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Nick Moore really wants to stay with the Bombers

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Maybe he’s crazy or maybe he’s just a glutton for punishment, but pending free agent receiver Nick Moore says he wants to be back in Blue and Gold next season.

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Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 07/11/2015 (3619 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Maybe he’s crazy or maybe he’s just a glutton for punishment, but pending free agent receiver Nick Moore says he wants to be back in Blue and Gold next season.

While it’s customary at this time of year for all the pending free agents in the CFL to pay lip service to how much they want to come back to their current teams next season “if we can just work it out,” Moore actually sounded passionate and convincing.

“This is home, you know what I mean,” Moore said Friday night in Toronto after the Winnipeg Blue Bombers wrapped up a 5-13 season with a 21-11 loss to the Toronto Argonauts.

Phil Hossack / Winnipeg Free Press
Nick Moore relaxes at the team's walk through practice last Friday.
Phil Hossack / Winnipeg Free Press Nick Moore relaxes at the team's walk through practice last Friday.

“Absolutely. The community in Winnipeg, the fans, the city – they’ve been nothing but welcoming to me. They’ve embraced me and I have no complaints. If I have it my way, I will definitely be back.”

And if the Bombers front office has it their way, Moore will have to take a pay cut to do it. Signed as a free agent prior to the 2014 season to a two-year deal that paid him a princely $185,000 per season, Moore never did put up the kind of game-breaking numbers that would justify making him one of the league’s highest paid receivers.

He missed nine of 18 games in 2014 with injury. And while he was healthier this year, his production tailed off as the season went on and he finished the campaign with a respectable, but unspectacular, 76 catches for 899 yards.

So, what’s it going to take to re-sign Moore? “It has to make sense, definitely. But it has to make sense for them, too. Obviously, I’d like to get paid, of course. But everybody would. We’ll see how it goes.”

The Bombers have 13 potential free agents this winter.

Moore was asked where it all went wrong for Winnipeg in 2015 and his reply was blunt.

“We’re the second to worst team in the league and not making the playoffs for the second year straight. We only had five wins and 13 losses — it’s really unacceptable to me.

“We have a lot talent in the room and I felt like we showed flashes of that. But as a whole, we just never put it together. And our record shows that.”

It takes a lot to get Bombers head coach Mike O’Shea to open up, but the emotional roller coaster he rode at Rogers Centre Friday night seemed to get to him a bit as he reflected for reporters afterward.

O’Shea was honoured just prior to the third quarter by Toronto as an “all-time” Argos player in recognition of his 12 years as an Argos linebacker and the four Grey Cups he won in Toronto, the last as a special teams coach in 2012.

But the night ended as it has all too often in O’Shea’s two years as Bombers field boss — with another Winnipeg loss and another November of watching the playoffs on TV.

So yeah, the Argos banner and video tribute and ovation from the Toronto fans were nice, but it wasn’t the first emotion that came to mind for O’Shea after the game.

“I’m pissed off,” said O’Shea. “I’m very humbled by what the Argos organization has done for me. And I’m not just talking about this evening. I’m talking about for my entire career, the Argos organization has, I mean, they’ve changed my life obviously. They’ve meant so much to me — the fans and this building, there’s a lot of history here.

“But I wanted a win tonight, you know. There’s certain experiences where, depending on what you’re like, you’d trade for a win. And we needed a win.”

paul.wiecek@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @PaulWiecek

 

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