Insufficient here, champs as Eskimos

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This article was published 30/11/2015 (3610 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

It is often said one man’s trash is another man’s treasure, but when the collection of talent you’ve put out to the curb happens to win a Grey Cup in your own backyard, it makes you wonder whether they should have been disposed of in the first place.

It’s like breaking up with your girlfriend at a social in Transcona, and watching her leave the same night with an astrophysicist who moonlights on the cover of GQ. But I digress.

If you thought you were hearing a number of familiar names being heralded Sunday, while the Edmonton Eskimos were toying with the Ottawa Redblacks, it wasn’t just wishful thinking. The Eskimos started six former Winnipeg Blue Bombers in the Grey Cup game — more than any other team in the CFL — and a seventh was a vital part of their defensive-line rotation.

Justin Sorensen and Chris Greaves started the championship game on the offensive line, and Cory Watson was in the slot. Adarius Bowman and Odell Willis have been Eskimos for a while now — at slotback and defensive end, respectively — and Cauchy Muamba was the starting safety. Lastly, Don Oramasionwu, who has started many games for Edmonton in his four years there, was an important part of the rotation for one of the best front fours in the CFL.

While it is not uncommon to see ex-Bomber patriots on different teams in the CFL — after all, there are only eight other teams — to see 25 per cent of the starters on a championship team come from a franchise that hasn’t won a Grey Cup in 25 years, seems an awful lot like giving someone the shirt off your back when you don’t have another one to wear.

In fact, after looking at the starters of every team during their last game of the 2015 season, from what I could see, the only other team in the CFL that started more than one former Blue Bomber, was the other team in the championship game, and they started three.

Greaves was traded this year for any number of reasons, but ended up run-and-pass blocking for Mike Reilly in the final. After starting 18 games for Winnipeg in 2013, Sorensen wasn’t signed to this new regime, which for a team that had the kind of offensive-line woes they did only a year ago, is certainly saying something. Watson asked to be traded after five years with the club, but with his injury history, many seemed happy to oblige. He started in 18 games for the Eskimos this year, and made a noticeable play in the Grey Cup.

Muamba was the starting safety in Winnipeg in 2013, and was seemingly let go mere moments after his brother departed for the NFL. He broke up the first offensive play of the Grey Cup game, and contributed in limiting four of the CFL’s best receivers.

While I don’t blame the franchise for parting with some of these guys, it is unsettling to see them start on a championship team elsewhere when they were viewed as insufficient here.

The departures of Bowman and Willis from the Blue and Gold preceded today’s regime. They were always highly talented but sometimes painted as more trouble than they were worth. Now that they’re in Edmonton, they’ve been able to walk that fine line better than at any of their previous stops, and are all-stars for good measure.

So does this Bombers franchise have the Midas touch in the sense whoever it trades or releases turns into gold? Or are these resurgences merely a factor of players being better suited to a different system, or a different coaching staff that has found a way to get more out of them?

It was one thing for the fans of this storied franchise to watch two visiting teams take over their city during the first Grey Cup they’ve hosted in a decade, it was another injustice altogether to watch players the organization moved away from, and tried to upgrade over, be key cogs on a championship team.

 

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

Twitter: @DougBrown97