J'ai une très bonne nouvelle pour tous : ça peut pas être pire, alors ça va aller mieux!
Demandez-moi pas quand...
Si Higgins veut reperendre un peu d'ascendant sur ses joueurs, il va falloir qu'il fasse le ménage dans le vestiaire, à commencer par les pommes pourries. Qu'il retourne la Diva en Floride et bien des choses vont changer. Deslauriers se démarque plus souvent qu'elle, alors pourquoi la garder?
If it was Popp's idea to use rd as Oc because the wetenhalls didn't want to spend money, that's a horrible decision in retrospect. No way to know, though. Higgins fell on his sword for hiring worman so I would imagine he'd have had SOME say in the next Oc? Sob. Just grasping at straws now...
It’s not so simple.
It is a combination of the money and Popp’s belief in RD. Popp let as many of Hawkins staff go as he could after the season. ONE COACH was REWARDED with an extention and PROMOTION. Higgins had not even been hired yet. I KNOW that at the mini camp in Florida, Worman coached the QBs and RD worked with the WR Coach ( Campbell). That comes from a source that was in Florida and at practice. Popp was hopeful he had found a rising star and another feather in his personnel cap and someday that may indeed be true. it’s just not today.
Of course you can disagree or dismiss it, that is your right. All I am trying to do is share the information.
Dude. What’s the issue? I wasn’t disagreeing with you or dismissing you at all, just adding my own thoughts to your post. You may well be right. When I said “Just grasping at straws,” I was referring to myself, not you!
Any team only goes as far as its QB takes it. Smith is not good enough. Not just compared to the incomparable AC, he is just not good enough. I thought so last season. He wouldn't be the first Heisman Trophy winning QB to bomb in the CFL. Popp had no one prepared to succeed AC even though the guy was obviously near the end of his career. He tried to get by with MacPherson for a few years but when he actually had to play the guy, his limitations were exposed. IMO he should've gone after Kevin Glenn in the off-season.
The team is not great anymore but it is still better than its record. With a good QB, they'd be a .500 team.
You’re joking, right? Did you see the damage Lefevour did running the ball last night? The problem is that our OC is over his head. If he were to start using Smith properly, with option plays, QB draws and scripted QB running plays, we’d be far better off. Not to mention our receivers are rarely open, and they didn’t even show up last night: Bowling, London and Carter missed very catchable balls.
Kevin Glenn would be doing no better. See how he did in Winnipeg as part of the QB carrousel? And in Hamilton, same thing. You need a strong coaching staff to bring out the best in your players, we don’t have one and that’s the main problem.
It’s a big problem, certainly Phil, but from ownership to management to coaching to the players, I am not as convinced that it is the main problem as you are. I’d almost say they are all equal problems, which makes it maddeningly difficult to fix. But I concede you may be right on that point.
That said, I don’t think I can agree necessarily with this:
I have not seen any evidence that option plays, QB draws, and scripted QB running plays would improve things. I know lots of folks talk about Smith’s alleged running ability, but I’ve seen precious little of it, either this season or last. Whenever Smith has run, it hasn’t looked to me that he has any notable ability in that regard, certainly not along the lines of Damon Allen, Kerry Joseph, or other such notable running QBs. I’ll concede that he can run better than Ted White, but that’s a pretty back handed compliment.
So while I concur with you that the Als coaching is poor and dysfunctional, I am not so sure that even if we had a good offensive mind running the show (say, were Trestman still to be here), Smith would be performing any better. Script all the running plays for him you would like, if he doesn’t have any particular talent as a runner, it won’t do us any appreciable good. He’s no Kerry Joseph that way, and no amount of coaching is going to change that.
Which lends to the question which has been asked many times so far this season : Smith last season with Berry as OC was not nearly this bad. Is it Smith or the OC/coaching?
I believe it falls on the Coach/OC/ “Consultants”.
I also agree with AlsPhil about the receivers. They did not help Smith's cause last night.
I'll give Bowling a break due to the lack of playing time. Maybe Carter gets a pass on one drop due to his coming off IR.
But London. For a guy that does allot of showboating, there were two he should have had. Maybe if he spent more time on focusing on catching the ball as oppose his first down pointing or waving his arms in the air, the Als may have had another chance at 3 pts 
You are correct, Smith was not as bad last season.
But he wasn’t all that much better either. I’d rate his performances last season as somewhere between mediocre and adequate. Certainly wasn’t establishing himself as a quality running QB.
I would gladly take mediocre and adequate today 
The Als have already played half their home games due to Hamilton and Ottawa's stadium situations. It would be a miracle for that team to improve enough and quickly enough to make the post season. Only two eastern teams will make it and right now it looks like Hamilton will get the second spot kind of by default.
What's mediocre and adequate? It sounds like some magical realm of basic competence that I heard about one time while talking to a fan of another CFL team.
I know horrible, inadequate, unacceptable, and embarrassing. Those are words we are all very familiar with as Als fans. But this mediocre/adequate thing seems a little too good to be true...
Retournez la Diva en Floride, et la moitié des problèmes du vestiaire seront réglés. Si l’autre moitié ne comprend alors pas, retournez-la chez son père/oncle et mettez sur le terrain des gars qui vont tout donner pour se faire une place. Ça fera moins mal au coeur de les regarder eux que ceux qui seront alors partis.