Good luck Kelly, may LeFors be with you

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 10/03/2009 (6341 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The news came in the form of a terse transaction wire announcement just after 4 p.m. Monday: "The Bombers released import quarterback Kevin Glenn."

Kinda cold, eh? Like early March in Winnipeg, in fact.

Five seasons of gainful employment ending with one sentence. No "Thanks for the memories." No press release to elaborate with the standard good wishes of management.

One sentence.

Yet it was bound to end this way, wasn’t it? The moment incoming Bombers head coach Mike Kelly traded for Stefan LeFors and then told the world Glenn needed a "change of scenery" the die was cast. Clearly, the quarterback and donut entrepreneur was not in Kelly’s plans.

Did the Bombers botch this mess up? Absolutely, at least in terms of trying to get some value for Glenn, whose star faded considerably in 2008 after his MVP nominee season in 2007.

Maybe the Bombers brass will tell you there was no market for Glenn. Of course there wasn’t. Any interested team would know Glenn was about to receive a $50,000 bonus this month and that the Bombers’ bluff of taking him to training camp this summer was laughable.

Skimpy

But, really, that’s all quite irrelevant now. Because this isn’t about Kevin Glenn anymore, it’s about LeFors, who cost the Bombers two high draft picks despite a skimpy CFL resume that includes just five starts in 2007.

LeFors is Kelly’s guy, and if the former succeeds the latter will justifiably be lauded. After all, Glenn rarely inspired the masses during his tenure as a Bombers starter, but he would have provided a perfect safety net for Kelly’s risky gamble.

We say risky because this season will see the Bombers with a) almost an entire new coaching staff, b) a new No. 1 quarterback, c) a boatload of new personnel who will d) all be absorbing significantly altered offensive and defensive schemes.

Face it, all that change — which was a mandate for the Bombers, don’t forget — can result in a learning curve that sometimes turns into a dead end. But 8-10 is going nowhere fast, too, and that’s exactly what the Bombers accomplished under Glenn last year.

Either you jump or you don’t and clearly Kelly is making a leap based on faith and intuition, having observed LeFors firsthand as the Edmonton Eskimos receiver’s coach last year. After all, just because you’re not good enough to beat out Ricky Ray doesn’t mean you’re lousy, either.

I mean, Ricky Ray.

Besides, Ryan Dinwiddie shouldn’t be forgotten if only because he’s an unproven quantity who has yet to get an opportunity to fail, just like LeFors. Whatever qualities Kelly sees in LeFors he’ll undoubtedly see in the animated Dinwiddie, too.

Regardless, you have to give Kelly credit for hutzpa. Because, seriously, the risk-reward of such a move in a quarterback-driven league is going to be massive. You get the sense this is going to either fail or succeed spectacularly. But it’s going to be fascinating to watch no matter what the outcome, one way or the other.

Seriously, when have the Winnipeg Blue Bombers ever entered a season with such immense turnover and face-change throughout the organization? Oh, right, Jeff Reinebold in 1997. Okay, let’s just forget that little episode and move on, shall we?

Come to think of it, say what you want about our man Reinebold, but at least he wasn’t boring. There was always that carnival atmosphere — in spite of all of those losses and so few victories — that seemed to make those two seasons oddly bearable.

You never knew what to expect. Everything was fresh and in constant flux. Yes, that can be a recipe for disaster but, hey, even Reinebold understood he didn’t know what the hell he was doing.

Obviously, Kelly strongly believes he knows exactly what he’s doing; so much so that, barring more dramatic changes, he’s willing tie his fate to two young, inexperienced pivots who the head coach is betting have tremendous upside.

The beauty of professional sports is that very soon we’re all going to find out together.

And what if it all goes horribly wrong?

Well, um, the Bombers could always bring in a veteran. You know, like Kevin Glenn. We hear he’s available.

In the meantime, in the spirit of Obi-Wan Kenobi, here’s a new mantra for the gambler Mike Kelly…

May LeFors be with you.