What if Mike Kelly had never been fired?

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 25/10/2010 (5461 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

ANOTHER obituary. Another autopsy. Another season without a sniff of ending the Canadian Football League’s longest Grey Cup drought, now 20 years and counting.

The Winnipeg Blue Bombers lost for the 12th time in 16 games Saturday, dropping a 27-8 decision to the Toronto Argonauts that put the final nail in a coffin that had been constructed in late summer and set aside while the squad exhausted all of its last-chance playoff hopes.

Not surprisingly, the defeat — and the exit from the playoff picture for a franchise that has now suffered three consecutive double-digit loss campaigns — will mark the official start of another winter of teeth-gnashing and what-if debates.

The key issues to be debated by Bomber Nation until training camp next year:

What if Mike Kelly hadn’t been fired?

What if Greg Marshall had been hired and not Paul LaPolice?

What if Jim Barker had been the Bomber board’s choice for GM?

Like it or not, those are the questions that get asked when a team goes 4-12 and has now posted just one winning season (10-7-1 in 2007) in the last seven years.

“I believe we have the players in this room,” began centre Obby Khan after Saturday’s loss. “I believe we have the coaching staff. I believe we have the right organization going in the right direction and I believe we have the fan support in this city. So I don’t know why we’re not winning. That’s what hurts. I’ve lost games before, I’ve been on decent teams before, but it hurts moreso because we have all the things in place to not lose.

“If I knew the answer as to why it isn’t happening there would be 30,000 happy fans in the stands and 60 guys happy in this locker-room.”

That’s part of what has made 2010 so perplexing. This is a team that has teased by dropping seven games by four points or less while undergoing a youth movement.

But there is no escaping the stain 4-12 leaves and some of the obvious mistakes/flaws that persist like a lack of Canadian depth and an unresolved question at quarterback.

“I told the players this morning that they’re close,” said LaPolice. “But this is not a close business. We need to be better. We need to do things more and the players have to step up and be pros.”

That will be the party line spit out over the next few weeks — the playing for pride thing — but it’s inevitable cracks will appear in the team’s resolve. That was beginning to appear on Saturday when cornerback Jovon Johnson suggested the team was “limited to what we can do.”

Asked to further explain, he said:

“Sometimes our offence moves the ball and then sometimes they’re limited… they want to do different things but, they can’t. Defensively we’re out there playing our hearts out and then the special teams gives up a play. It’s just a matter of us putting all three phases together.

“Sometimes some of the plays we run… then again, what can you do? You’ve just got to go out and execute them.

“I don’t know how all the guys are feeling, but if it don’t hurt, you don’t need to be here,” added Johnson.

“It hurts me a lot, but at the same time I’m going to go out and still perform in these last two games. It’s all about your pride now. At the end of the day being out of the playoffs sucks. This is the second year in a row for me and I’m kind of getting tired of it.”

ed.tait@freepress.mb.ca

HOW the Bombers lost Saturday:

The club vowed in the days leading up to the game to try to control Argo running back Cory Boyd and limit the damage of star return man Chad Owens. Boyd hit the Bombers for 156 of Toronto’s 310 offensive yards, 86 along the ground and 70 through the air — including a 66-yard TD pass from Cleo Lemon.

And Owens killed the Bombers by returning a missed Justin Palardy field goal 108 yards; his third kick-return TD against Winnipeg in three games.

What it means:

It means no meaningful November games for the second straight season; an inglorious stat that has happened only six other times in franchise history (1948-49; 1963-64; 1967-70; 1973-75; 1997-99; 2004-05).

Interestingly, after qualifying for the post-season for 17 straight seasons from 1980-96, the Bombers have missed the playoffs seven times in the 14 years since.

The bad news:

The Bombers lost both starting QB Steven Jyles and his back-up, Alex Brink, to season-ending surgeries. Rookie Joey Elliott is to start this weekend in Edmonton.

The good news:

You’ve got to be kidding.

–Ed Tait