Bombers release Grigsby

One of your better players. A falling out with O'Shea?

He asked for his release according to a statement he posted on his twitter account. Maybe he decided he's had enough or has had some family issues arise, then best of luck to him. But if he's upset at sitting last week vs the Esks then good riddance. Bottom line, he' had a rough couple of weeks and a change was made. He could very well have gone back on the roster this week after a good week of practice. The benching should have motivated him. If that's why he's heading home than clearly he wasn't willing to compete for his job and we don't have room for guys who aren't willing to fight in practice and game days. Perhaps we'll find out more from O'Shea at his presser later today.

I agree 100%.Being challenged should make you work harder.His YPC is a bit of a concern and he just seems to go down so easy.With room he does seem to move but you also need to be able to get the tough yards.

Anyone see the Antolin guy at RB for the Lions last week vs the Redblacks? Wears #1 and reminded me of our former #1 Charles Roberts. Barrels into the line of scrimmage and finds himself a hole.

Wow, he was like 50% of the offence this season, like they couldn't work in a two back system with him and Cotton, don't like this move at all.

Not starting 3 internationals on the Oline we couldn’t. And neither Grigsby or Cotton is a good enough returner to bench Stoudemire when he’s healthy. If we had better National depth it would work but we’re not there yet.

Don’t even get me going on the roster management this year, there is always a way to get 2 import running backs on the roster especially ones who can catch just as well as receivers. Very badly handled by the Bombers for it come to this imo.

Everyone gets their shorts in a knot when an intern'l is released, but hardly a whimper when a nat is let go. If Grigsby wants to walk, I say adios. We have a Canadian RB named Carl Volny. Now that we have 3 practice games left, I say PLAY HIM.. How did that fellow in Calgary get his start ? I remember negatives flying everywhere when they decided to start Cornish. Not now !... This is the chance to develop Canadians. After the last 2 games who cares what the score is. We might be surprised.

Some interesting comments in Friesen's sun article, particularly when he's usually got a slant digging at the bombers:

"The Bombers won’t miss Grigsby that much on the field. Hell, they lost five in a row with him in the lineup, a streak that grew by one in Edmonton.

They’ll miss him even less in the locker-room.

I’m told the 25-year-old was a cancer, someone whose attitude has been a problem for a while. An outsider from the start of training camp whose personality didn’t fit with the team.

Grigsby shot out of the blocks this season, with 100-plus yards rushing in his debut.

But over the last several weeks his performance went into the tank — where it joined his attitude.

Word out of the locker-room is Grigsby questioned the coaching and debated game plans. Good for him, you might say.

But that’s a game for fans and media to play.

I’m told Grigsby also took to blaming his teammates, particularly his offensive line, for his decline in production.

While there may be more than a shred of truth in that, Grigsby’s inability to take any responsibility is what had teammates fed up with him, despite what many said publicly upon his release, Wednesday.

A message he posted on Twitter earlier this week says it all:

“It takes 11 other players for a RB to be successful... let me know if you can find one RB that can run 1 vs 12?? Grigsby (@Nic_Grigsby5) tweeted on Monday, a message he’s since deleted."

[url]http://www.winnipegsun.com/2014/10/15/nic-grigsby-was-a-problem-in-blue-bombers-locker-room-long-before-he-quit-wednesday[/url]

Everything he said is right on, but I guess he's not supposed to say it. Well, I can say it. The team thinks he's a cancer because he spoke the truth. The team likes the status quo that has evolved. I don't. I'm tired of hearing how everyone is trying their best and they are all top-notch ball players. Grigsby said what needed to be said by O'Shea. The HC keeps telling us we don't need new brakes as the bus slides down the hill..... Trying and doing something wrong is better than doing nothing at all... I'm only pissed off so much because I care so much.

Dan I agree with you to a point. And I wonder how much of the relatively low key O'Shea we see and hear from in pressers and interviews is the O'Shea the players see behind the scenes. Maybe he's the same, maybe it's just a front to give the media and public a calm singular voice while behind the scenes he's going nuts. While players may not agree with gameplanning, etc, that's something for players and coaches to discuss in team meetings, video review, etc. Perhaps the issue is Grigsby not discussing with his coaches and walking around the locker room complaining to teammates and trying to undermine the coaches.

The other issue is regardless of whether he agrees or not with the gameplans or how the offense is run, he got a lot of touches. He has no right to complain about being underutilized. And the facts regarding his play are evident on the film. First contact, regardless of where it was and even if it was just a slight jersey tug or a big hit, most always knocked him off balance and down to the ground. Runs between the tackles he approached shuffling his feet side to side with little forward momentum. 2nd and 2 and give him the ball he almost always lost yards and killed the drive. The one thing he was most effective at was screens early in the season but teams realized he wasn't a good runner up the middle and they took away his space in the flats and he struggled.

Bottom line, he had more touches than anyone else on the roster on offense. His production went down from near 100 combined yards a game to 40. For sure, the coaching and gameplanning and playcalling have been far from great, especially in recent weeks. But at the same time, when you're not producing and coaches are telling you what you need to work at to get better and your response is to say you're great and the other 11 guys on the field around you suck and then walk out the door, that has nothing to do with the coaches, that's the player. And we all care about this team and it sucks to have this kind of drama, particularly with one of your break out rookies, but we need a team to get better and IMO we just got rid of a "me" player. We could have just suspended him to keep his rights or backed down and stuck him back in the lineup, but IMO they did the best thing they could do with a "me" player and that's get rid of him.

I’ve thought of all your scenarios too. I think it’s a chicken/egg situation. Bad coaching created badmouthing and so on. It snowballed. It took NC too long to reach speed. I’m not worried about the loss of NC, although as I said on the main forum, O"Shea’s way to spark the team was to insert Cotton,the same guy who couldn’t beat NC out of a spot all year. And how did that spark work out ? NC was a malcontent. We have to ask ourselves why he was. I tired of excuses and a do nothing approach. DO SOMETHING !!!

Going back to preseason, Cotton had won the starting job until he got hurt in the 2nd preseason game vs the Stamps. Over 2 preseason games, Cotton put up 97 yrds on 11 carries, Grigsby 50 yrds on 11 carries. Grigsby got the job on injury and got to keep the job because of early personal and team success. He lost the job both on personal and team failure as of late. The one thing I will give Grigsby credit for though is he didn't turn the ball over which Cotton has done a couple times now, and in each game vs the Esks at that. Cotton wasn't much of a spark, but he didn't give us any less than Grigsby has over the last couple of weeks and really there was no spark across the board from the team. Defense gave up early points, the offense helped out by coughing up points and field position, Willy continued to take a beating until he was forced to leave. Would keeping Grigsby in the lineup have made much of a difference?

As for O'Shea's words that they started Cotton to provide a spark. Given the recent comments about Grigsby's attitude in the locker room, I have to wonder now whether that was just a smokescreen. If indeed his attitude has been bad for a while, I'm thinking they sat him down for disciplinary reasons and used the whole spark excuse so as not to demean the player publicly. Given Grigsby's childish reaction to hop on twitter to throw his teammates under the bus, I think the discussion yesterday with him was that it was the wrong response to his benching and they were going to sit him down another week and he balked at it.

I agree with what you say Wolverine. I'm not defending Grigsby, but there is a fine line between keeping your mouth shut and accepting the status quo and speaking up when you can see there is something wrong and there is something wrong with this team. kinda like a soldier doing his duty verses the " I was just following orders" responses from the SS during the Nuremberg trials. NC spoke up and I give him credit for that. We could look at it like this; NC cared enough about the team that he tried to correct the problem and when that didn't work, he couldn't stand to watch it go down the tubes. He left. Just another way to look at it .

Hm, well, I just can't see it similarly. I can't get past his comments about him being 1 against 12 on the field, disparaging his other 11 teammates. If you're a team guy, care about the team and your teammates, you don't put that out there IMO.

Guess we'll see about Grigsby. Word is the Ticats are talking to his new agent. Missing Gable most of the year, they're trotting out two new guys this week. Depending on how well they do he could end up there. Good luck to him. If he didn't like O'Shea, he's sure to love Kent Austin who tends to ignore his RBs a lot. They've only given a RB 10 or more carries in one game only once this season.

No matter which way anyone feels about this whole affair, it’s a sad indication of the state of the Bombers when this is the news we have to talk about… They’re going to start Brohm. If we get to see Marve, that might be good. If we don’t, that might be good too!

I think you made a key statement there that the Bombers are just not there yet. They needed a complete overhaul from top to bottom. There are going to be bumps along the way. They started off playing very well and winning some close games. It has balanced out to where they are now losing some of those games.
Pretty much no favorites being played here. They were an unlikely Grey Cup contender this season but overall since Walters took over the GM spot as an interim he went right to work.
Those previous years where they seemed to have to play Buck because they paid Buck among some of the other high profile names.
It is a what have you done for me lately busisness for the new regime to step up and make tough choices purely on the production shows a lot. No matter who you are or what you have done in the past. Korey Banks was brought in but he was not the same player he once was and hence Teague Sherman worked hard and earned his spot. If the Bombers were simply content to go with Banks and Dunn then Sherman would be rotting away.
Patty Neufeld has struggled with injuries so that has affected the Oline plan.
Anyway I like what the Bombers are doing and all signs point the positive. The coaches and management are in charge and there are plenty of football players who have bought in and more will follow.

And on top of that, Austin regularly, at a minimum of once per quarter, blows a gasket and goes totally ballistic on officials and his own players; never seen O’Shea do that.

Kind of odd that he would ask for his release. Likely he, like most people including me did not realize that he cannot sign for another CFL team for the rest of the season. It could have been likely that he may have rejoined the line up along with Cotton depending on their playoffs are alive.
If they get eliminated I don't think they would just start benching players and call it a season. However it may be a chance to get Goosen into the starting line up on the interior Oline adding 3 Nationals starting on the oline and work a Grigsby - Cotton 2 back system.

And Jack, that is part of my problem with O"Shea. He seems too complacent, no matter what. A little emotion to show displeasure of a certain play would go a long way to showing he cares. The laissez faire attitude is rubbing me the wrong way. Opposite types of coaches and people. I remember how when I was in primary school that the teacher who wouldn’t take no guff and was strict, was the teacher that got respect and results. The teacher who tried to be our friend and let stuff slide never got respect or results. I remember the strict teachers and what they taught us, far more than the pushover teachers.