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What's behind curtain... new car or donkey?

We're not quite sure what Kelly has done

By: Randy Turner

26/06/2009 1:00 AM | Comments: 7

You kids will be too young to remember, but there used to be a game show on TV called Let's Make a Deal, where contestants dressed up in goofy costumes to vie for prizes offered by host Monty Hall, who just happened to be a guy from the North End.Anyway, if a person dressed up as a cow, for example, did win a prize, old Monty would tempt them by forfeiting whatever they'd won for other "prizes" hidden behind three curtains.

So you could win a fridge and stove, then trade up for a brand new car. But that's only if you were lucky. Because if you picked wrong, you could get stuck with a donkey pulling a wagon. That's just how Monty rolled.

Which brings us, naturally, to the Winnipeg Blue Bombers, 2009 edition. Because even though the Bombers have played two exhibition games, dutifully completed most of their training camp, and are poised to open the season July 2 in Edmonton, it feels like football's version of Let's Make a Deal.

It's not just the unknowns, either, although those abound. It's that the 2008 version of the Bombers was kinda like that fridge and stove. They served a purpose, were hot and cold, but in the end didn't really generate that much in the way of passion.

However, at least everyone knew what they had in players like Kevin Glenn, Tom Canada and Charles Roberts (to name a few), for better or worse.

So along comes Monty, er, Mike Kelly, and next thing you know, you're staring at three curtains without a clue what you're going to get. And for a split second you think, "Hey, maybe that fridge and stove weren't so bad, after all."

Too late. Those appliances have left town, and then some. So it's back to the curtains.

Of course, it's not like the 2009 Bombers are hidden. They've been out there for all to see for going on a month now. So what?

I mean, Kelly has staked his formative days as the Bombers head coach on a young fellow from Louisiana who seems like a pleasant, God-fearing southpaw preparing to start his sixth ever CFL game. Regardless of upside, that's a thin professional resumé.

Yet Kelly has steadfastly put his faith in Stefan LeFors, to the point where the coach seems befuddled that anyone would think differently.

Then you've got so many new faces making an impact, like running backs Lavarus Giles and Yvenson Bernard, or linebacker Jonathan Hefney or receiver Adarius Bowman, who have taken turns turning heads.

There's an entirely revamped offensive line employing newcomers like Steve Morley, Glenn January and Luke Fritz who are just getting to know each other. There's the continuing Apprenticeship of Alexis (Duddy) Serna. There's an overhauled defensive backfield.

You get the point. There's a lot of things.

And then there's Kelly himself, who appears to morph from dictator to charming to paranoid to pompous to undeniably organized to court jester. Sybil, meet Mike Kelly. Mike Kelly, meet Sybil.

Of course, Kelly wouldn't be the first football head coach with multiple personality disorder. But that doesn't make him any less easy to read, which only exacerbates the uncertainty surrounding the group of men Kelly has assembled.

Kelly has already seemed to alienate the media. But here's a secret: Nobody cares about the media or their hurt feelings. They care if the Bombers win. They care if they lose. Pretty much everything else is background noise.

But it won't cut the coach any slack, either, if it all goes wrong.

Come to think of it, for a guy who came in with such built-in goodwill, there's a constituency of folks out there who seem anxious to see Kelly fail. Or at least have a heaping helping of humble pie.

Again, if Kelly wins, he'll dictate the menu. Everything ala-I-told-you-so.

Which is why all of the above is so intriguing. Because the Bombers could have kept the fridge and stove, but decided that wasn't good enough. And it wasn't. The team was 8-10 and getting older, not better.

But that doesn't mean that what's behind Curtain No. 2 is any better. In fact, it could very well turn out to be a donkey pulling a wagon.

Of course, Kelly is convinced he's traded up to that new car. And he doesn't think it's a wild guess, either.

Regardless, the deal has already been made. The only thing left to do is raise the curtain, Monty.

Now where did I put that cow costume?

randy.turner@freepress.mb.ca

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition June 26, 2009 C2

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7 Commentscomment icon

I think Kelly is classless and clueless and the season will be a disaster. The way he treated joe smith, phoning him instead of facing him like a man. No wonder smith just hung up. Do I hear Jeff Reinbold?

I couldn't have said it better myself.

If you two really honestly think THIS qualifies as Kelly-bashing, there's a columnist or two you could familiarize yourself with. The name might rhyme with Ball Freezing. I'm just saying.

Personally, I'm relatively pro-Kelly at this point. We'll see what comes of the team this year, and see what happens. We're playing two damn good teams to start up, frankly, I expect 0-2 and it won't bother me if we are as long as we look competitive. Now, 4-14 I'd have more of an issue with, but that's months and months away.

In all that light? I think this article is actually pretty well written. As the level of vitriol and rhetoric being thrown around on any site that allows comments demonstrates, nobody has a clue what the Bombers will do this year. That's all I see in this article. Makes sense to me, and it's nice to read a calm analysis of that fact.

If funny that you mention "Let's Make a Deal" Kelly has made so many he may have already got the Donkey and Wagon. The players that are here are young and healthy for the moment. Kelly want's a attitude that inspires everyone, from team mates, coaches and the fans of this Team. What I have seen from Mike Kelly is an attitude that doen't fit with what he wants his players to do "practise what you preach". We will all know what is going on after the sixth games of the season. The standing will tell us what type of job he was done. Right now he is like a kid with a new toy, and he is loving to play with it. But after six games, will he still have the same appreciation for his players.

Randy, if he is under 50% then rip his heart out, becuae when Mike goes so does Lyle. As the new owner will not appreciate what is happening and his feeling will be well noted.

Big Mac

Since when is the media supposed to be unbiased? It's a business like any other. It's been biased since day 1. Unbiased news doesn't sell papers, that's why they get goofs like Randy here to constantly write about how the Jets should come back to Winnipeg and how Kelly has dismantled the Bombers for the worse. It's old, and it's incredibly lame. I find the Sun articles to have much less of that, and will start following that paper closer if this sort of thing doesn't stop, pronto.

It's the preseason, and nobody knows exactly how the team is going to perform, yet you need to keep producing articles. So in that sense it's difficult to keep things fresh with new content. At the same time, your whole 'hopefully Kelly's vision works, but if not we'll be sure to point fingers' act is dreadfully tired, and reeks of someone who has been rubbed the wrong way by the new regime. What's getting lost in all of this is that your job is to provide the fans of Winnipeg with a neutral and unbias view of the team. Not to spread your anti-Kelly rhetoric at every turn. You'd be well served to find a new angle any day now, because this stuff is barely worth the paper it'll be printed on.

Seems to me that the main people who are not satisfied with what Kelly has done is the media, specifically persons like yourself. What we had were not a new fridge and stove, we had an OLD and BROKEN fridge and stove. Even if we get a cooler and a pack of matches this year, we're still better off for next year than we would have been.

Let's give Kelly a chance before we pass judgement. My biggest fear right now is that if we don't do extraordinarily well this year, the media will have Mike thrown out of town.

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