Signing Wild OK, but Blue ignoring elephant in room

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 22/09/2015 (3904 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

From the vantage point of this high-perched armchair, signing Ian Wild to your local neighbourhood football team is like buying a Louisville Slugger to fend off a marauding polar bear. It sounds heroic, it looks incredibly tough, and baseball bats are good for many things, but is it really going to help get you out of the situation you’re in?

Don’t get me wrong, Wild is a dynamic football player who can probably play all three linebacking positions with a high degree of competency. He pursues the football relentlessly, his physical play can change the nature of a game, and from what I hear, he is the consummate teammate, who will even lead the occasional yoga class. Yet in my estimation, the two most fortified positions on this 4-8 football team are the defensive line and the linebacking corps.

Without question, this team needs a lot of help in a number of areas, but the play of the defence should be the least of its concerns at the moment.

As a former defensive player, I see the value in covering this phase of the team with the personnel equivalent of gunpowder and methamphetamine. I still want Henoc Muamba back on this team, and hell, while we are at it, if they can get Ray Lewis to come out of retirement and take a few snaps at middle linebacker, I’ll be at the base of the pyramid for the Blue Lightning cheer squad. But wanting and needing are two very different things.

As a public relations manoeuvre, signing Wild, and maybe even Muamba, is great press and lends a positive spin to the optics of the current win-loss record: “This team may be pinned in the corner of the ring with one eye swollen shut and two broken ribs, but they are still swinging and fighting for their collective lives,” is how this reads, and good for them. But wouldn’t they have a better chance of throwing a wicked right cross if they planted and pivoted on the opposite foot, and focused instead on the offence?

The offensive line has not done much to live up to its price tags since Week 1 in Saskatchewan, and have failed at protecting their most prized possession (Drew Willy), and at bullying their way to a running game.

More recently, the best pass catcher of late has been hurt, and the existing receiving corps and quarterback — though only together for a few weeks — displayed all the synchronicity and precision in Montreal as my Weimaraner playing the piano.

It is also starting to look like the only player who can bring this offensive scheme to the lukewarm level that we have previously seen it at, is the one that had his leg broken while running it.

I understand that in contrast to the Joe Mack era of status quo and sitting on your hands until they go numb, this approach is miles ahead of doing nothing. Yet it can be frustrating as an observer to see this team work to get better in every which way and direction but seemingly the right one.

Who knows though? Maybe they will package up Maurice Leggett and Jasper Simmons and trade for an up-and-coming S.J. Green, or an import guard who actually shares attributes with polar bears.

Or maybe Wild starts on every single kick-cover team and changes that phase of this football team from a liability into fury road.

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But if none of that happens and we next sign Muamba without addressing this offence, these moves will look a lot like they are being made for the sake of making a move.

Signing Wild does improve this football team, but not necessarily where it is needed most.

Doug Brown, once a hard-hitting defensive lineman and frequently a hard-hitting columnist, appears Tuesdays in the Free Press.

Twitter: @DougBrown97