Bombers alone, but confident, in their optimism for 2015

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This article was published 25/06/2015 (3756 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Head coach Mike O’Shea has been saying for months — and again on Wednesday — that he loves the 2015 team the Winnipeg Blue Bombers have assembled. Ditto GM Kyle Walters.

And there’s been an uncharacteristic optimism this spring in even the most jaded of Bombers fans all the sweeping changes the club made in the off-season might, finally, bring to an end a championship drought that is now being measured in quarters of centuries.

Why, then, is seemingly no one outside the confines of the Perimeter Highway sharing in all the enthusiasm surrounding these new and improved Bombers?

With the 2015 regular season set to officially kick off tonight, prognosticators, pundits and oddsmakers have all been weighing in during recent days with how they see the 2015 CFL regular season playing out.

And almost without exception, the consensus is that even with all the off-season changes, this Bombers team is destined to miss the playoffs again this November, for what would be the fourth year in a row and sixth in the last seven years.

The more things change, the outsiders seem to be saying, the more they stay exactly the same in Winnipeg.

Consider: the online gambling site bodog.ca has picked the Bombers as 17-2 long shots to win this year’s Grey Cup, ahead of only the 20-1 Ottawa Redblacks.

What’s more, bodog.ca also has the Bombers as odds-on favourites to once again finish dead last in the West Division, behind even the B.C. Lions, whose entire 2015 season is clinging by a thread — the one holding starting QB Travis Lulay’s shoulder together.

The over-under on wins for the Bombers this season is just 7.5, a number that, once again, is ahead of just the lowly Redblacks and just a half-game better than the 7-11 record the Bombers posted in a disappointing 2014 season.

So what gives? What are the people in and immediately around the Bombers organization seeing in this team that no one else seems to be seeing?

“They’re not here every day,” O’Shea replied Wednesday when the question was put to him following practice at Investors Group Field. “They’re not seeing these men on a daily basis. And that to me is a big part of it.”

Now, it’s impossible to take exception with O’Shea’s contention he knows his team better than any oddsmaker in Las Vegas. Of course he does.

But it’s also true the pawnshops off the Vegas strip are piled high with the wristwatches of guys who were absolutely, positively convinced they knew better than the oddsmakers.

“People aren’t in the locker-room with us, they’re not at practice with us and they have no idea really what is happening with this team,” says receiver Julian Feoli-Gudino. “It’s a long season and I know the group of guys we have and I really think we’re going to do some special things this year.”

It’s not hard to trace the source of Feoli-Gudino’s optimism. With the Bombers hosting this year’s Grey Cup, the club’s front office — from O’Shea to Walters to CEO Wade Miller — have clearly gone all-in on ending the playoff drought in these parts and giving this team a legitimate shot to play in the big game they’re hosting.

Nobody was more active in free agency this winter than the Bombers and the message from Miller’s office with costly off-season signings such as centre Dominic Picard and left tackle Stanley Bryant seems to have been Walters had carte blanche to spend whatever it took this year to make this team a contender.

Did Walters succeed? The Bombers say — and the evidence strongly supports — that the Bombers team that will open the season Saturday in Regina is a deeper and more talented team than the one that finished last season.

Winnipeg’s offensive line is unquestionably improved over last year’s sad-sack outfit and the Canadian talent this season is, quite literally, night and day when compared to last year.

The disparity between Blue and Gold optimism and oddsmaker pessimism is even more curious when you consider the Bombers made all their improvements during the same off-season in which their four rivals in the West Division either treaded water (Edmonton), had huge personnel holes to fill (Calgary, Saskatchewan) or got worse (B.C.).

The Stampeders lost two-fifths of their offensive line (Stanley Bryant to Winnipeg and Brett Jones to the NFL).

The Riders lost OL Ben Heenan to the NFL and have no guarantees in QB Darian Durant, who returns after missing half of last season with a catastrophic elbow injury.

The Lions have gone all in on a shoulder Lulay has already shredded twice in two seasons. Their Plan B? Jon Jennings. No, I don’t know him either.

And the Esks also have some holes to fill after the trading of receiver Fred Stamps and the departure of O-lineman Matt O’Donnell to the NFL.

So the Bombers clearly look better on paper than anyone — except themselves — is giving them credit for.

But maybe that’s the rub — the game is played on the field and after 25 years without a championship, this beleaguered franchise is going to have to prove to all their skeptics that this time, they finally got it right in River City.

paul.wiecek@freepress.mb.ca Twitter: @PaulWiecek