Offensive line’s been blowed up real good

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 17/02/2009 (6271 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Just on the linguistic optics alone, when it’s mid-February and you trade for a January, wouldn’t that be considered a downgrade?

Word play, aside, however, the "tweaking" of the Winnipeg Blue Bombers continued in earnest Monday, at the opening bell of free agency that saw the Bombers offensive line get a massive overhaul that wasn’t remotely unexpected. As they say in Arkansas, it blow’d up real gud.

Suffice to say that Bombers head coach Mike Kelly and Co. were doing their part to maximize MTS stock the last 48 hours. Two trades. Four players signed. Three offensive lineman lost.

Of course, word that tackle Alex Gauthier and centre Dominic Picard had bolted for Hamilton and Toronto, respectively, was about as surprising as a, well, a baseball player testing positive for steroids. The Bombers offered each lineman exactly what they asked for and they bolted anyway. What can you do? Guard Kyle Koch, another free agent, wasn’t in the Bombers plans.

So the additions of tackles Glenn January and Steve Morley, both late of the Saskatchewan Roughriders, was a matter of the Bombers restocking the shelves.

Is this an upgrade? Well, January, an import, is now on this eighth team (by our count) in the last six years. Hmmmm. Regardless, the Bombers’ file on January must have been favourable enough to offer the 6-foot-5, 300-plus-pound giant six figures.

Since it’s still mid-winter, it’s impossible to know if the Bombers offensive line will be improved in 2009, but we do know this: It could be unrecognizable from the group of hogs from last season. Is that a bad thing? The Bombers were 8-10 last year. So discuss amongst yourselves.

In fact, it’s baffling, frankly, why both the new head coach and president and CEO Lyle Bauer have repeatedly insisted their team doesn’t require a major overhaul.

Even when introducing his coaching staff last month, Kelly said: "I’ve told you all along, I want to keep this core (of players) together. I think this is a good football team. It just needs a little (alteration) here and there."

Look, it’s not as though Kelly was looking to restructure his offensive line. His hand was forced. But there’s been significant change on the defensive line, too, where Kai Ellis was traded to Edmonton on the weekend for Siddeeq Shabazz, who was second on the Eskimos in tackles last year. Meanwhile, Jerome Haywood was released and replaced with B.C.’s humongous defensive tackle Tyrone Williams. The fate and ultimate destination of dependable non-import DL Jon Oosterhuis, a Bombers free agent, remains undecided.

Ready or not, that’s change, folks. And that’s not something that should be feared, either. On the contrary, a major overhaul was exactly what the critics were demanding when it became clear at the end of a dreary 2008 season that whatever direction the Bombers were headed — whether it was coaching, quarterbacking, schemes or chemistry — it was the wrong way.

So maybe in making moves up top, the Bombers will take some hits. Maybe the agent for Gauthier and Picard, Gil Scott, who is also the agent of former head coach Doug Berry, wasn’t looking to do the Bombers any favours. Or maybe Gauthier and Picard, who were tight with former Bombers offensive line coach Bob Wylie (who also lost his job Berry was canned), decided they wanted some new scenery. Perhaps the Tiger-Cats and Argos sweetened their offers with cash up front.

Whatever, good luck to them both.

Yes, losing both Gauthier and Picard in one fell swoop is a setback. But if that’s the cost of change, than so be it. Granted, all this may prove to be an utter disaster — I mean, especially if the Bombers go to camp with three neophytes at quarterback — but the alternative, the status quo, was even less palatable.

Sure, there’s going to be questions. For example, if the Bombers have 5,000 files on football players all over North America, then why did they have to trade a draft pick to Saskatchewan for cornerback James Johnson? And why don’t they just cut Kevin Glenn loose already, and let him get on with his life?

On the plus side, however, the Bombers did snag punter Burke Dales away from the Calgary Stampeders on Monday, which immediately solved 50 per cent of the club’s kicking problems. We’ll see what happens with the other half.

All we’re saying is that the Bombers management shouldn’t run so fast from the word "overhaul". This team needed the snot tweaked out of it.

Or has last October been forgotten already?

randy.turner@freepress.mb.ca

Randy Turner
Reporter

Randy Turner spent much of his journalistic career on the road. A lot of roads. Dirt roads, snow-packed roads, U.S. interstates and foreign highways. In other words, he got a lot of kilometres on the odometer, if you know what we mean.

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