Door slams on 2008, opens wide for 2009

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 10/11/2008 (6461 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Lyle Bauer spent Sunday afternoon hunkered down in his office asking the same questions as everyone in Blue Bomber nation:

Where, when and why did the 2008 season come off the rails?

The club is already identifying the answers to those questions while spending the next couple of days conducting year-end exit meetings — a couple of weeks earlier than any outfit chasing the Grey Cup wants.

"Right now we need to go through the process of putting some closure on the season," began Bauer. "But suffice to say it was a very difficult season. The players, the coaches will meet, we’ll get together (Monday) for the wind-up, people will chat and say their goodbyes and shortly thereafter we’ll start working on ’09.

"Actually, we already have started. Scouting and recruiting is year-round and there’s also a number of Bowl games and other events in the next while."

As is customary, the Bombers will also be doing performance reviews throughout the organization, top to bottom. And the meatiest of those reviews will revolve around the football operations staff, particularly GM Brendan Taman and head coach Doug Berry.

Bauer would not comment on that until the meetings are complete — players clean out their lockers today and meet with Taman and Berry — but did offer up this take on ’08: "We have to make sure that we don’t let certain occurrences mask issues and that’s the danger of it," he said.

"I know that if you break the season down in thirds it’s 1-5, 3-3 and 4-2 but, at the same time, you also have to look at the opponents within those thirds (five of Winnipeg’s eight wins came against Hamilton and Toronto).

"We’ve got a lot of work to do."

ed.tait@freepress.mb.ca