru, as no one has to ever worry about contain or the QB escaping up the middle.

That makes our OL look worse than MTL/EDM, even though it's probably not that much worse.  That makes our max-pro blocking look worse than MTL/EDM max pro.  Everything just looks worse.

Even the magic T.Harris 2025 situation isn't working this season because teams have figured out how to attack even the best short-game in the league.  And SSK doesn't have the best OL anymore, which doesn't help.

So if you're going to roll with a R.Ray / T.Harris / Zach / Dru style completely immobile can't-take-a-hit QB, then it's imperative that in FA you put together the absolute best OL no matter the cost.  Not just the best OL, but the best by a wide margin.  Like SSK had in '25.  Simply adding Broxton but sticking with mediocre Wallace, bringing in mediocre Els, not retiring completely done Stan, and even rolling with aging/slower Neuf is not viable.  We need a line like Brox/Desjar/Dobson/XXX/Yoshi.  (Replace XXX and maybe Yoshi with whoever is younger & hot right now.)

The only other choice is we need to find the next Alexander or Kelly or Rourke.  Or a not-very-good but seems-to-escape-everything oldster like Cody.  We're not going to win in this league with some middle ground great-at-nothing good-at-everything area anymore.  It simply cannot be done.

[Sir Blue and Gold]

Just so I have this straight... You all want Oshea gone (LOL)..and Zach gone and Dru gone.

Anyone you want to keep?

I'm not sure I want O'Shea gone. I like O'Shea. He's a good culture guy and he's mostly easy to cheer for.

But at the same time, his coordinator hires have been largely terrible and it's now three straight years of pretty large regression.

I want to be fair but what I am not seeing is any evidence of a self scout, self reflection or making different choices. He needs to go back to being the leader and driver at the helm because that's what it's going to take. It's not ideal, and he's going to dislike it, but we need early career, scrappy O'Shea back now or we need a new head coach.

[Pigskin]

Well, I didn't watch the 4th. quarter, switched to the MLB playoffs. It looks like Dru played the whole game. Sad that MOS wouldn't put Perkins in for at least a quarter.

[Tecno]

but we need early career, scrappy O'Shea back now or we need a new head coach.

MOS went from the most-trick-plays-per-season guy to absolutely-zero-trick-plays in the last 2-3 seasons (maybe more).  You can't really win either way, but you do need to run a couple a season, like TOR did vs us last game.

And you can't say "it's Condell / Younger / Miller not designing tricks" because it's MOS who tells them how many trick plays to scheme & run.  And for years he's said "ZERO".  I'm sure Miller would love to draw up & call some plays like he used to execute in early Mafia years.

[tlf]

MOS went from the most-trick-plays-per-season guy to absolutely-zero-trick-plays in the last 2-3 seasons (maybe more).  You can't really win either way, but you do need to run a couple a season, like TOR did vs us last game.

And you can't say "it's Condell / Younger / Miller not designing tricks" because it's MOS who tells them how many trick plays to scheme & run.  And for years he's said "ZERO".  I'm sure Miller would love to draw up & call some plays like he used to execute in early Mafia years.

Didn't we have Buck back then? I miss him.

[Big Daddy]

I'm not sure I want O'Shea gone. I like O'Shea. He's a good culture guy and he's mostly easy to cheer for.

But at the same time, his coordinator hires have been largely terrible and it's now three straight years of pretty large regression.

I want to be fair but what I am not seeing is any evidence of a self scout, self reflection or making different choices. He needs to go back to being the leader and driver at the helm because that's what it's going to take. It's not ideal, and he's going to dislike it, but we need early career, scrappy O'Shea back now or we need a new head coach.

I agree - I do like O'Shea and the culture he brought here.  I like O'Shea from a few years ago though, more early career like you said.

I had hope that he was doing a bit of accountability/self reflection by not going with the same coordinators this year.  Honestly it was a bit of a surprise that he did bring in Condell for this year - he does seem to be so freakin' stubborn about everything.

I liked his stubborn before, when it was paying off. Loyalty was working with building culture.

So yes, I agree, and I hope he can turn it around. 

As an aside - earlier it was pointed out he said it is hard to teach tackling when there are so few full pad practices.  Well, every team has the same restrictions, so what is everyone else doing better than us in that regard?

[Tecno]

Didn't we have Buck back then? I miss him.

I think the vanilla-ing of the team started after Lapo left.  We were far more creative under Lapo and took more special-teams risks/tricks pre-Lapo.  MOS used to be far more involved in the X/O's when it came to tricks in early Mafia years.  Now, he says he has nothing to do with X/O's for years.

Buck was always more bland and straightforward (as he is in BC now).  He mainly rode the coattails of Lapo's scheme and the league-top team we had built at the time.

[Big Daddy]

I think the vanilla-ing of the team started after Lapo left.  We were far more creative under Lapo and took more special-teams risks/tricks pre-Lapo.  MOS used to be far more involved in the X/O's when it came to tricks in early Mafia years.  Now, he says he has nothing to do with X/O's for years.

Buck was always more bland and straightforward (as he is in BC now).  He mainly rode the coattails of Lapo's scheme and the league-top team we had built at the time.

I may be remembering this wrong, but wasn't LaPo somewhat vanilla as well toward the end of his tenure?  I seem to recall people complaining about him being predictable as well.  I do remember Buck basically continuing what LaPo did before him to pretty good effect, at least early on, but also being fairly predictable.

I think you are right - O'Shea used to be much more involved in the planning and developing trick plays, etc. - he sure likes to say he is not involved in the X's and O's, and leaves it to his coordinators.  That is a bit of a deflection, but not much - he's still ultimately responsible for what they do.  Which is why I am surprised he isn't being more involved like he seemed to be in the past, when everything is going down hill.

Does he honestly believe the team is on the verge of greatness, and it's just a matter of "looking at film" to correct a couple things?  Surely he can't believe that, even if he would say it.

[Jesse]

MOS is a legend and we saw him build a culture from scratch so believers are right that he has that in his wheelhouse. But there seems to be a new version of MOS that gets more conservative with each year that no longer takes risks in game to win or with their team planning.

If MOS is unwilling to make changes - and after this game he had nothing but positive things to say about the defense, because they were always "right there" - then he's no longer the guy we need.

Whoever the coach/management is next year, they need to start the process of finding a new Qb and rebuilding an OL from scratch. It's going to be some lean years against many teams who have their QBs locked in already.

[TrueBlue4]

I did not like the hiring of Condell either but I think Condell's hiring was at least in part due to Collaros's endorsement so even though he doesn't have the final say I think his opinion played a role.

One thing that stands out to me however is we only see the actual play vs what play was called. Most recent example in the TO game when Brown got sacked and Demski missed his block - the original call was a running play that Brown changed based on what he thought the D was doing. All year I've felt Condell doesn't call a good game but it would be interesting to know what he called vs which plays were audibled by the QB.

I'm not impressed with Brown - would have liked to have seen Perkins or Elgersma (personally I think he's our future if you take the handcuffs off of him) play against Montreal.

[Throw Long Bannatyne]

I wonder if it's even possible to win with an immobile QB anymore.  It's not that MTL or EDM are so darn good, it's that their QBs are a threat to escape for an easy 1st down (or big downfield pass on the run) every single snap.  That hamstrings the pass-rushers as they always have to worry about contain.  And the opposite is true when you have Zach & Dru, as no one has to ever worry about contain or the QB escaping up the middle.

That makes our OL look worse than MTL/EDM, even though it's probably not that much worse.  That makes our max-pro blocking look worse than MTL/EDM max pro.  Everything just looks worse.

One correction, Zach used to be a very mobile QB, he was never a pocket passer but in the last 3 years he's become more sedentary and  has become a sitting duck caught flat-footed in the backfield. I don't remember the early days of Kevin Glenn but his later years involved a lot of turtling as he waited too long to get rid of the ball and got snowed under.

Interesting that 4-5 years ago most QB's were fairly immobile and rarely ventured beyond the LOS for safety's sake, now it's almost mandatory that they become a running threat.  Even BLM added a couple of QB sneaks each game when he thought it was safe to do so as it was so unexpected. With Zach's concussion issues this is not a reasonable option, just like Kevin Glenn the game has passed him by.

[Sway]

I wonder if it's even possible to win with an immobile QB anymore.  It's not that MTL or EDM are so darn good, it's that their QBs are a threat to escape for an easy 1st down (or big downfield pass on the run) every single snap.  That hamstrings the pass-rushers as they always have to worry about contain.  And the opposite is true when you have Zach & Dru, as no one has to ever worry about contain or the QB escaping up the middle.

That makes our OL look worse than MTL/EDM, even though it's probably not that much worse.  That makes our max-pro blocking look worse than MTL/EDM max pro.  Everything just looks worse.

Even the magic T.Harris 2025 situation isn't working this season because teams have figured out how to attack even the best short-game in the league.  And SSK doesn't have the best OL anymore, which doesn't help.

So if you're going to roll with a R.Ray / T.Harris / Zach / Dru style completely immobile can't-take-a-hit QB, then it's imperative that in FA you put together the absolute best OL no matter the cost.  Not just the best OL, but the best by a wide margin.  Like SSK had in '25.  Simply adding Broxton but sticking with mediocre Wallace, bringing in mediocre Els, not retiring completely done Stan, and even rolling with aging/slower Neuf is not viable.  We need a line like Brox/Desjar/Dobson/XXX/Yoshi.  (Replace XXX and maybe Yoshi with whoever is younger & hot right now.)

The only other choice is we need to find the next Alexander or Kelly or Rourke.  Or a not-very-good but seems-to-escape-everything oldster like Cody.  We're not going to win in this league with some middle ground great-at-nothing good-at-everything area anymore.  It simply cannot be done.

Yup. Thats why im worried about Elgersma experiment as the heir apparent.

Can he scramble and make plays?

Or is he just a big statue back there who can throw the ball far.

You need to have some sort of escapability factor in this league

[dd]

MOS went from the most-trick-plays-per-season guy to absolutely-zero-trick-plays in the last 2-3 seasons (maybe more).  You can't really win either way, but you do need to run a couple a season, like TOR did vs us last game.

And you can't say "it's Condell / Younger / Miller not designing tricks" because it's MOS who tells them how many trick plays to scheme & run.  And for years he's said "ZERO".  I'm sure Miller would love to draw up & call some plays like he used to execute in early Mafia years.

You're bang on techie. A running Qb gives you so many more options and bails you out of so much trouble that is why I simply don't understand when the game is out of hand like it was in Montreal we don't put Perkins in, let him run a RPO, rollout and create some offense. Cement shoes brown is never going to get it done. Worse case we go 2 and out and how did that differ from what brown was doing?? What did we have 6 first downs the entire game to montreals 40, it was ridiculous but go ahead O'Shea and condell keep running the same crap and heaven forbid we have a athlete who care run play Qb for us!!

[Waffler]

IF we lose vs Calgary and we haven't yet, although it feels like it at the moment, then I would be in favor of Elgersma and Perkins each getting a start in the final two exhibition games. Likely though it's Brown unless he physically can't. It's the way of MOS.

[dd]

IF we lose vs Calgary and we haven't yet, although it feels like it at the moment, then I would be in favor of Elgersma and Perkins each getting a start in the final two exhibition games. Likely though it's Brown unless he physically can't. It's the way of MOS.

Its not an if but a when, we are eliminated from the playoffs, I've seen more than enough of Elgersma and don't want to see anymore, I want to see Perkins. The guy just ran for a 76 yard TD on a sneak, that earns him next up reps, and let him go and see what he can do. But we all know this won't happen, MOS sticks with 'his guy' and since we wasted 2 draft picks on him, we'll crash and burn with Brown, which is a mistake as we'll never know what Perkins can do if he had the opportunity and he was USFL MVP for a reason!!