Willy’s injury masking Bombers’ progress

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 08/09/2015 (3901 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Marcel Bellefueille still has a job today because Mike O’Shea has a coaching background in special teams and not offence.

For Pat Tracey, his bad luck was having a boss who knows just as much about specials teams play as he does.

O’Shea can put his hands on the Bombers special-teams portfolio with relative ease so Tracey was fired early Tuesday morning. If O’Shea could just as comfortably anoint himself offensive co-ordinator and expect improvements, Bellefueille’s job would be far less secure.

Special teams has certainly been a headache but not more so than the lack of offence the Bombers have been able to generate. Winnipeg has the worst offence in the league. Statistically and aesthetically. They don’t move the ball or pick up first downs and stay on the field. They put immense pressure — both physical and psychological — on the defence.

Having Drew Willy on the sidelines due to injury is certainly part of that picture. Willy’s injury is the most significant key to the Bombers’ losing skid that has left them at 3-7.

All teams, however, have to handle injuries. This offence hasn’t adjusted. It has rolled over and that’s unacceptable.

As one football person put it to me on Tuesday, “they fired the wrong guy.”

Tracey didn’t have the excuse of injuries to lean on. So he’s out. O’Shea must have seen some real issues with Tracey’s work to have made this move. If the special teams don’t improve — now it’s O’Shea’s fault and his alone. By pushing Tracey off the plank — O’Shea has stepped out on it himself.

There are a couple of ways to look at O’Shea’s firing of Tracey. One sees Tracey as a scapegoat. A man cast aside in an act of deflecting blame.

The other, is that this is a point of O’Shea’s maturation as a coach. Last season, he stuck with defensive co-ordinator Gary Etcheverry and his scheme long after it became obvious it wasn’t working. Loyalty and likely a sense of deference were at play.

With Tracey, who O’Shea has had a relationship with since his university days at Guelph, the second-year head coach acted. He didn’t let personal feelings get in the way.

O’Shea was asked a question on Tuesday about firing Tracey and whether it was easier to get rid of the coach than a whole unit of players.

“Nothing about this was easy,” came his reply. He didn’t want to do this but he felt it was the best thing for the team. Being the boss can be lonely and at some point a coach has to realize his loyalty has to be the organization and to winning. Makes for fewer friends but better job security.

Now O’Shea is being accused of a lot of things these days from not dressing up enough on the sidelines (apparently a collared shirt rather than his customary T-Shirt would make him a better coach) to his lack of fire to his won-loss record.

My sources tell me there is all kinds of emotion behind closed doors. As for the shirt, well, if putting on a golf shirt would improve his record, I’m sure O’Shea would be first in line.

The wins and losses? He’s now 10-21 as a head coach. Last season he put a respectable 7-11 mark on the board in his first year. There are eight games left before we can make a clear evaluation of this season.

I’ve made no secret to hide my confidence in O’Shea as a coach. He’s smart, tough and hardworking. I haven’t changed my mind. Better players and a deeper roster will improve O’Shea’s record.

Losing clouds the mind. It enlarges the little picture. It stirs emotion and blocks out the clear and logical plan put in place.

Rational thinking would tell us the Bombers four-game losing skid is more about the health of Willy and if the quarterback were playing, this team would likely be 5-5 rather than 3-7. The heat would be off and the good work done by Bombers management would be shining through.

Instead, there’s blood leaking out of my inbox as the emails screaming for change continue to roll in.

No one is safe from the folks taking the time to send their thoughts. CEO Wade Miller, GM Kyle Walters and O’Shea would all be on the street if a segment of readers had their way.

The Bombers posted a 3-15 record two seasons ago and cleaned house firing CEO Garth Buchko, GM Joe Mack and head coach Tim Burke. That wasn’t long ago. This team has improved but not enough to handle the adversity of losing a starting quarterback.

Winnipeg doesn’t have a dominant running game to lean on while Willy is out. The defence has looked extraordinary in the first half of the club’s last two games only to wither in the second half while spending a disproportionate amount of time on the field. O’Shea said after Sunday’s gave that it’s the defence’s job to rise to the occasion in these instances but I think that’s spin. He doesn’t want a divided locker room so he continues to spread the blame evenly.

Tuesday, O’Shea said the Bombers “are still in it. We need to go on a run.”

He’s right. More losing will increase the pressure on Miller and Walters. Miller has to deal with the challenges of selling a losing product in a stadium too large for the market. There is no scarcity of ticket to get him through these tough times.

Miller said last week rebuilding the Bombers, “is going to take time,” and added, “that’s not what our fans and our board of directors want to hear but it’s the truth.”

So, Miller is feeling the heat. When he took the Bombers top job, I considered it a wait-and-see appointment. Whether he would meddle was at the top of my concerns. So far he hasn’t. He’s let Walters and O’Shea do their jobs and continually asked questions to make sure they were on the right path. To date, he’s received satisfactory answers. He’s focused on process and not results which is the right thing to do when trying to re-construct a franchise.

At some point the results have to come in to validate the process. But Miller isn’t there yet. Nor should he be. One and a half seasons isn’t enough time.

The clock is on O’Shea. It’s on every coach from the minute they take a job. He understands this which is why he fired Tracey.

O’Shea has said on a number of occasions one of the main reasons the Bombers job was attractive to him was the passion of the fanbase. People in Winnipeg care which is a good thing but can be a double-edged sword. Happy when winning, raging when losing.

History will tell us whether this was just a rough patch in the road or the beginning of the road. My bet is on the former. Miller is both a Winnipegger and a football man. He understands the city and the game and he believes in Walters and O’Shea. Should that be good enough for you? Of course not.

Think what you want to think and believe what you want to believe.

And respect that Miller should do the same.

gary.lawless@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @garylawless