Wylie trying to work his magic

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This article was published 20/07/2016 (3365 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

He’s a former fighter pilot working for a team called the Bombers and an amateur magician working for a team that needs a miracle.

How perfect is that?

Let’s be clear right off the top — as serendipitous as it is that Bob Wylie works for the Winnipeg Blue Bombers, it is a fact he could be working as an offensive line coach just about anywhere he chose in football. We know this because he basically already has.

While Wylie had a distinguished 20-year coaching career in the NFL — he’s coached seven Pro Bowl offensive linemen, one Hall of Famer and, most recently, almost single-handedly turned around the Oakland Raiders offensive line in 2011 — he is most proud of the fact he’s coached at all five levels of football: Pop Warner, junior high school, high school, college and the pros.

He’s run offensive line clinics for coaches and players that annually attracted some of the top O-line college prospects in the U.S., he belongs to at least four Halls of Fame, he was a consultant for the 2014 version of the Madden NFL video game and he’s still so highly regarded in the U.S., ESPN sent a crew to Winnipeg last spring just to do a piece on the flaky amateur drummer/amateur magician/former A-6 Intruder jet pilot many think is an offensive line genius.

One part Vince Lombardi and one part Jerry Garcia, Wylie sprinkles his teaching of Xs and Os with a never-ending series of card and coin tricks (he’s self-taught and has appeared on stage with David Copperfield twice), tales from his time as a fighter pilot in the U.S. naval reserve and lessons from the worlds of architecture and nature he says help build a better lineman.

What does architecture have to do with play on the line of scrimmage? Wylie will tell you the arch and the triangle are the strongest elements in building and the perfect lineman uses both in tandem — the arch of his back and the angles formed by his knees and elbows — to create maximum leverage.

The world of nature? While offensive linemen have long been known as “hogs,” Wylie insists it’s the posture and demeanour of the mountain gorilla that is actually the closest cousin of the perfectly formed lineman.

He has a video he shows players that illustrates the point, cross-cutting footage of gorillas charging out of the jungle with sumo wrestlers he thinks illustrate more similarities than differences, not to mention perfect gorilla technique.

“God made this creature to play pro sports,” says Wylie, “and then someone put him in the jungle and messed him all up.”

All of which brings us to two bewildering questions: 1. Why would a guy who could work anywhere in football — and who clearly doesn’t need the money — keep coming back to Winnipeg every year for another season of punishment and disappointment? 2. For all his genius, how come Wylie still hasn’t turned around the Bombers offensive line?

His answer to the first question is the usual boilerplate about the drive to compete and the love of a challenge. He sounds like he means it, and it is true if you want a challenge in football, Winnipeg is definitely the place for you.

But his answer to the second question is more interesting because Wylie admits he’s not entirely sure why the Bombers offensive line, along with the rest of the offence, has continued to struggle during a season in which the home side will drag a 1-3 record into tonight’s game at Investors Group Field against the Calgary Stampeders.

“We’re getting better, but the increments are not as fast,” says Wylie, pointing to his previous stint as Bombers O-line coach from 2007-08, when change came quickly and the Bombers allowed the fewest and second-fewest sacks in back-to-back seasons.

“It happened faster back then. For whatever reason, It’s going slower this time.”

Slow? More like glacial.

Wylie returned to Winnipeg as offensive line coach in 2014, and it’s been a struggle ever since. The Bombers gave up a team-record 71 quarterback sacks in 2014, and while they got a little better in 2015 — they gave up 59 sacks — it still was second-worst in the CFL.

Now, you can chalk up the struggles in 2014 to the mess Wylie inherited from the Joe Mack regime. And last year, the conventional wisdom was all the sacks were less on the offensive line and more on a poor offensive scheme that had quarterbacks holding the ball too long.

Even with a new offence that puts all the emphasis on short, lightning-quick passes, the Bombers have still given up 13 sacks through four games, tied for worst in the CFL and are on pace to equal last year’s total.

While the Bombers have bigger problems right now than the protection Willy is getting — it would be awesome, for example, if Willy would stop throwing at receivers’ shoe tops — it’s also true the offensive line hasn’t helped things much.

So what gives? Wylie won’t blame it on personnel, so I will, at least in part. Right guard Sukh Chungh is in his second year in the CFL and has looked it at times, still getting turnstiled far too often. Centre Matthias Goossen is in his third year but his first full season as a starter, and he also still looks, on some nights, to have most of his learning curve in front of him.

Add to that a left-guard position that has been a revolving door ever since Wylie returned and a right-tackle spot that’s also been in constant transition. Wylie and left tackle Stanley Bryant have really been the only two constants for the last season-plus. That’s a recipe for failure.

Still, the Raiders offensive line was a mess, too, when Wylie took over in 2011, and in one season he helped guide them from 29th in the NFL in sacks allowed to fourth.

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Wylie’s not sure why change is coming so slowly this time, but he does point to a chart he has that talks about human learning in four stages — unconscious incompetence, conscious incompetence, conscious competence and unconscious competence.

The goal, of course — in football and in life — is to do the right things the right way every time and without thinking about it.

That’s a big ask in a Bombers organization that has been drowning for years in incompetence — conscious, unconscious and just about every variety in between.

Yeah, Wylie is a magician. But that doesn’t mean he’s a miracle worker.

paul.wiecek@freepress.mb.caTwitter: @PaulWiecek