Season blown to smithereens, may as well start mopping up

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 23/09/2009 (5852 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

By now it’s clear Mike Kelly is getting a do-over.

Fair enough.

Since there’s every reason to believe the Winnipeg Blue Bombers have blown the 2009 season to smithereens, might as well get down to the messy business of mopping up the ugly.

Look around: This week against the Toronto Argonauts, four players who were to make up the guts of the Bombers receiving corp — Arjei Franklin (traded), Romby Bryant (traded), Derick Armstrong (cut) and Terrence Edwards (injured) — won’t even be on the field. Meanwhile, nary a quarterback on the Winnipeg sidelines was even close to Manitoba — Michael Bishop (Texas, unemployed), Casey Bramlet (negotiation list) and Ricky Santos (Montreal practice roster) — when the promise of June was a twinkle in Kelly’s eye.

ATTENTION: CLEANUP ON AISLE 3!!

And you thought there was significant turnover in the off-season? Consider this Phase II.

These moves might appear desperate at first, or even second glance. For example, trading two Canadians for the Als fourth-string quarterback? That seems like a hefty price. At least, until you consider that Johnson and Mayne weren’t integral to the Bombers defence, therefore expendable, and the Bombers’ dire quarterbacking situation.

Let’s face it, Bishop’s days in Winnipeg are numbered. He’s been thrown under the bus more than Keanu Reeves in Speed. So they bring in Bramlet, with absolutely no CFL experience, who was clearly out of his depth in a short debut against the Als on Sunday.

(Editor’s note: Sure, Bramlet was undoubtedly flummoxed, doing the River Dance in the pocket, but since the Alouettes outed the Bombers’ see-through offence, let’s give the kid the benefit of the doubt.)

Further, coach Kelly was asked Monday, after trading Bryant and Franklin to Calgary for two incoming receivers, if it really mattered who the receivers were if the quarterback wasn’t getting the job done. Interestingly, Kelly didn’t dispute the premise.

Oh, yeah? Here’s our question: Does it really matter who’s quarterback if the offensive scheme is a fatally flawed, made-up-as-you-go mess? Seriously, by our count, Santos represents quarterback No. 9 on the Bombers roster this season. Question: How many quarterbacks and receivers do you have to go through before you blame the system and coaches, not the players? Fifteen? Twenty? Thirty? Hey, we’re just asking.

Because when it comes to that debate, the players always lose. Why? Because they’re at a huge disadvantage. A coach like Kelly has a platform each day to state his case and, if you’ve been paying attention, he’s singled out quarterbacking as pretty much the sole reason for the Bombers’ offensive ills.

But go figure — none of the carousel of Bombers quarterbacks has publicly begged to differ. You’d know if one of them did, because he’d be on the first Greyhound out of town. It’s not a democracy, it’s a dictatorship.

And if you control the propaganda machine, as Kelly does, you’ll win. That’s what happens when only one party, with its own agenda and self-interest at heart, can speak freely. Imagine, for a second, if you lined up all eight quarterbacks who’ve come before Santos and asked them the same question, what the answer would be? Oh, and hand out the sodium pentothal first.

That’s just the way business works, however. Deal with it or move on.

But this is where it gets interesting. You see, the players who were supposedly at the heart of screwing up the works are pretty much gone. After all, we don’t have Stefan LeFors, Bryan Randall, Richie Williams and Ryan Dinwiddie to kick around anymore. They’ve been replaced by fresh meat, er, players who will have every opportunity to make this ever-evolving offensive system employed by the Bombers blossom in their hands.

Chances are, to be realistic, it won’t be a swift process. You don’t just overhaul your entire QB and receiving corps mid-season and expect immediate results, right?

I mean, that’s just crazy talk. That’s like starting the season with three unproven quarterbacks and expecting… oh, sorry. What we meant to say was, that’s like parachuting in an unemployed quarterback with a so-so track record in mid-season and… um, right.

Sure, this all might be throwing good money after bad. And it could certainly get worse before it gets better.

But the Bombers have to re-boot somewhere on offence. They have to hope that Santos, perhaps, might be the next Khari Jones, who was the third-stringer in B.C. before former Bombers GM Brendan Taman wrote the anonymous quarterback’s name on a napkin.

Once again, patience will be the order of the day in Bomberville. Introductions will have to be made. Stalls will have to be emptied and refilled.

It’s just that you only get so many do-overs.

Then it’s just over, period.

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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