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Taman finished with Big Blue. Will appear with Tom & Joe on 92-CITI-FM on Thursday morning.

Posted on January 13, 2009 by Scott Taylor| Leave a comment

Winnipeg Blue Bombers vice president of player personnel, Brendan Taman, has decided he’s done. At least, for now.

Last week, Taman visited with Bombers president and CEO Lyle Bauer and after what Bauer termed “a lot of frank discussion,” Taman decided he’d had enough of football.

 

On Tuesday, it was made official, Taman had resigned from his post with the Blue Bombers.

 

Taman had been with the Bombers for 10 years. He had been assistant GM under Dave Ritchie and general manager for the past five seasons, but at the end of 2008, he was moved laterally into a player personnel job and found he didn’t like the work.

 

“We’ve always been close, always been friends, but in the last little while, it’s been apparent to me that Brendan had lost interest in the work,” Bauer said. “We never believed that when Mike (Kelly) came in, Brendan’s move was a demotion. But Brendan didn’t seem to like the NCAA scouting that was required and decided he just didn’t want to do this anymore.

 

“I respect his decision. Life’s too short to be unhappy.”

 

Bauer, who spoke highly of Taman and his accomplishments, left the door open for the Saskatchewan product to rejoin the team in a consultant’s capacity. Bauer even acknowledged there was a chance that could happen. 

 

In a written statement, the Bombers listed some of Taman’s most impressive accomplishments:

 

-         Since 1999, 41 Blue Bomber players have been named CFL all-stars, including six players last season.

-         Two Blue Bombers have been named the CFL’s Most Outstanding Player. (Jones in 2001, Stegall in 2002)

-         Signed two winners and one finalist of the CFL Rookie of the Year Award including Gavin Walls (winner in 2005), Charles Roberts (finalist in 2001), and Albert Johnson (winner in 2000).

-         Signed two winners of the CFL’s Outstanding Special Teams Award. (Johnson in 2001, Stokes in 2004)

-         Brought several impact players to Winnipeg including Charles Roberts, Gavin Walls, Tom Canada, and Dan Goodspeed. Through trades, Taman has brought Doug Brown, Khari Jones, Kevin Glenn, and most recently Zeke Moreno to Winnipeg.

 

“We will move ahead as fast as we can to replace Brendan,” Bauer said. “Most of our scouting, our contracts and our free agent situation is all up to date so we’re not behind by any means. We’re in real good shape with Mike (Kelly) on board. I’m going to the Sr. Bowl on Monday morning, so we’re all getting right to work.”

 

No one can be certain how this will affect the Blue Bombers down the road, but based on Bauer’s tone yesterday, it’s apparent it won’t be easy replacing a guy who has become a pretty good judge of talent and value and a terrific trader. 

 

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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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After the latest mess in Toronto, the Winnipeg Blue Bombers are getting closer to requiring a new head coach.

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

After Friday night’s game at Rogers Centre in Toronto, Winnipeg Blue Bombers head coach Doug Berry told reporters: “If you’ve got any good ideas, I’ll listen to you.”

 

No he won’t.

 

People around town have been giving Doug Berry advice for weeks and while he seems to be listening to some of it, he isn’t listening to the good stuff. 

 

Oh, sure, he listened to people who have never played a down of football in their lives and yet were thrilled that Troy Westwood was publicly humiliated. And he listened to the whining masses who wanted Kevin Glenn removed and then chirped like The Joker when Ryan Dinwiddie’s lame ducks found their intended targets against Calgary’s rotten defensive secondary a week ago.

 

But on Friday, as he asked for advice following a 19-11 loss to an equally-as-inept Toronto Argos outfit (two teams needed a single on the final play of the game to put up a total of 30 points in a CFL game), he continued to forget the most important piece of advice of all: “Give Charles Roberts the damn football.”

 

There will be some who will suggest that Roberts had “another lousy game” against the Argos and will say “he is still struggling.” But let’s put our thinking caps on and look closely at what Roberts did on Friday. 

 

Charles Roberts carried the ball 11 times for 66 yards. The National Post reported that “the Argos shut down Roberts.” Held him, they did. In fact, the Post wrote: “From the opening whistle the Argos focused their attention on stopping Winnipeg’s all-star running back, Charles Roberts. Toronto’s defence — the worst against the run in the Canadian Football League coming into the game — loaded up on bodies on the line of scrimmage and gave Roberts little room to operate.”

 

Trouble is the Argos didn’t shut down Roberts at all. Doug Berry and offensive co-ordinator Kit Cartwright shut down Roberts.

 

Charlie Roberts gained 66 yards on 11 carries. That’s 6.0 yards per carry. Roberts was averaging 3.7 yards per carry heading into the game. It was his best game of the year. At 6.0 yards per carry, two carries per set of downs is 12 yards. That averages out to an unstoppable march down the field. Had the Bombers given the ball to Roberts 30 times, he’d have rushed for about 180 yards.

 

Of course, TSN’s on-line headline was “Argonauts Defence Steps Up To Stymie Blue Bombers.” The only people stymied were the head coach, the offensive co-ordinator and the quarterback.

 

Certainly Toronto’s front seven did a good job harassing Dinwiddie (much better than Calgary’s worthless three-man rush a week earlier) and the defensive secondary, as we suspected, was significantly better than that awful group the Stamps trot out every week. But to suggest the Argos shut down Roberts is to have missed the game entirely.

 

“If you know Charlie, you know he gets stronger as the game goes on,” said his former quarterback Khari Jones, as we did Mike Richards’ radio program on the FAN 960 in Calgary together the other day. “The more you give Charlie the ball, the better he gets.”

 

Giving Charlie the ball 11 times a game is NOT enough. In fact, Roberts also caught one pass for 14 yards, so in total, he picked up 80 yards on 12 touches. 12 lousy touches? No wonder the Bombers are 1-5. 

 

Dinwiddie, meanwhile, went 16-for-28 for 224 yards with one touchdown (and 85-yarder to Romby Bryant) and two interceptions. The Bombers had a grand total of just 13 first downs. On Friday night, Kevin Glenn’s replacement made last week’s win over Calgary look Troy Kopp-esque.

 

The Bombers problem is clearly coaching. The coach humiliated his veteran kicker publicly and half of his locker room lost faith. His new kicker is now 14-for-20 (70 per cent) in field goals and is the first Bomber punter in 35 years to be dead last in the league in punting average after the first six games of the season and now the rest of the room is starting to wonder about the decision to chase Westwood out of the game.

 

What could be worse, however, is that in a panic — or in an effort to find someone else to blame — the coach dumped his veteran starting quarterback and replaced him with a guy who admitted on Tom and Joe’s Show on 92-CITI-FM this week that he had trouble reading the extra man on defence in the Canadian game.

 

Oh, oh.

 

Doug Berry was a great assistant in Montreal. He could be a great assistant in Winnipeg. His 10-7-1 trip to last year’s Grey Cup notwithstanding, he has appeared to have lost his touch as a head coach. 

 

Working in Berry’s favour is the fact his Bombers now play two straight games at home against Montreal and Hamilton. If Winnipeg doesn’t win both, it will be the bye-week and it will be time to make a coaching change.    

 

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