Greaves trade sends message no one is safe

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This article was published 11/09/2015 (3844 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

No one had been an active player for the Winnipeg Blue Bombers for longer. And no one had been more generous with his time in attending community events and waving the team flag.

So the fact the front office proclaimed offensive lineman Chris Greaves dispensable with Wednesday’s announcement the six-year Blue Bomber had been traded to Edmonton speaks volumes about just how dire the situation has become at Investors Group Field for the 3-7 Bombers.

It’s not every day you cast aside your longest-serving player and a guy you could always count on to throw on a jersey and attend whatever community club barbecue had asked for a player to stop by.

But such is the state of things right now with the Bombers — and on their offensive line in particular — that no one’s job is safe anymore.

And make no mistake, that message was heard loud and clear in the locker-room as Greaves emptied six years of blue and gold detritus from his locker Wednesday. Fellow offensive lineman Pat Neufeld summed up the locker-room’s shock at the Greaves trade with a tweet from his personal account Wednesday afternoon: “Such a brutal business, hate seeing @GreavesChris go and wish him nothing but the best in Edmonton.”

For the record, Bombers head coach Mike O’Shea insisted Thursday it was the Eskimos who contacted the Bombers about Greaves this week, not the other way around. As O’Shea tells it, he had every intention of starting Greaves in Saturday’s Banjo Bowl until he walked off the practice field Wednesday and was informed by GM Kyle Walters the Bombers had just accepted an offer for Greaves from the Eskimos that Walters felt was too good to refuse — a high second-round draft pick and a serviceable import offensive lineman in Selvish Capers.

“Edmonton called and wanted him and they worked (out) a deal that seemed to make sense for us,” said O’Shea.

“I walked in from practice and Kyle said the deal was done.”

There had been talk in the off-season the Bombers were trying to move Greaves. That talk bubbled to the surface again earlier this season when Greaves was a healthy scratch for a game.

But when it finally happened, it still seemed to catch a close-knit bunch on the embattled O-line by surprise.

Asked if he thought team management was sending a message to the remaining members of the O-line, Neufeld replied: “Maybe subliminally, yeah. I mean we weren’t directly told about the trade or the reasons for it.

“But it comes down to this being a performance-based game and obviously they decided whatever was going on with the offensive line wasn’t good enough and they needed to make a trade.”

What has been going on with the O-line? Well, despite a couple of new pricey free agents this season in centre Dominic Picard and left tackle Stanley Bryant, the unit continues to underperform.

Winnipeg has given up a league-worst 31 sacks this season and the running game continues to struggle. Is all that the fault of the O-line? Of course not, but they definitely bear some of the responsibility, and Greaves is an Eskimo today precisely because the Bombers’ front office believes so, too.

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So what now? Well, for this week at least, the Bombers will go with a raw CFL rookie in place of Greaves at left guard in import Sam Longo. The Bombers signed Longo Aug. 24 and the 24-year-old told reporters following practice Thursday the sum total of his CFL experience prior to the last couple of weeks was he’d seen “a couple” of CFL games on TV.

O’Shea hinted Thursday that Capers — who started nine games for Edmonton in 2014 — might get a long look at the starting right tackle position, which has been a revolving door this season.

And beyond that? Well, Wednesday’s events would seem to suggest everything — and everyone — is in play right now as this team tries to claw its way back into contention for a Grey Cup game it is hosting in November.

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