Time for Bomber fans to show patience with rebuild

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 21/07/2015 (4045 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Hopefully, Kyle Walters doesn’t pay attention to the ever-present reminder of when the Blue Bombers last won a Grey Cup. It’s real and it’s painful but mostly irrelevant and potentially counter-productive to the here and now.

Folks in Winnipeg want a championship and they deserve one. But with every slip up — last week’s avoidable loss to the Calgary Stampeders for instance — the most popular statistic in town becomes the number of years (25) since the franchise last won a Grey Cup.

Same old Bombers, goes the refrain, when in reality nothing could be farther from the truth. The Bombers have seven players on their 2015 roster that played for the team in 2013. That’s the lowest number in the league with the defending Grey Cup champion Calgary Stampeders having the highest number of returnees from two seasons ago at 24.

Eleven of the 12 coaches are new, so is the scouting staff, the GM and the CEO from the start of the 2013 season. Some of these guys have yet to figure out the best way to drive home from the stadium. This is a new group. Real new.

At 2-2 and in the very early stages of a rebuild, Bombers CEO Wade Miller is in many ways the most important person in accomplishing what all football fans in Winnipeg desire and that’s a return to contender status and eventually a title.

Miller understands what a lot of people don’t, which is how distorted the view from the stands or the couch can become. Ask a pro football coach a question and they’ll tell you they need to see the film. What does that mean? Watching the replay? No, it means watching a play from 12 different angles and in frame-by-frame sequence. Every step from every player on the field effects the play. No one, other than the film junkies which make up a coaching staff, watches with this level of detail.

What we see in the pressbox, from our seats or on our TVs at home is often a lie.

Miller gets this and it’s why he won’t do Walters the discourtesy of telling him what to do or pass on a baseless rant from a deluded board member. He’ll stand in the way. He’ll protect Walters and head coach Mike O’Shea and let them do their jobs.

Continuity and stability wins championships. Something the Blue Bombers franchise has struggled to understand for some time. People ill-prepared to make football decisions have consistently pushed for change. Fire Doug Berry, hire Mike Kelly, cut Kevin Glenn, fire Paul LaPolice. On and on, the pursuit of an elusive magic bullet has resulted in failure.

Miller can’t let unsold seats today trigger what would only be ill-conceived decisions. He needs a stiff upper lip. He needs to be the voice of reason and the vision of calm.

Patience is a tough sell for Winnipeggers these days. There’s an antiquated notion surrounding the CFL which suggests a team can be turned around in a season. Going from 4-14 to 14-4 in one year has been done before. But the implementation of the salary management system has made it near impossible to buy one’s way out of the basement.

Look at the standings right now. Parity has settled in. There is no obviously dominant team in the league. Fast change is a thing of the past. Successful organizations build from the ground up with the draft then retain players and coaching staffs. They provide an environment of stability and position good players and coaches to succeed.

Walters inherited a team with arguably the worst set of Canadians in the league. He’s used free agency to try and fast-track the process but draft and develop is the baseline method for improvement in this area which is the foundation to every team in the CFL.

Confidence within an organization is key. Management can’t always be chasing. Walters can’t look at the loss in Calgary and make an evaluation in the moment. O’Shea is a second-year head coach and a time count violation in the final two minutes of the game falls on him. It’s the head coach’s responsibility.

Walters has to look at the big picture and say, “OK, rookie mistake. Let’s move on.” He has to have the freedom to operate in such a fashion. So does O’Shea. Otherwise nothing gets learned and nothing improves.

The Bombers are better today than they were a year ago. Grey Cup better? Nope. It’s easy for me to say, “What’s another year after you’ve already waited 25?” You might not like the sound of that, but it’s reality.

Forcing things in an irrational manner to win now will only result in pushing that win date even farther down the road.

Your patience may have worn thin but, sorry to tell you, you’re going to need even more.

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My bet is it will be rewarded. Miller has given Walters and O’Shea the resources to compete. Now they need the time.

gary.lawless@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @garylawless