Tag Archives: Doug Berry

It’s Week 15 in the NFL and it’s Already Crazy.

Posted on December 20, 2009 by Scott Taylor| Leave a comment

It was quite a Saturday night in the NFL.

After three quarters, the Dallas Cowboys held a 24-3 lead over the unbeaten New Orleans Saints, but when you’re trying to get to 14-0, there is usually no give-up in you.

So the Saints put up 14 unanswered in the fourth quarter and were driving for the tying touchdown when the Cowboys brilliant outside linebacker DeMarcus Ware stripped Drew Brees of the football, ending the Saints dream of 16-0.

It was a pretty good football game other than the NFL Network’s coverage of it. Technically, the telecast was weak (the Superdome P.A. announcer was louder than NFL Network play-by-play man Bob Papa) and the commentating was just annoying. In fact, it was another night of football with the mute button on.

It’s great that every NFL game is on television. It’s unfortunate that there aren’t enough quality broadcasters to go around. Matt Millen? Simply grating. Like fingernails on a chalkboard. Why doesn’t the NFL just showcase the home radio crews. I’ll guarantee most of them are easier to listen to than the alleged “national” broadcasters.

More thoughts from a wild and woolly week:

1) On the afternoon that Lyle Bauer announced his resignation as CEO of the Winnipeg Blue Bombers, CJOB radio’s Geoff Currier made the most insightful comment of the day.

“If you look at the record, the most successful Blue Bombers coach during the Lyle Bauer Era was Dave Ritchie,” Currier said. “And Dave Ritchie was the only coach Lyle didn’t hire.”

It’s true. Bauer inherited Ritchie and never much liked him. Bauer did hire Jim Daley, Doug Berry and Mike Kelly, all, in the end failures. Although Kelly has left the Bombers with the best team they’ve had since 2000.

2) CBS Sports is promoting its 2010 PGA Tour golf coverage without using any images of Tiger Woods. Wow! Can’t wait for that showdown in the final round of the FedEx-Accenture-Buick-Ford-Disney Invitational Open World Golf Classic between Jerry Kelly and Zach Johnson.

Thrilling? No, sleep inducing. Pass the remote.

3) Although Mike Babcock has done a terrific job as head coach of the beaten-to-a-pulp Detroit Red Wings this season, there is very little doubt that the coach of the year in the NHL right now, is Nashville Predators boss, Barry Trotz.

Trotz, who came out of Dauphin, Man., to start his coaching career as an assistant at the University of Manitoba, has made the no-name Predators one of the top teams in the NHL this season, In fact, after Saturday night’s 5-3 win over Calgary, the Preds are now 22-11-3, tied with power-house Chicago for first in the Central Division.

While Babcock, who will do a tremendous job as head coach of Canada’s 2010 Olympic team, has kept Detroit in the playoff hunt despite the fact the Wings are currently without top line players’ Dan Cleary, Johan Franzen, Valterri Flippula, Niklas Kronwall, Jason Williams, Jonathan Ericsson, Darren Helm, and now Henrik Zetterberg, what Trotz has done is nothing short of remarkable.

He’s taken a low-budget team of has-beens, never-weres and not-likelys and turned them into one of only six NHL teams with at least 22 wins. He is a brilliant coach and the man Winnipeg would need if the NHL ever returned.

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The Same People Who Called for the Head of Kevin Glenn Now Want Mike Kelly Removed. I Don’t Think I’d Listen.

Posted on November 9, 2009 by Scott Taylor| 1 Comment

The Winnipeg Blue Bombers are not going to the playoffs and now the Bombers, a team that finished 7-11 this season, have officially not won the Grey Cup in 19 years.

Sunday afternoon at Canad Inns Stadium in front of 29,038 loyal  spectators, the Bombers offence just couldn’t get anything going.  Quarterback Michael Bishop went eight-for-26 for only 122 yards, a touchdown and two interceptions and the Bombers fell 39-17 to Kevin Glenn and the Hamilton Tiger-Cats. Bishop was the 2009 winner of the ignominious Two-and-Out Award.

So next week, the Ticats will play host to the B.C. Lions in the Eastern semifinal at Ivor Wynne Stadium while the Bombers will disperse this week, but only a few players will have uncertain futures. For the most part, the rebuilding of the Bombers is done and while there is very little doubt that head coach Mike Kelly will go after depth and a quarterback this off-season.

Yesterday, Kelly spoke with Tom, Joe and The Coach on 92-CITI-FM and made his plans pretty clear.

“Defensively, we’re in good shape,” Kelly said. “Offensively, everybody was in a panic because we were forced to rebuild the O-line because a number of players chose to leave. I never wanted to force anyone to stay here and when players asked me before the season if they could go, I found a way to let them go. No one should play someplace against their will.

“So we rebuilt the offensive line and they really became pretty good by the end of the season. John Murphy (the player personnel guy) and I will go out and try to add some depth there. We have some good young receiver in Adarius Bowman and Titus Ryan and Brock Ralp did a nice job for us this year. We improved there and we have Fred Reid and Yvenson Bernard in the backfield and we’ll go out an add some depth there, as well.”

Kelly never mentioned the quarterback and his silence was deafening.

“We had to rebuild the defensive backfield and I think that’s really turned out well. We have some great young corners and DBs and we’ll look around to add depth there as well. Our young defensive lineman, Phillip Hunt, Odell Willis and Dorian Smith, really developed toward the end of the year and we’re pleased with them. We still need to add some depth and we’ll do that.”

While fans and the local mainstream media — ESPECIALLY the local mainstream media — called for Kelly’s head, it should be noted that those were the exact same people who demanded that Kevin Glenn be run out of town. I’d be surprised if Lyle Bauer makes the same mistake twice.

That’s because this Bomber team is on the right track. Winnipeg fans will always highlight the negative first. Like Philly fans, that’s just the way we are. But when you stop and think about how far this team — as a team, not just as a quarterback — has come, you realize that it’s closer to a championship now than it was in 2008.

To recap:

1) Kelly let all the players who didn’t want to play in Winnipeg go elsewhere. Two of the big shots who left, Joe Smith and Derick Armstrong didn’t find work. The players remaining want to be Blue Bombers.

2) Alexis Serna grew remarkably as a kicker under Kelly’s leadership and after one game handling both the kicking and punting duties, the boss knew that Serna was a kicker, not a multi-tasker.

3) Kelly brought Troy Westwood back and he punted quite well in what might have been his last game. At 42, if Westwood retires, he goes out a hero, not a worthless cog sent to the scrap heap as he was with Doug Berry.

4) Kelly rebuilt the worst defensive secondary in the CFL and made it one of the best. He rebuilt the defensive line and he rebuilt the offensive line. By the end of the season, the Bombers had a number of young star players signed to long term deals. The future is very bright.

5) Kelly didn’t let his ego get in the way of making the Bombers a better football club. When it was clear Stefan Lefors couldn’t get the job done, the coach admitted the mistake and went out and got Michael Bishop. In the end, Bishop let Kelly down (along with 29,000 fans), but despite losing the last two games of the season, at one point, Bishop was 6-6 as a starter. It’s unlikely Bishop will be back. It’s very unlikely he’ll ever play again. But he served a purpose in the short term and Kelly has to be credited with going to Plan B. many coaches wouldn’t.

6) Kelly gave the football team back to the fans. In fact, he had two fans speak to the team last Saturday. The Bombers no longer belong to the local mainstream media and that must really piss them off.

Mike Kelly has his shortcomings. Well, one, anyway.

He refuses to bow down on one knee to the mainstream media and that hurt him to no end. Nasty people with thin skins are pretty hard to trust and for Kelly, he was in big, big trouble the day he refused to answer the same question a different way after that question was asked eight times.

The reality is this: the less Mike Kelly says, the better.

In the meantime, the Bombers future is brighter than it has been in a long while. That is, if Kelly and Murphy and Bauer can find a quarterback. As Paul Robosn said after he was fired in Ottawa, “If you can’t find a guy who can fling it, you don’t have a chance.”

Sunday, when Bishop spent the second half going two-and-out, time after time, it was clear the Bombers had no one who could fling it.

If Kelly and Co. can find the guy, this will be a very good football team.

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Another Wild Week in The Mainstream Media Circus. And it’s Only Wednesday.

Posted on November 4, 2009 by Scott Taylor| 1 Comment

It never fails to amaze, that ol’ Mainstream Media Circus. Is it because papers are folding left and right, layoffs are always imminent and changes are coming at people very rapidly, that the “journalist” of today needs to write about meaningless, stupid, personal, hateful crap to sell the product?

Where did actual reporting go? Don’t sport sections break stories  anymore or is that now reserved for websites and blogs like this one or hotdoghockey.com and the websites of the individual teams and leagues. There seems to be more news coming off message boards (How you doing, U of M Bisons?) than out of newspapers these days.

Anyway, let’s look at what’s transpired this week. And have a few laughs.

1) Here’s this week’s trade rumour report – rumours that NEVER seem to come to fruition – courtesy of Trade Rumour Central, the Midnight News of the World. Or, rather, the Ottawa Sun.

The Ottawa Sun now claims that the New York Rangers are trying to trade Christopher Higgins, the Anaheim Ducks are trying to trade Todd Marchant, the Leafs are trying to trade Jason Blake and I love this one: Because the Chicago Blackhawks have a limited amount of cap space, they’re looking to trade Jonathan Toews and/or Patrick Kane.

Yeah, right. And I’m playing point guard for the New York freakin’ Knicks.

These aren’t rumours. These are festering piles of manufactured crapola.

2) Mike Kelly gets smarter every day. And maybe he doesn’t even know it. The Winnipeg media has been obsessed by Kelly’s radio outburst after Sunday’s 48-13 loss in Montreal. If you believe the local hacks, Kelly is bad for football in this town and while it’s nice that he’s giving people who already don’t go to the games an apparently valid excuse to continue not going, he has done something that the last coach of this team would never, ever do.

Kelly has decided that when his team loses, he’s going to take responsibility. What a novel idea. The last guy, Doug (It’s not my job) Berry, would throw half-a-dozen players under the bus before he’d even hint that maybe he didn’t do everything humanly possible to have his team ready to play. In fairness, Berry was often criticized for that approach.

Now, when the local fishwraps get a guy who takes ALL the responsibility, it makes them crazy. “He’s rude,” they cry.

Yep, he’s rude. He’s also taken the spotlight away from a horrible effort in Montreal and taken all the heat himself. Football needs more Mike Kellys, not fewer.

3) Speaking of Kelly, the most interesting suggestion made by the media during the past few weeks is that people have decided NOT to go to Blue Bomber games because those people don’t like the coach. Apparently, since the beginning of the 2009 season, Winnipeg football fans, care only about the coach. The colour of the uniforms and the people wearing those uniforms, no longer matter.

Spare me that crap. People don’t want to go to Blue Bomber games because (a) the parking is lousy, (b) the stadium is a broken-down dump, (c) the post-game traffic is a mess (d) the tickets are a tad expensive and (e) the game is on TSN HD. A growing number of real sports fans in Winnipeg get TSN HD and that means they get every Bomber home game in their living rooms with a great picture and replays and they don’t have to worry about bad parking, warm beer and a rotting stadium.

Get a grip boys. If owners actually believed that people suddenly started buying football tickets to watch coaches, those owners would immediately hire Jessica Biel, Kaley Cuoco, Jennifer Garner and Kate Beckinsale… as coaches.

4) Thanks to cable TV and talk radio, the poor old United States media is slowly but surely becoming a dumping ground for the lunatic fringe. The far-right religious nutters who scream at the tea parties, don’t know where their Medicare comes from, support the Constitution- and Bill of Rights-destroying Patriot Act, think all Latino-Americans are illegals and truly believe their African-American president was, somehow, born in Africa, now have a new hero to go with Glenn Beck and Lou Dobbs.

His name is Darren Rovell, another mainstream media hack who wrote that Meb Keflezighi, the American-citizen who won the New York City Marathon wasn’t really an American.

This mainstream media knucklehead wrote: “Meb Keflezighi is technically American by virtue of him becoming a citizen in 1998, but the fact that he’s not American-born takes away from the magnitude of the achievement.” Huh?

“Nothing against Keflezighi,” Rovell blurted, “but he’s like a ringer you hire to work a couple of hours at your office so that you can win the executive softball league.”

How do people like Rovell get work? And where did the mainstream media’s editors go? Technically American? Keflezighi chose to be an American. Guess he didn’t realize that 11 years after he became a citizen the “birthers” would come along and anyone in America who didn’t have a WASPy name and wasn’t born in Kansas or Indiana was to be considered as foreign as that Barack Hussein Obama guy.

As the Huffington Post’s Henry Blodgett wrote: “…this is seriously disturbing. It’s also probably racist. Would Rovell be saying the same thing if Arnold Schwarzenegger had won the marathon?”

If Rovell had been another far-to-the-right-of-Genghis-Khan nutbag blogger, you’d just laugh, but this was CNBC. Allegedly the big time, with the big money, and the big credibility.

Sad, but like a growing sea of insanity, the mainstream media, on both sides of the border, is becoming as nutty as a fruitcake.

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Bombers Lose Heartbreaker, Add Westwood to Roster

Posted on October 19, 2009 by Scott Taylor| Leave a comment

The Winnipeg Blue Bombers lost a 24-21 heartbreaker to the B.C. Lions on Sunday, but sadly, it was a heartbreaker of the Bombers own making. Once again, turnovers killed Winnipeg.

Michael Bishop went 13 for 32 – just awful – with one touchdown and three interceptions. He also lost a fumble. Four turnovers means one big loss. Bishop must learn to protect the football.

With two games coming up against Montreal, turnovers will end the playoff dream. The Bombers have a very good football team, but as soon as they start turning over the football, everything unravels.

Meanwhile, I just love how the largest local newspaper has now decided that Mike Kelly has had nothing to do with the resurgence of the suddenly solid 6-9 Winnipeg Blue Bombers and all the credit should go to Kelly’s pal, Manny Matsakis.

Cut the crap. Kelly has re-built the Blue Bombers and the fact the he hired Matsakis to work with Michael Bishop, and hopefully make Bishop better, is just another example of Kelly’s coaching prowess. The Bombers lost a heartbreaker on Sunday, but Kelly is still proving just how great a coach he is.

The Bombers will win one of two games against Montreal and finish up the season with a win over Hamilton. They will make the playoffs. And in the playoffs, as we all know, anything can happen.

I mean, what the hell, the Bombers have brought back Troy Westwood. Anything can happen.

Dumped by Doug Berry because Berry didn’t like Westwood’s haircut, or something like that, Kelly called Westwood on Monday, hoping to get a little help with the punting game. With a season-ending injury to Mike Renaud, Kelly needed a legitimate punter and who better than a full-time radio announcer who sings aboriginal country music in his spare time.

“This is not a condemnation at all of anything that Alexis Serna did (Sunday),” Kelly said on Monday. “I thought he did a fine job for us. But we also played a Canadian down and this gives us an opportunity to bring Troy in on the practice roster and take a look to see how he can do. If in fact, we feel he can help us, then we will activate him.”

Westwood, now 42, will punt on Saturday against Montreal.

“Someone asked me early in the day on Sunday about coming back to punt and I said there is absolutely no hope whatsoever of that,” he said. “So, I just about fell over when I checked my phone at the movie theatre. I was very surprised and I have more or less been trying to contain and control my emotions since that time.”

Westwood will wear No. 74 on Saturday. He spent 17 seasons with the Bombers before being released, in a nasty, personal move by Berry during training camp last June. In his first stint with the club, he played 278 games. He holds more than 35 club records and is the team’s all-time leading scorer with 2,741 points.

The Winnipeg Blue Bombers took a bold step into the past simply by calling Westwood. Frankly, it was a terrific decision by head coach Mike Kelly. This allows Alexis Serna to concentrate on his kicking duties and leaves Westwood, one of the best punters into the Canad Inns Stadium wind, to handle the important punting duties. It also shows that the Doug Berry Era is long gone and the Bombers are looking to rebuild their future by embracing their past.

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Bombers fire Coach Berry. No surprise there.

Posted on November 12, 2008 by Scott Taylor| 1 Comment

The Winnipeg Blue Bombers have fired head coach Doug Berry. And they did it despite the fact he was in the first year of a new three-year deal. Good for Bomber CEO Lyle Bauer.

 

Berry has been the Bombers head coach since 2006 and while the team has reached the post-season in all three years, they simply aren’t getting better. They have an offence that struggles and they aren’t fun to watch.

 

After finishing 8-10 this season and after losing the Eastern Conference Semifinal, 29-21, at home to Edmonton, there was nothing else Bauer could do. Berry had to go.

 

So who could possibly be surprised? The fact is, Since training camp, this day was inevitable.

 

that’s because a week into training camp, Berry cut Troy Westwood for no good reason — and with no legitimate replacement — and that was the end. Nothing good was going to come of that decision because it was purely personal and not in any way professional.

 

Remember, this was a club had brought in nine kickers and four punters over the previous two seasons in an effort to find a replacement for Westwood and yet the weightlifter, ex-pro boxer and still successful singer and songwriter, had beaten out every one of them to keep his job. 

 

Still, Berry said early in camp that since last year’s Grey Cup, he thought Westwood had lost some leg strength. That comment planted the seed that eventually started a daily circus involving the kickers and ultimately led to a decision to dump Westwood and go with an unproven import named Alexis Serna. Serna was awful — he could barely punt, especially in a wind, and was a marginal field-goal kicker.

 

However, Serna wasn’t Westwood and that was all that mattered to  Berry.

 

Sadly, Berry tried to mask his decision by coming up with legitimate reasons for Westwood’s dismissal, but not a word passed the sniff test. Shortly after Berry talked nicely about his relationship with Westwood, the 41-year-old kicker went off.

 

“Just because words are spoken doesn’t mean they are truthful or from the heart,” Westwood said. “Last year I lost my job. When I got it back, I averaged 48.6 yards in 39 punts and went eight-for-nine in field goals down the stretch to the Grey Cup. 

 

“I can’t say that I’m surprised with what’s happened, but I don’t feel I was beaten out for this spot. I feel really good about my punting. There was no doubt that I was the best punter in camp.”

 

From that day forward, Berry’s fate was sealed. He had lost his locker room before the season started and as the campaign progressed, the situation got worse, not better.

 

After the team fell to 0-3 early back in July, everything publicly unravelled. I wrote the following in the National Post…

 

It started with kind of an innocuous comment a week ago, after return-man Fred Reid, ran a punt out of the end zone that was probably best left as a single point.   

 

Head coach Doug Berry said, “Reid has the green light to do whatever he wants on returns,” but his teammates said in that situation, Reid looks to the sidelines to get a wave from the coaches. The wave was clear, Reid saw it and ran the ball out to the four-yard-line. Eventually, a safety was conceded and the Argos got good field position on the ensuing kick. This past week, Berry was looking at different returners and some of Reid’s teammates got all grumbly.

 

Then, last Monday, Berry dumped all over his long-snapper, Chris Cvetkovic because Berry’s hand-selected kicker/punter, Alexis Serna, dropped his second snap in two weeks – and both times it cost the Bombers a touchdown.

 

Berry however, told the local scribes that Cvetkovic was hired “to do one job,” and he has to “get it right.” The snap should be “between the waist and the shoulders,” and then let Serna off the hook.

 

Some veterans were displeased. Last year, when Cvetkovic was hurt, the Bombers struggled to replace him. In the end, they didn’t. It’s one of the toughest jobs in football and Cvetkovic’s “bad snap” was actually helmet-high to a kicker who is smaller than a Hobbit. Serna simply dropped the ball – for the second week in a row – and we now have the Curse of Troy Westwood.

 

Berry is a newspaper person’s delight. He’ll say all sorts of things. Mostly, he’ll just randomly – and publicly — dump on his players and obviously people with tape recorders love that. When the team is winning, most players just laugh at that stuff, but when a good team is 0-2 – now 0-3 — that kind of talk makes for a nasty atmosphere in the locker room.  

 

After last Friday night’s humiliating loss, Berry went off again, saying he’s not sure he has 42 guys who are “willing to compete, willing to play hard, willing to be the best.” 

 

He might be right about that. One wonders, however, if he knows the reason why.

 

By that point, I knew Berry had to get this team to the Grey Cup or his job was toast. However, little did any of us realize that at mid-season, GM Brendan Taman would re-build a 2-8 football team and make them a 6-2 force down the stretch.

 

However, as good as they’d become, they were beaten quite badly by the Eskimos in the Eastern semifinal as the Bombers offence struggled mightily. That was it. You knew Berry was done.

 

So on Wednesday, CEO Lyle Bauer pulled the plug. It was the right thing to do at the right time. the Bombers have a pretty solid core of players. Now the right coach can take them to where they should be.

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Big changes on the way for Big Blue

Posted on November 9, 2008 by Scott Taylor| Leave a comment

It was all about the wind. And despite a week of guaranteed bluster, the Winnipeg Blue Bombers’ hopes for a 2008 Grey Cup appearance were blown right out of Canad Inns Stadium.

Blasting out of the north end zone at 30 kilometres per hour, accompanied by a deep grey sky and a bitter cold bite, a particularly nasty November prairie wind declared that the team with the ability to handle its gusts and subtle directional changes would get its ticket punched to the Eastern final. The Edmonton Eskimos got the job done, the Winnipeg Blue Bombers did not.

The Eskimos took full advantage of their time with the wind while Winnipeg, playing on its own frozen field, couldn’t muster enough offence with the wind at its back to win the Eastern semifinal. With 18 points in the second quarter and eight more in the third, the Eskimos put enough on the board to record a 29-21 victory. The Bombers, who had the wind in the first and fourth, put up only 14 points with the advantage. That wasn’t enough, even with a franchise-record 93-yard punt return from Jason Armstead — against the breeze.

For their efforts, the Eskimos became the CFL’s first last-place Western Conference team to win a crossover playoff and they also earned themselves a trip to Montreal for next weekend’s Eastern final.

However, while the Eskimos celebrated, the Blue Bombers sat quietly in their dressing room wondering what had happened.

“The wind was definitely a factor and if the offence can’t score with the wind at its back, there wasn’t a lot more the defence could do,” said Bombers defensive end Jerome Haywood. “You have to generate offence with the wind at your back. If you don’t, you aren’t going to win in those conditions.”

It was a bitter pill for the Bombers to swallow, especially after GM Brendan Taman had rebuilt the team at mid-season and turned a 2-8 mess into a solid 6-2 playoff contender down the stretch.

Still, on Saturday, the Bombers problems were obvious. 

The running game could have carried Winnipeg, even with the wind at its back, but head coach Doug Berry and offensive co-ordinator Kit Cartwright appeared to abandon the run just when Fred Reid and Joe Smith were gearing up.

The passing game was dreadful. Quarterback Kevin Glenn went 15-for-34 for 233 yards, a touchdown and an interception. The touchdown came early in the first quarter – a 78-yard bomb to Romby Bryant. Eliminate that one play and Glenn was 14-for-33 for 155 yards and a pick.

“We just didn’t get the job done on offence,” admitted wideout Arjei Franklin. “The guys played hard, but we didn’t take advantage of the wind. We didn’t do what we had to do.”

Sitting in his usual spot in the northeast corner of the locker room, Milt Stegall – who had five catches for 56 yards – didn’t want to think about next week, let alone next season. The 38-year-old lock for the Hall of Fame, and the man who had guaranteed a Bomber win as long as there was a sellout, got neither. At the end, he had no desire to discuss his future.

“I haven’t made a decision and I won’t make a decision for awhile,” he said. “To be honest, I haven’t even thought about it.”

This off-season, the Bomber brass has to make a lot of decisions. Stegall will likely call it a career and veteran players such as Matt Sheridan, Barrin Simpson and Jamie Stoddard have likely played their final games in Winnipeg.

In the meantime, will Glenn, who did not have a particularly good season, be in coach Berry’s plans and will Cartwright return in 2009? The Bombers offence struggled mightily and, no doubt, big changes will be made.

The Bomber team that lost on Saturday will look considerably different in 2009. However, like the outcome of Saturday’s Eastern semifinal, how it will look is written on the wind.  

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CFL Picks: It’s semifinal weekend and we love the Bombers and Riders…

Posted on November 8, 2008 by Scott Taylor| Leave a comment

Granted, weather has a lot to do with our selections this week.

 

Here in Winnipeg, it’s absolutely dreadful. We had snow on Thursday, it stayed on Friday and it’s coming back on Saturday. A weather warning has been issued and at 7 a.m. it screamed “high winds and freezing rain.”

 

Ahhhh, what a great day for football.

 

In Regina, the 7 a.m. forecast predicted low clouds and cold, cold, cold. Perhaps minus-13 by game time.

 

It’s time for the runningbacks to take their rightful positions at the top of football’s food chain…

 

Let’s take a closer look…

 

EASTERN SEMIFINAL

Edmonton Eskimos (10-8) at Winnipeg Blue Bombers (8-10)

12 Noon, CST, TSN

 

This is when the CFL’s crossover playoff becomes silly. An 8-10 team gets homefield advantage against a 10-8 team. It’s time to reward to good football and cut out this East vs. West charade. Perhaps, next season, the CFL’s tall foreheads will come to their senses. As it is, however, the Winnipeg Blue Bombers will play host to the Edmonton Eskimos in the crossover Eastern semifinal at Canad Inns Stadium and, amazingly, the 8-10 Bombers are 2 ½-point favourites. More than 26,000 tickets have been sold for the game, a game that Milt Stegall guaranteed the Bombers would win if Winnipeg sold 30,000 tickets and sold out the ballyard. It doesn’t look good. The two teams split the season series, but the Bombers won here in Winnipeg and they were the hottest team in the CFL in the last two months, going 6-2 down the stretch. If head coach Doug Berry does nothing but run “Thunder and Lightning,” Joe Smith and Fred Reid, the Bombers win by two touchdowns. The banged up Bomber defence is almost 100 per cent healthy this week and it will shut down Ricky Ray. The winner heads to Montreal for the Eastern final next week

 

Pick: Winnipeg

 

WESTERN SEMIFINAL

B.C. Lions (11-7) at Saskatchewan Roughriders (12-6)

3:30 p.m., CST, TSN

 

During the season, this series belonged to B.C. The Lions won the only game in Regina, 27-21 on Sept. 20, and then they split in Vancouver: Saskatchewan won 26-16 on July 4, when the Riders were healthy and red-hot and then lost 28-23 to the Lions on Sept. 13, when they had 19 players on the injured list. This week, Saskatchewan is healthy again and they’re coming off three straight high-scoring wins over Hamilton, Edmonton and Toronto. B.C., meanwhile, is heading south. The Lions lost 41-30 to Calgary in a game they had to win to play host to Saturday’s semifinal and they’re 2-2 in their last four. B.C. is a passing team (RB Charles Roberts is out for the season) and a windy, cloudy day in Regina, won’t help an indoor team with a passing offence. The winner heads to Calgary for the Western final next week. 

 

Pick: Saskatchewan

 

Last Week: 4-0

Season: 45-19

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A week of CFL shake-ups: Matthews back, Taafe gone and the Bombers acquire Zeke Moreno for virtually nothing. What does Hamilton know that Winnipeg doesn’t?

Posted on September 10, 2008 by Scott Taylor| Comments Off

Let’s start with our list:

 

1. In Toronto, the Argos fired Rich Stubler, the head coach of a struggling 4-6 team — a 4-6 team that should be better — and replaced him with 69-year-old Don Matthews. Not quite as old as Cliff Fletcher, but much older than Cito Gaston. No wonder all the teams in Toronto wear blue uniforms. The owners just rummage around in a big blue box and come up with anything recyclable (Hey, is Isiah Thomas coming back to the Raptors?).

 

2. The 2-8 Hamilton Tiger-Cats fired head coach Charlie Taafe (2-8 this season and 5-23 over a season and a bit) and no one argued in the least. Not even a peep. Taafe is replaced by offensive co-ordinator Marcel Bellefeuille.

 

3. The 2-8 Bombers signed 28-year-old import defensive end/outside linebacker Kai Ellis, a recent cut of the Montreal Alouettes. With Joe Lobendahn and Ike Charlton nursing injuries, Ellis will start on Friday in Toronto. 

 

4. The on-going carnival in Winnipeg continued to sell out, but this week it got really crazy — again. After blowing a 31-14 lead with 11 minutes to play, the Bombers lost 34-31 to Saskatchewan in front of a sold-out crowd in the fifth annual Canwest Banjo Bowl on Sunday. You can bet head coach Doug Berry wasn’t going to take the blame for that mess, so he started the week by throwing safety Ian Logan under the bus. In the end, however, he didn’t trade or bench Logan. Instead, he traded defensive end, Tom Canada, one of the city’s most popular players, to Hamilton in exchange for the league’s leading tackler Zeke Moreno (Remember, River City Sports can provide you with a brand new Zeke Moreno jersey at any of its Winnipeg locations).

 

Starts out, Canada isn’t going to report to Hamilton, but he goes for his physical anyway, and finds out he has an enlarged spleen, After a trip to the hospital, he’s put on the nine-game injured reserve list and is out for the season. Still, Bombers GM Brendan Taman is able to finish the deal with 2-8 Hamilton, getting Moreno and a conditional draft pick in exchange for the Bombers first overall pick in the 2009 CFL draft plus the rights to their No. 1 pick in 2007, offensive lineman Corey Mace, who is on the practice roster of the Buffalo Bills. In the end, the Bombers didn’t have to move Tom Canada, but what do the Tiger-Cats know about Moreno that Winnipeg doesn’t? Did Ticats GM Bob O’Billovich get fleeced or has Moreno lost a step? Guess we won’t know until Moreno starts on Friday night in place of the injured Joe Lobendahn against the 4-6 Argos in Toronto. 

 

Meanwhile, Canada is a happy guy even though he spent time in the hospital with an enlarged spleen and will be on injured reserve for the rest of the year. Canada’s happy because he wasn’t traded to Hamilton this week. And that might be OK for awhile, but he’s still finished as a Blue Bomber, at least under Doug Berry’s watch. Fact is, Canada was shopped around to the entire league. Berry doesn’t want him and even though he’s on the injured list for the rest of the season, Canada is only a Bomber because he was too physically damaged to be traded (ules of course, Berry is gone before next spring’s training camp).

 

I have my own opinions on this mess and you can probably detect a little sarcasm in my usually objective accounting of events, so I thought I’d share some e-mails from Bomber fans(?) I received this week:

 

Scott,

 

Here is the skinny. You are (CEO) Lyle Bauer’s boss. That ‘group’….You go to him and say this is what happens today. Berry gets released. Bob Cameron is named as head coach for the balance of the season. Troy Westwood will be the punter for the remainder of the season. Lyle balks at the idea. You give Lyle a fat lip and fire his ass. I tell you what, Bob Cameron is the cure. How long was he on the side lines? How many coaches listened to his ideas? Henry Rosolowski, Winnipeg

Scott,

Incredible. No wonder the Bombers are in disarray! Who is letting this idiot Taman run the club into the ground!  YOU DON’T TRADE TWO NUMBER ONE DRAFT PICKS AWAY UNLESS YOU ARE GETTING THE SECOND COMING OF JOE MONTANA!  

 

The season is lost and even if by some miraculous event they did make the playoffs, how far do you think this team is going to go?  TIME TO BUILD FOR THE FUTURE, NOT NOW!  

 

If and when 2007 first round pick Corey Mace does come to the CFL, the kid is going to be an impact player! The inept Bombers have the best chance right now to have the #1 draft pick next season. Do you know what kind of stud they could draft to go along with excellent rookie Labatt on the O-Line, which is a must in the CFL!  You need the big talented Canadian kids to build your O-Line. And simple football 101 states that if you have no O-Line you have nothing!  

 

Or at least you could draft the best Canadian kid in the country for that porous D-Backfield which, lord knows, under Taman has been the worst secondary in CFL history! You only make a trade like this if you have a bonafide chance to win the Grey Cup. Other than that YOU KEEP YOUR DRAFT PICKS AND FUTURE TALENT! No wonder they have not won a Grey Cup in 18 years and now sit last in the league!

 

Ted Arichteff, Winnipeg

 

(Wow! A lot of capital letters)

 

Scott,

 

Thank you for a great report this morning (on 92-CITI-FM). Honestly I’m not a CFL fan, unfortunately I’m a Dolphin fan (yes they are brutal), but my true love is NCAA football. 

I’m a huge Gator fan and watching them dismantle Hawaii a few weekends ago was a joy. The Bombers have two WAC QBs (Dinwiddie and Chang) and that is a joke. The WAC is a poor conference and the Bombers seem to think these two QBs from there are s-o-o-o good. 

You are 100 per cent right. Drop all these bozos and let (Bryan) Randall play. I watched him at Virginia Tech and he is one hell of a QB! Why don’t the Bombers make a deal with Montreal for Chris Leak. He’s on the inactive roster. I watched him and the Gators take apart Ohio State.I don’t even listen to classic rock but I listen to you guys every morning.

Derek Capri, Winnipeg

The great thing about the Bombers is that EVERYONE (speaking of capital letters) has an opinion. And when they’re 2-8, most of those opinions are not flattering.

 

Friday night, Winnipeg plays in Toronto. The Argos are only four points ahead of the Bombers in the race for second place in the Eastern Conference. If Zeke Moreno and Joe Smith and Kai Ellis and all the big names can get it done, this Bomber team can make the playoffs. If they don’t, it’s time to look at a real, legitimate shake-up.

 

Meanwhile, win or lose, the Bombers will look great in their new retro jerseys supplied by, you guessed it, River City Sports. 

 

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It’s Week 11 in the CFL. Time to take this Weekly Picks thing seriously again.

Posted on September 5, 2008 by Scott Taylor| 1 Comment

Last week, we threw all of our theories out the window and, as a result, we burned big time for that one bad decision.

 

Taking Winnipeg to win the Labour Day Classic in Regina was a dreadful mistake. It reminded me of the last time I ran into the old Bomber coach, Jeff Reinebold. It was at the last Super Bowl in Tampa and Jeff walked up to me with a big smile on his face and said: “T.J. Rubley!???!! Scotty, what was I thinking?”

 

Reinebold’s deadly choice of quarterback in Winnipeg didn’t quite equal my stupid choice of the Bombers in the Labour Day Classic, but it was a dumb mistake, nonetheless. The Bombers simply don’t win the Labour Day Classic in Regina. Someday, I’ll learn. 

 

Of course, that doesn’t mean the Bombers can’t win the re-match at home and we’ll talk about that in a second, but first, what a week in the CFL.

 

In Winnipeg, the Bombers traded Charles Roberts in an ugly divorce. It started out ugly when most fans (a truly vast majority of fans) vented to the local newspapers over the trade — Roberts to B.C. for I-travel-to-the-beat-of-my-own-drummer Joe Smith — that it might have been the worst deal in Bomber history, but it got even uglier when Roberts filed a little missive on ourbombers.com which read, in part: “The natural reaction for me would be to be enraged, and ordinarily I would have been considering what I have done for that organization. I am not, however, because of the events leading up to the trade. (Bombers GM) Brendan (Taman) called me into his office about eight o’clock Monday night and, as I got to the stadium, Doug Berry and I pulled into the stadium parking lot at the same time. Once he figured out it was me, he mysteriously pulled out of the parking lot and disappeared. For a man to have publicly claimed that the reason for trading me is because I had lost a step, how come he couldn’t face me? How come he ran off like a coward instead of facing me man-to-man and telling me what he felt?”

 

What a mess. On Friday morning, Smith stiffed a Winnipeg radio show and won a few more fans. He’ll need a good day on Sunday to win over the masses.

 

Meanwhile, Roberts was dealt 13 yards shy of the 10,000 mark which is something that says as much about the state of the Bombers franchise as it does about the trade itself. 

 

In Calgary, the Stamps were licking their wounds after getting drilled by Edmonton at home in Alberta’s version of the Labour Day Classic, but they were even more worried when they learned quarterback Dave Dickenson would be gone for the season with post-concussion syndrome.

 

In Toronto, the Argos revealed that they were in negotiations for former Saskatchewan Roughriders runningback Kenton Keith who was released by the NFL’s Indianapolis Colts last week, a nod to the fact their running game is one of the weakest in the league.

 

And in Saskatchewan, they were working with and hoping for quarterback Michael Bishop, a young man who won his opener as the Riders QB, 19-6 over Winnipeg, but looked horrible doing it.

 

This will be a very interesting week. 

 

Calgary Stampeders (5-4) at Edmonton Eskimos (6-3)

 

Friday, 8 p.m. CT, TSN

 

It’s hard to imagine the Eskimos are going to let the Stamps off the hook after drilling them 37-16 last week in Calgary. Ricky Ray went 26-for-38 for 376 yards and three touchdowns and his offensive line gave him, at times, what seemed like hours, to throw the football. You just have to love Edmonton, with ease, in the re-match. In fact, another performance like last week’s in Calgary and the Eskimos might just grab the mantle as “Best Team in the CFL.” Then again, if ol’ Brain Fart Burris avoids his inevitable brain farts, the Stampeders have enough offence to beat Edmonton. Even on the road.

 

Pick: Edmonton

B.C. Lions (4-5) at Hamilton Tiger-Cats (2-7)

Saturday, 3 p.m. CT, TSN

The Lions should have beaten Montreal on the road last week, but came up short three times at the one. That won’t happen again this week. Especially with Charles Roberts alongside Stefan Logan in the Lions backfield. I would normally take Hamilton — yes, lowly Hamilton — at home against a 4-5 B.C. team, but the way the Lions played last week suggests they are, indeed, better than their record indicates. As well, they’re a good Western team playing a last-place Eastern team and, as a result, should win handily. With a victory, the Lions will bury Hamilton and could pull three full games ahead the two Eastern cellar-dwellers, should Winnipeg implode on Sunday.

Pick: Winnipeg

Toronto Argonauts (4-5) at Montreal Alouettes (6-3)

Sunday, Noon CT, TSN

This one is a no-doubter. Anthony Calvillo, Avon Cobourne, great defence… Montreal by three touchdowns.

 

Pick: Montreal

Saskatchewan Roughriders (7-2) at Winnipeg Blue Bombers (2-7)

Sunday, 2 p.m. CT, TSN

On paper, and after watching last week’s game in Regina, it’s hard to imagine that the Winnipeg Blue Bombers have a chance against those same Saskatchewan Roughriders in Winnipeg this week. But the key is, “it’s in Winnipeg this week.” Home teams win a lot of games in this league and in Winnipeg’s case, the Bombers are 2-3 at home and 0-4 on the road this season. Is Winnipeg good enough? Probably not. But Winnipeg IS at home and it IS the Banjo Bowl and more often than not, in the CFL, emotion can carry a team a long way. So although the Bombers might not be good enough to win, they can find a way to win. And besides, if they don’t win this week, they can write off the playoffs and they’ll all know exactly what they’re made of.

 

Pick: Winnipeg

Last Week: 1-3

Season: 19-9

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Roberts traded for a guy who doesn’t like football. 2-7 remains everybody’s fault but the coach’s.

Posted on September 2, 2008 by Scott Taylor| Comments Off

One of the greatest players in the history of the Winnipeg Blue Bombers, a guy who was only 13 yards shy of becoming just the fifth player in CFL history to rush for 10,000 yards in a career, has been traded to B.C. for a guy who missed a practice this season because he was gardening.

 

Well, he sure won’t like the gardening weather in September in the ‘Peg.

 

The Winnipeg Blue Bombers have traded runningback Charles Roberts to the B.C. Lions in exchange for occasional runningback Joe Smith. Smith was the 2007 CFL rushing champion, but he’s had a horrible 2008 campaign. H’s been slowed by a rotator cuff injury and has told the media in Vancouver that he really doesn’t like football all that much. It’s sort of, something he does.

 

Smith lost favour with Wally Buono this season when he missed a practice and told reporters — and his coach — he was working in his garden. Guess he lost all track of time. 

 

The Lions have been trying to move Smith for weeks and on Monday they found the sucker born every minute.

 

In the meantime, Roberts leads Smith in every rushing category except fumbles.

 

Of course, in fairness, Smith won’t get the ball much in Winnipeg anyway. On a team that doesn’t run-block very well, Smith won’t have to carry the load. Last week, Roberts got the ball only 13 times against the best defence in the CFL. There were no holes, so the run was once again abandoned. Charlie finished with 48 yards as Saskatchewan beat Winnipeg 19-6 in one of the worst CFL games ever played. When a team doesn’t bother with a running game, the defence knows it’s going to pass. The Riders knew exactly what Kevin Glenn was going to do last Sunday and it certainly showed.

 

So in order to make a change, head coach Doug Berry and GM Brendan Taman dealt away the Bombers’ history and tradition. It happens in sport, but Charles Roberts should have retired a Blue Bomber. He should have at least reached 10,000 yards as a Blue Bomber. This is a team that has lost all sense of its own history.

 

At 2-7 Winnipeg still has a shot at the playoffs. That’s a sad commentary on the CFL, not the Bombers.

 

So what the heck. Maybe, by bringing in Joe Smith, it might force Berry and his genius coaching staff to run the football. Couldn’t hurt.   

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