I would like to start a new award, "Today's loser game ball," to be awarded after obviously losing a game. Todays "Loser game ball" goes not to a player but to management particularly Obie. Both the fans and management knew from last year that our offensive and defensive lines needed some major upgrading. There were numerous comments on this forum prior to the start of the season concerning and questioning why we were not signing or bringing in players to shore up the lines. Obie upon taking over the Cats stated to the effect that he wasn't going to play Canadian players for the sake of just playing Canadians. The Canadians we have on the D-Line are not good enough. The only player of quality on the line is Adams. Our offensive line needs a new center and guard. If you can't make a yard on third consistently you know this to be true.
The big difference between Montreal and Hamilton today was in the line play. Calvillo had three to four steamboats to make plays while we were lucky to get two. Remember Calvillo was the guy we cut because he got happy feet and that was because of our then poor O-line.
On a positive note I think Porter can be a good quaterback given some time to develop under a good O-line. We have upgraded our receiving core , defensive backfield and running back position.
Obviously this year is over for the Cats. They are an improved team even though the record does not show it. They will likely win one or two more games but need to aquire some talent in the offseason to improve their lines.
We also needed major upgrading At Reciever, Defensive back, Safety, Weak Side Linebacker and at Kick/punt returning.
And from what i’ve seen Obie did a pretty damn good job at upgrading some of those things.
Our Receiving corp is now full of young talented recievers that have shown flashes of what they can do with some experience.
We have a ball-hawk D-Back that is second in the league in interceptions (chris Thompson) and another young solid defensive back in Geoff Tisdale.
We have the 3rd leading tackler (also leading the league in INT’s for linebackers) at Weak-Side linebacker in Markeith Knowlton.
Then we drafted Dylan Barker to help at safety (nobody knew he would end up getting hurt).
We thought we might have had a threat in the return game from Tre Smith…but it turns out we already had the return threat in Jojo Walker (GBonds will like that little quote 
).
So now its time to Sure up the Defensive and Offensive lines this up-coming off-season.
The problem I have with this is that you don't even give it to a player.
What did Obie do yesterday to cost us the game with his play on the field?
Yes, we know Obie needs to bring an oline and dline. We know that.
But please, if you are going to have an award, give it to a player.
The problem is, I don't think it's 1 player who cost us the game. It was a team effort. I would have to give it to the dline. NML and Kashama had zero pressure.
I would love to see you continue this throughout the rest of the season. I will wait with anticipation to see who gets next weeks loser ball.
If you want to make commentary on Obie, there are a thousand other threads on here blasting Obie.
Game ball definitely to Coach Creehan. :oops:
Obilovich gets the ball. Nice job providing the necessary talent to bring this storied franchise forward.
Turnovers didn’t help. Just simply…a young team making some key errors and a veteran team exploiting those errors big time.
August: The previous week, when we beat Montreal in Hamilton, did you have a post saying Obie didn't bring in enough talent? (Forgive me if you did, I haven't read through the archives.) Because I think we largely fielded the same team, other than the additions of Lumsden and Keith for the away game.
Does obie event talk to the coaches at the beginning of season to ask them what they need? or does he go out and get the guys and say to the coaches “work with what I got”?
In answer to your question, being new to the forum I have posted a couple of comments but none concerning Obie. Giving Obie the “Loser game ball,” in no way takes away from my respect for the man and his achievments but rather is ment to show my frustration with his lack of attention and seemingly benign commitment to two of the most important areas of this football team. It’s offensive and defensive lines. We have the fewest quaterback sacks, an abysmal lack of a pass rush, have given up I believe to be the most sacks and can’t reliably get one yard on third downs.
As mentioned in my opening comment management and the fans knew that these areas of our team were in sad shape at the end of last season. It then begs the question as to why in the off season we had not signed anyone or at least brought in large numbers of players into training camp to tryout for these positions. Certainly there must be good linesmen out there. I can’t believe that the only players available are running backs. So then is it a scouting problem or did management not correctly evaluate last years talent?
Obie brought a lot of D-linemen into Training Camp
because we obviously needed several of them.
They were youngsters who had good credentials
but it turned out that they weren't strong enough.
Obie's efforts to bring in Tom Canada in a trade
fell apart when he suddenly became medically unfit.
Obie placed several DLs with some pro experience
on the practice roster in September with similar results.
Perhaps some of these guys may be back in TC.
They were out of football for a while,
maybe they weren't in good enough shape
to do any better than what we have now.
Sasha Lancaster is still around he looks like a good one.
Rome wasn't built in a day.
Yes, I did like that little quote :lol: and I agree.
I could say “I told you so” to a handful of people but I will remain quiet 
Tre Smith on the other hand is still a keeper and could be a great return man if he studies some of JoJo’s game film on kick and punt returning. :lol: Tre just needs to learn to catch the ball and get up field. If he did that instead of dancing around with it he would be a dangerous return man.