Boy Arius you are bored! But there were a few games in the 90’s in the playoffs where we should have won but the game plan that was put into play looked suspect. But you win! Another thing we are on the same page with is Taman. I can not think of a worst GM then him can you. Really the guy just goes and picks up players that were bad on the other teams. Yes he got lucky last year when Ottawa folded but what if they didn’t. Simpson and Armstrong other then that well you be the judge on that. But slimmy you got it. Had this GM tried to birng in players a year or two earlier who knows the Bomber fans just may have had their team playing at home in a GC. Argue with 2005 I would think it is more debating do you not think.
How about that play just this past season where BC was playing Saskatchewan in overtime and Wally decided that he was going to try for a 47 yard punt single on first down. Remember how that one worked out?
…red my son…you have it wrong again…have you got into my liquor stash …Arius said TILLMAN was slimy…not TAMAN (i know you hate Brendan cuz he cut you in t.c…but c’mon)…The names both start with T…after that the similarity ends…and Arius is right …when you are talking about a shifty dealer (slimy) TILLMANS name comes to the fore…i wouldn’t trust this guy as far as i could throw him…just look what he pulled off in the latest Ham. trade…Keep an eye on any dealings he might have with the stamps…cuz i know you’ll end up on the short end… :lol: :lol: 8)
oh and by the way …I luv the Stampeders and All of their fans…(and ,no, i haven’t been into the glenfiddick…just had a few beers) 
Well Dad I found it as an opportunity to get my shot on Taman. Tillman I might agree on him as well. There are not to many that are not though. Huey was good, Barker is good, Jim Popp is good and then you go down from there. Out the bunch I would say Popp or Huey to be the best. To bad Mr. Campbell is gone. The worst would be Taman, Tillman. Shivers depending the decade would fit in this group as well. Shivers is good at finding talent except the last few years in Regina I think he failed badly. Lying to the fans was probably the worst part for him. Stating they were the poor boys of the league yet they had the second highest pay roll and did not play like the second highest payroll. But Dad you know just like my chat with Arius these guys can not please everyone. I like how Popp does it in Montreal. You trade the stars before they are useless. Bouno tells them they are great on the field and then hjust dumps them like garbage. Arius there is a right way and a wrong way. Wally needs to look at how Mr. Popp does it. The same with gluey Huey he played the same cards yet Wally does not get it. Wally has done some great things with players example O Johnson but that was because he was a Wally project and it worked. With Pitts it was much different. Pitts busted his butt for Wally and the ending was not story book by any means. I do not blame Allen Pitts for his feelings about his old coach/GM. Yes it is hard to move on from a football career. But class is where it counts. Jim Popp has class.
I don't think Taman has done a very good job either. Having said that, when he was signed, he was very young and lacked experience. While I might have thought he should have been fired after 2005, the fact is, he did his best ever job rebuilding for 2006. If you only examined his performance based on that one year, you would conclude he is pretty good.
So he got his contract extended and now we will see if he can keep improving on the job, or will fall back to his old underwhelming performances of previous years.
I like Popp as well. Not convinced that naming himself coach was a good decision though....and of course much of the credit for finding talent in Montreal has to go to the Don, so now we will see how Popp does on his own. But he is a pretty likable guy.
Roy Shivers did a very good job for the Riders. Many people did not like his shoot from the hip, in your face attitude. I am not one of those. I also guarantee some of his critics did not like him because of his race. And that is sad. But Roy has proven in his 25 years in the CFL to be perhaps the best talent guy in the league. And he found the Riders plenty of talent. But we still could not get over the hump, so at the end of the day, it was time to change.
As for lying about our expenses, that is simply not true.
Roy has never, ever told anyone that we were not spending money. He was fully aware we were at or near the top in the last couple of years, and he was always willing to tell that to anyone who asked.
What Roy used to complain about was two fold. One, it is difficult to recruit players to come to Saskatchewan and so he often had to offer more money and players still turned him down. And secondly, it is a reality that teams such as the Riders cannot always be at the top in payroll. The fact that we were in the top echolon a couple of times in the last 100 years proves that point, not belittles it.
Without a cap, at anytime, every team except Winnipeg can, and consistantly do outbid us for key free agents.
If you actually look at the record, how many free agents did Roy sign in his 7 years? Not very many. Calgary, for example signed far more.
Where Roy spent the money was on talent he brought in and as they were good players, he had to pay to keep them.
Our salary structure was not far off the pace of the league and was commenserate to the expectations and talent on the field. Guys like KK or Dominguez would have returned to the NFL each year if Roy didn't compensate them. So he did. Roy argued for a level playing field, but he did not cry poverty. I think you are mistaking him for Flopson.
Moving on, I like Barker. I couldn't tell you who the guy in Edmonton is now. Desjardin is unknown. Rita and Pinball do a great job in TO, but lets see how the team with the highest payroll deals with cap issues...
Which brings us back to Wally. He can seem smug, even arrogant at times. And that annoys me as well. But what 2005 seems to dislike are personality issues, not his football acuman. Yet he trashes Wally for his abilities to coach. I am having a little trouble bridging that gap in logic.
Anytime you coach successfully in one spot like Wally did in Calgary, two things happen. One is, when you raise expectations to such a high level, as Wally clearly did, suddenly when you do lose, people get mad. They forget that without Wally, Stamps football might well have continued to be as brutal as it had been nearly every year since 1971.
Secondly, when you have a true talent like Pitts spend his entire career in one spot, but the inevitable happens that he should retire, but he himself does not see that, friction will arise.
It is in the end Wally's job to do what he thinks is best for the team, not Alan Pitts. You always hope the two are not mutually exclusive, but you don't always get the perfect storm. But obviously it hurts, as a fan, to see a favourite player appear to be hard done by. But it happens. And to say Wally made a "mistake" by not bringing Pitts back is a little harsh. Could he have dealt with it better? Maybe, maybe not. There is Wally's side, Pitts side and then there is the truth. And I don't know what that is, and I won't judge Wally on innuendo.
Anyway, briefly on "the Punt". That was not a coaching error as much as it was poor execution by a player. To sum up, that was the worst punt McCallum made all day.
If all he does is hit the ball cleanly, it sails easily through the endzone and the Lions win.
Instead he shanks it. Wally's only "bad decision" on that play was having faith in one of his players ability to execute a play.
And arguably, you could have run a play on first down to get a few yards closer and make it even easier.
But there was nothing tactically wrong with the call.
In fact i think the first words out of my mouth after we got 0 points, was (edited for family viewing)"drat, now all they have to do is punt the ball". And then they did....
However, what you can criticise Wally for, is allowing Dave Dickenson to even play in that game.
Some of the fault there lies with Dave, the trainers, doctors etc., but Wally is culpable. A guy returning from a concussion reports flu symptons leading up to the game, you simply don't play him. Now the doctors had supposedly cleared DD, and then DD claimed he actually had the flu, ie., his wife had the same symptons. But Wally should know better.
Wally is successful ... he's just a 'pain in the ass' to listen to
Almost as bad as Dickenson 