[i]Enough!
Fire Jim Popp the head coach!
Fire Jim Popp the General Manager!
Fire Jim Popp the Vice President!
Fire Jim Popp the North Carolina dude who works out of his basement office, several hundred kilometres from Montreal!
Fire JIM POPP!
[/i]
Agreed, but not now. Firing Popp midseason would do nothing but add to our instability. Let him play out the string.
I don't know how many more games I'll watch as long as Jim Popp is in charge TBH. It's year four of our downward spiral and I continue to believe that real change won't be possible without a change in the GM. A fresh perspective is needed.
Popp should step aside and allow someone else to take over as HC for the remainder of the season.
It can not get any worse.
If he has not lost the team by now, it is only a matter of time.
I think most players like Jim but most don’t respect him… Or they would not be the most penalized team in the league since he’s taken over.
Why should they respect him? He’s not a coach. And this is the problem. You can’t play hard and well for someone you fundamentally don’t respect.
Best for Jim and for us if he goes in the offseason. I take my hat off to him for all he’s accomplished over the past 20 years. He’s been the foundation of this franchise and the man behind our greatest successes. But his act is played out in Montreal, and he’s exhausted any goodwill he had built up. Everyone has a shelf life and Jim has reached his with the Als. If he stays and we keep going like this, the franchise keys will be in the league office within a few years.
Fans are not going to come to Molson stadium if he hangs around: The proposition that he is not a coach has gained widespread acceptance. Better instability than crappy, festering stability.
And Johnny, thanks for the topic.
Let fans not come. Maybe that will galvanize Wetenhall into making changes. Firing Popp would write off the whole season and make failure a self-fulfilling prophecy: the team would almost certainly finish with the same or worse record than if Popp had stayed, and fans would stay away because the on-field product would be just as bad.
Firing Popp midseason would let players off the hook, incidentally. If discipline is bad now, think about how bad it would be under an interim HC when all the players know that sweeping changes are happening in the offseason anyway.
Any further analysis I could add to Jim Popp the Head Coach would just be redundant or piling on.
But as someone who had always been a fan of Popp, what hurts the most is how he has deteriorated as a GM.
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Unable to find a successor to A.C.
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The Dan Hawkins hiring. I don
t have it in front of me but Hawkins was actually an Alouette scout for Popp as per the97 or `98 Media Guide. -
The Bomben trade for Ruby & Bodanis.
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Not giving Bourke what he wanted, yet giving Carter what he wanted. International receiver should be the easiest position to find for a CFL GM.
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Trading a 1st round pick for Adams.
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The whole Henoc Maumba situation.
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Failure to find a quality rush end to partner with Bowman.
And I don`t even hold the Johnson/Sam situations against him because I believe he was just trying to help some much needed box office.
[i]All excellent points Sheldon! :thup:
Popp is certainly not the GM he once was. He seems to mainly finds players in his backyard of North Carolina. He is not “first to the table” to find good players like he once was. Most other teams have improved their scouting over the last 10-15 years, and are finding the good players Popp used to find.
About the hiring of Dan Hawkins; it seems Popp’s rolodex of contacts is outdated and thin. When you have been around for 20 years, the good contacts you had back in 1999 are now over the hill and not adequate for today’s CFL.
New blood is needed with a pulse on the good coaching candidates, scouting hot spots, etc. [/i]
Things went to crap, when they allowed him to operate from a home office in Mooresville.
For a number of reasons you can't Captain a ship from the lighthouse.
I like the guy but he's not the high energy go getter he use to be and that's normal. Life happened 
Replace him with another 30 year old who wants to build a career for himself and is willing to work 80 hours a week living in Planes, hotels and car rental kiosks half the year and the other half in Montreal...
Hmm. This might sound strange, because I do want Popp gone, but I don’t know that I agree with a lot of your criticisms here. In order:
AC’s successor: He’s tried. Cato might be the guy, he brought Adams in, he drafted Bridge, and he signed Glenn to bridge the gap between past and future at the position.
Hawkins: Popp was ONE member of the job committee that hired Hawkins. Wetenhall was on that committee too and I suspect he had as much say as anyone else (especially when you consider how he hired Higgins over Popp’s head).
Bomben trade: What? That trade got us a first-rounder that turned into our current starting left tackle. Yes, Ruby is young and learning, but it’s not his or Popp’s fault that Dominic Picard retired a few days camp, forcing us to start a raw rookie (Gagnon) on the right side, move Matte to center, and Blake to left guard. We have lots of good guards. We don’t miss Bomben at all. Would you rather we have no possible successor to Bourke?
Bourke vs. Carter: No disrespect, sheldon, but this makes no sense to me. Why are you comparing a 33-year-old OT with reconstructed knees to a 25-year-old elite receiving talent? Bourke wanted to chase top dollar and we couldn’t afford it. Again, at the time, we had no way of knowing that Picard was going to retire, or that we’d lose S.J. Green for the season and Sutton to the 6-game in game two. If you think talents like Duron Carter are easy to find, I can’t disagree strongly enough. It’s easy to find decent receivers – very hard to find a game-breaker like Carter. If we’d re-signed Bourke, I feel like people would have slammed Popp for keeping veterans on and not planning for the future (Bourke has like 1-2 years left in the league).
1st-rounder for Adams: Adams is still a prospect. We don’t know how he’ll turn out. But how can you slam Popp for trading a player to get a first-rounder while also slamming him for trading a first-rounder to shore up the position you are criticizing him for apparently not addressing (QB)?
Muamba: We signed him for good coin, he didn’t perform up to Thorpe’s expectations and likely wanted an NFL shot, so we cut him loose. He’s in the NFL now. Honestly, who cares about him? We have lots of quality linebacker talent. Shorthill is ready to take the next step and he’s way cheaper.
No quality rush end: Knapton has played very well in the past two years. It took John Bowman until his fourth year in the league (2009) to become a dominant force. Knapton is currently in year three and has posted very good defensive stats.
Johnson/Sam: See, these are the failures I DO hold against him, because if the GM is thinking about box office instead of fielding the best possible team, he has lost the plot. Let the marketing department think about promotion. As GM, your job is to scout the best talent and field the best team.
Jim Popp will be in the Canadian Football Hall of Fame at some point.
The problem with Jim is that you can no longer build an organisation without him being an obstacle. AC adds to that same problem.
Gone are the days where he could convince a Matthews, Barker or a Jones to come and work for him.
And frankly his recruiting has been hugely underwhelming the last five plus years !
Jim likes to take pride in the success all the people he brought into the league but maybe just maybe they also made him…
3 people in particular : Matthews, AC and Trestman and then there we’re the Barker, Sunderland, Murphy, Jones, Milanovich, Desjardin, Maciocia, Thorpe who worked insane hours while he …
We all agree that Popp needs to stop impersonating a coach. Attendance is already dwindling. I think he should be replaced sooner rather than later, and I also think that Mr Wetenhall listens to the fans, so I don’t think he is going to wait until the season is over to make a move.
Most of your points are valid, however, despite his quirky nature and occasional brain farts, Duron Carter is an exceptional receiver, possibly the best in the league, and certainly the best player on this team. We have to be careful about letting our emotions overlook the obvious. I think we’re all hating what this team is doing right now, but Carter has probably been the only bright spot.
Thats your problem d&P, constantly drinking the Als Kool-Aid. <!-- s:D -->:D<!-- s:D --> Seriously, I respect your rebuttal. Ill expand on a couple of the points.
God knows Popp has tried to find a successor to A.C., but 3 years later he has not as yet found a proven one. And I frankly don`t see Cato or Adams as a potential Reilly, Jennings, Harris, Collaros. I might be wrong, time will tell.
And Popp should be finding QBs on his own, not paying other teams to find them. You give up a 1st round draft choice for a proven QB, not someone as yet unproven.
Our o-line this season has been a major problem and Ruby has been a turnstile. Will he develop? Possibly, but maybe not. Vercheval keeps talking about his footwork. Bomben was proven, and he or Blake could have been moved to OT.
Bourke was a sure thing for the next 2 years, and if Carter was to behave himself he would have been back in the NFL after one season.
You build a strong offense from the inside out. I realize though it would likely not have been possible to afford both Bomben and Bourke.
Your turn d&p. What are the reasons then that you want Popp gone?
You`re right about my emotions getting the best of me, this is one frustrated fan.
I love Duron Carter the athlete, not the immaturity. But my point was more to do with the offense having to have a solid o-line before it has any chance of being successful. I feel we are definitely missing Bomben and Bourke. I realize it`s 2nd guessing after the fact, but Popp gets paid to first guess.
Looks like the fans have finally had enough.
[url=http://www.rds.ca/football/alouettes/als-plusieurs-critiques-envers-jim-popp-1.3496069]http://www.rds.ca/football/alouettes/al ... -1.3496069[/url]Sheldon, you’re absolutely right that he hasn’t found one yet. But … Hamilton didn’t find Collaros, nor did Ottawa find Harris. Both spent a few years cutting their teeth behind Ricky Ray in a stable Toronto offense. It took Buono years to find Lulay (remember the second try with Casey Printers? ugh), and another few years to find Jennings (remember Kevin Glenn as a Lion?). Cato is barely into his second year in the league, on a team plagued by turmoil and injuries. Adams is brand-new to the league. Let’s give them time.
And Popp should be finding QBs on his own, not paying other teams to find them.Again, I refer you to Ottawa (Harris and Burris), Hamilton (Collaros), Toronto (Ricky Ray), and Winnipeg (both QBs signed from other teams) for examples of teams that signed developed QBs away from other CFL squads. Really, does it matter how we find the next guy, as long as we find him? I mean, we found Anthony Calvillo that way -- signing him to back up Tracy Ham.
You give up a 1st round draft choice for a proven QB, not someone as yet unproven.You're thinking of NHL, not CFL trades. One first-round pick in a Canadian draft is not going to get you a proven starting QB in his prime, not even close.
Our o-line this season has been a major problem and Ruby has been a turnstile. Will he develop? Possibly, but maybe not. Vercheval keeps talking about his footwork. Bomben was proven, and he or Blake could have been moved to OT.Bomben is a guard, not a tackle. It is very difficult to move guards out to tackle. If it were that easy, he'd be playing tackle in Hamilton, but he's not. Finding a national tackle to start on the left side is wicked hard. We're the only team in the league that starts a national at that position. Ruby has got a lot of talent and is doing the best job he can given the circumstances. Yes, maybe we could have moved Blake to tackle, but Blake is 30 years old. In three years you might have to replace him. Ruby is only 24 and has tons of upside. If we're patient with him and don't blame him for the failures of the team, he could be our starter at that position for the next ten years, just like Bourke was.
I will point out again that when Popp was making his offseason moves, he had no way of knowing that Dominic Picard would retire three days into camp. That retirement forced three different position shifts on the line and forced us to start a raw rookie, Gagnon, before he was ready.
Bourke was a sure thing for the next 2 years,Maybe, maybe not. Look at SJ's career ending two games into the season. Who could have seen that coming? Bourke is playing on two bad knees. All it takes is one DT rolling over his leg and he might be toast. Also, Bourke playing in Milanovich and Brady's system, for a future Hall of Fame QB in Ricky Ray, is very different from Bourke playing for first-time OC Calvillo and Jim "Pointy-Haired Boss" Popp. ;) I mean, it's not like Bourke stopped us from going 6-12 last year, right?
Your turn d&p. What are the reasons then that you want Popp gone?Here are my reasons.
Failures as a head coach. This has been well-documented, so I won’t get into detail, but we can all see that he’s not able to enforce discipline (to cut down on penalties) and that he can’t effectively oversee his coordinators.
Popp has reached his best-before date. After 20 years, it’s time for him to go. He doesn’t have the drive that he used to, and anyone is going to get stale after that long with one organization.
Prioritizing splashy PR moves instead of fielding top talent. Michael Sam, Chad Johnson, enough said.
Poor international scouting / too much reliance on ex-NFL cuts. Virtually every player we sign now is an NFL castoff, which tells me that Popp, Lande, and the rest have gotten lazy. Instead of beating the bushes for good talent, they’re relying on the NFL to put prospects on their radar. You’re not only not doing your job, but you’re bringing in players who are already a few years into their pro careers and so aren’t going to be playing for your team for as long.
Letting the leadership core of the team age. We’re still relying on Cox, Bowman, and Parker, guys we brought in 8+ years ago. In fact, Cox and Bowman were brought into the league when Don Matthews was our HC and Chris Jones our DC. I’m 99% positive that Popp had little to do with scouting them.
Toxic presence for the organization. Rightly or wrongly, good coaches are going to shun us like the plague as long as Jim is here and as long as Wetenhall thinks that parachuting him in to replace a fired coach is any kind of good idea. He needs to go so the rest of the league can see that we’re moving in a fresh direction. It’s time. We’ve become a joke around the league.