Big prize or bust for Blue and Kelly

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 07/11/2009 (5801 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Clearly, what the Winnipeg Blue Bombers have got themselves on Sunday is a Glengarry Glen Ross football game.

You know the movie, right? And that great scene where Alec Baldwin’s hard-ass character outlines the rules to a sales contest.

To wit, "As you all know, first prize is a Cadillac Eldorado. Anybody want to see second prize? Second prize is a set of steak knives. Third prize is you’re fired."

OK, so there’s no second prize for the Bombers showdown with the Hamilton Tiger-Cats. It’s Cadillac or bust.

Say what you want about the 2009 Bombers, but don’t deny their penchant for drama. Which brings us directly to rookie head coach Mike Kelly, the lightning rod for much of the theatre which has surrounded his team, almost since the day president and CEO Lyle Bauer let him loose on an unsuspecting public.

Kelly is what you call a polarizing individual. Some have called him much worse.

But there’s also a segment of fans who adore Kelly’s passion. When Kelly snaps at the media, which is not nearly as often as his reputation suggests, they eat it up. Media, bad. Football coach, good.

It kinda gets like ideological after awhile, like settling into political camps. For example, when the Bombers decided to ditch their antiquated, static offence midway through the season, the view in one camp was that clearly Kelly and his massive ego was the problem all along. And the further the head coach got from the offence, the better it produced.

Not so, said Kelly’s proponents. It was his flexibility to change and hand the reins of the offence to Manny Matsakis that led directly to a revamped scheme that brought the Bombers back from the dead (or 3-8).

You see, there’s very little middle ground with Kelly. He’s either a breath of fresh air who acts like a devil-may-care rebel, or he’s a boorish bully "who reflects poorly on the Canadian Football League." For the record, that last bit was penned by the CFL commissioner himself. Ahem.

My guess is that Kelly revels in both descriptions. In fact, I believe he revels in any description, just as long as he’s the topic of the discussion.

But here’s the deal: Kelly will be fired one day, but it should be based on what his football team does or does not accomplish, not on whatever slips from his yap. And that’s giving him a wide berth, since there’s evidence by the thousands of empty seats witnessed at recent home games which suggests that all those anti-Kelly fans who’ve vowed to stay away are holding true to their word.

That’s fair, too. But ultimately Kelly’s best defence will be the Bombers’ body of work under his guidance. According to their nearly completed regular season, his team (with his handpicked quarterback Stefan LeFors, remember him?) emerged with stunning offensive impotence, wallowed in the CFL gutter much of the season, then proceeded to find their legs, however inconsistent, under break-in-case-of-emergency pivot Michael Bishop to get to 7-10.

This is where it gets interesting, of course. Because the Bombers’ fateful encounter with the Hamilton Tiger-Cats won’t just decide which team gets into the post-season, but hosts the East semifinal, as if those stakes aren’t high enough. It will also be a referendum on Kelly himself.

It should be, too. After all, previous head coach Doug Berry finished 8-10 last season, a year removed from a Grey Cup final appearance, and he was summarily canned.

So 8-10 is the starting point, and should the Bombers prevail on Sunday there’s little doubt that Kelly will live to pay CFL fines another day. Even if the actual results are really just Doug Berry with better sound bites. (Berry’s 2008 team got off to a horrendous start, finished 6-2, and lost the East semifinal at home.)

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But lose on Sunday and prepare for the swell of disgruntled fans calling for Kelly’s head. Already, you could make a valid argument that Kelly shouldn’t be fired either way. For every negative on the field, I could find you a positive. However, that won’t matter to the disenchanted, many of whom are more turned off by what Kelly says than what his team does on the field.

Want proof? The Bombers for the last month have been getting better. The crowds, meanwhile, have been getting smaller. End of debate.

On Sunday, however, given the enormity of the contest and the favourable forecast, Canad Inns Stadium will be nearly (if not entirely) full. In other words, the referendum vote will have a quorum.

And there’s every chance nobody’s getting a steak knife.

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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