Matsakis could call plays

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This article was published 10/09/2009 (5923 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Say this about the Winnipeg Blue Bombers: They will try almost anything — and we mean ANYTHING — to help their offence find some sort of consistency.

It was back-up quarterbacks Bryan Randall and Stefan LeFors signalling in plays with white boards in the Labour Day Classic, with the receivers and quarterbacks all having play cards on their wrists or waistbands. (At Wednesday’s practice even the O-linemen were wearing the things).

And now come a couple of other subtle changes: Running backs coach Manny Matsakis will move from the spotter’s booth to the sidelines, with receivers coach Bob Dyce moving upstairs. As well, it’s believed Matsakis and O-line coach Charlie Carpenter have not only been more involved than ever in shaping the offensive game plan, but that Matsakis may in fact handle some of the play-calling chores in this Sunday’s Banjo Bowl matchup against the Saskatchewan Roughriders.

"We’re just trying to do a couple things we haven’t tried yet just to see if we can get some things jump-started a little bit," said head coach Mike Kelly after Wednesday’s workout. "We need to perhaps do a little better job of making checks at the line of scrimmage and Manny has a background of calling plays and checking right from the line of scrimmage.

"We’re just trying to help our situation out a little bit to get even better each and every play."

Even with their best passing-yardage totals of the season in last week’s Labour Day loss to the Riders, the Bombers still rank last in 12 of the 30 offensive statistical categories the CFL tracks and second-last in six others, including TDs (12), passing TDs (5), time of possession (27:53) and yards passing per game (173.1).

But if you think Kelly is giving up some of the game-day control of the attack, well…

"Oh no… haven’t you read about my ego?," he said with a grin. "No, I will be involved… very much so. I’m going to have the headset on. Nothing has really changed other than some operations… that’s all it is. How we structure ourselves in here is an ongoing conversation."

Asked about the use of the white boards and the wristbands, Kelly offered up a valid explanation. Truth is, if Montreal’s Marc Trestman came up with the idea it would be hailed as genius. But here with the offence struggling it’s giggled at.

"I spoke to the team when I first came in here that we were going to get to the point where we weren’t huddling," explained Kelly. "That was always part of the initial plan. The white boards were an assistance to our receivers because they didn’t have great confidence in understanding the signal system. And, to be quite honest, we did have a play or two where perhaps the receiver read the wrong number… instead of ’26’ he read ’28’ or vice versa."

Asked about starting QB Michael Bishop — he threw for 329 yards Sunday but has the worst QB-efficiency rating among starters at 61.1 — Kelly defended his pivot.

"To be quite honest with ya, two of the interceptions I would say weren’t solely on him," said Kelly. "One throw absolutely was. He threw for over 300 yards, we had two 100-yard receivers… would I have liked to have seen him check a couple of times at the line of scrimmage with the run game and just run it the other way? Sure. Sure. And everybody could see that. But, all in all, we just need to be consistent in what we’re doing and we can’t have a great running game one week and then a 300-plus passing game the next week and not be able to somehow blend them both together. We can’t seem to find a consistency, a balance. We’re going to try and work at things and try different things until we get this thing right."

ed.tait@freepress.mb.ca.