Mike O’Shea has never been one to openly showcase his emotions. He’s a rock on the sidelines during a game and through the practice week, only occasionally flashing a grin or a grimace.
Yet the Winnipeg Blue Bombers head coach has been straightforward with this the last two Novembers: just like everyone on his coaching staff and every player on the roster, he’ll wear the last two Grey Cup losses for eons.
“I’ve said this before: I think these stick with you forever,” he said during a season-wrap press conference on Monday. “So, I imagine at some point down the road, even years from now, I’ll just all of sudden let out some sort of primal scream and say, ‘Damn. We had a chance.’
“But as I said after the game, credit to Montreal. They certainly made a few more plays than we did – especially at the end.”
Eight days ago, the Blue Bombers wrapped up their fourth consecutive appearance in the Grey Cup with a 28-24 loss to the Montreal Alouettes. That came a year after falling to the Toronto Argonauts in the 2022 championship by one point.
Two opportunities lost by a grand total of five points.
Asked about the difficulties of getting past this most recently loss and the pain of it compared to last year, he added:
“They’re all there. They’re all wrapped up in one nice little package. It doesn’t feel good. You believe you’ve got the team that can win. Obviously, the way we played all season long says that we certainly had a good opportunity, and we didn’t end up winning.
“The emotion around it is a little different. The end of the game scenario… you lose at the end in the same sort of fashion, but two completely different plays and you feel sick when you relive both of them.”
O’Shea spent a good chunk of last week in exit meetings with players, especially those who were heading home for U.S. Thanksgiving. He hasn’t gone over the Grey Cup game film yet with a ‘fine-toothed comb’ but will eventually evaluate everything right down to every play call and second of clock management.
The consensus he got from most players before their departures: “The emotion is a little different, but the sentiment is the same – the guys all believe we’ve got a good football team that can keep rolling. I agree with them.”
Here are the major takeaways from O’Shea’s visit with the media:
REVISITING THE 110th GREY CUP
Some notes from the CFL stats department that might make this even more difficult to swallow:
- Montreal’s game-winning touchdown with 13 seconds remaining was the latest in Grey Cup history.
- Zach Collaros set a new Grey Cup record with an 82.6 completion percentage
- Cody Fajardo is the first Grey Cup winning QB to throw for two touchdowns in the fourth quarter.
- The Blue Bombers recorded the second-highest second-down conversion rate in Grey Cup history at 74 percent and the second-highest time of possession total at 37 minutes, 44 seconds.
“In certain aspects we played very, very well,” said O’Shea. “And then there’s just a play or two that they made that we didn’t. But that’s football. That’s sport in general. The guys are obviously angry, sad – all those emotions that would come with losing – and none of our guys are wired to sit back and look at the big picture just yet. That’s for later on in life.
“But I think they played a pretty good game. There are certain metrics that would say we played a really good game. It’s just 15 seconds here, 10 seconds there, a play here, a play there and it just ends up that we’re on the wrong side of the ledger.”
WHAT’S NEXT?
The Blue Bombers are already into offseason mode and with a list of 36 players who are pending free agents heading into the opening of the market on February 13th.
At the same time, GM Kyle Walters and assistant GMs Danny McManus and Ted Goveia are all on expiring contracts, although – as he did during Grey Cup week – O’Shea indicated he expected at least Walters to return in 2024.
“First of all, we need to get together and get a strategy,” said O’Shea of roster management. “(We need to) have our roster meetings – which we haven’t had yet – and figure out how we want to proceed. There’s always going to be change. That’s the way it is. We say this every single year. Every coach in every pro sport says it every single year. Some guys can’t do it again, some guys don’t want to do it again here and a lot of guys will want to be back but will still have to try and fit that into a cap situation.”
O’Shea said he thinks some of his players are contemplating retirement – he wouldn’t indicate who, naturally – and that he wouldn’t talk anyone of that potential decision, instead focusing on supporting them.
“Anybody that’s played a decent amount of time, it’s going to be tough,” he said of the decision to retire. “That’s the bottom line. There’s always a void left. I think that’s why so many guys that are done head to team service-oriented jobs – fire, police – where there’s a group relying on you. I think guys that play awhile need that.”
TABLING AN OLD STICKING POINT FOR DISCUSSION
O’Shea is clearly still miffed at the CFL’s football management cap, first implemented to stop teams from potentially making coaching/management personnel decisions that could cost a franchise financially and negating the option to make change if necessary.
What it also does is handcuff an organization like the Blue Bombers – a team with seven consecutive double-digit win seasons – as its staff can’t be properly rewarded for its work with the cap ceiling preventing them from being further compensated due to the cap.
“It stinks for our staff,” he said. “The entire staff deserves to be top in their group. You can’t argue that.
“Obviously nobody likes it from a coaching standpoint, but your staff would say we’re suffering the most in that regard. I brought it up last year, too, and nothing really gets done.”
O’Shea did confirm that a team has approached the Blue Bombers for permission to speak to one of the assistants and Saskatchewan is said to be interested in offensive coordinator Buck Pierce for its head coaching vacancy. As to how he handles that:
“You bank on change and then when it doesn’t you feel good and you make those quick phone calls back and you say, ‘Hey, listen… everything is status quo here right now.’ But you bank on some change. We’ve got a good staff. I mean, why wouldn’t teams want our guys?”
O’Shea said he has spoken to Pierce and “those are just conversations between two friends that have worked together for a decade. It’s not about the business at that point. I want whatever is best for Buck and his family.”
ON THE DECISION TO SUIT UP ADAM BIGHILL AND DALTON SCHOEN
Both players entered the Grey Cup without any practice time and clearly not 100 percent healthy.
“The question is, would I play those guys again? In a heartbeat,” O’Shea said. “Wouldn’t change anything.”
BRADY OLIVEIRA AND HIS NFL INTEREST
Blue Bombers running back Brady Oliveira – the CFL’s rushing champ and Most Outstanding Canadian – is a pending free agent and indicated last week his agent was testing the waters for NFL interest. And if he does return to the CFL, the Winnipeg product is due a hefty raise.
“He had a massive year. Fantastic year,” said O’Shea.
As for fitting a potential meatier contract for Oliveira into the cap he said: “We’ve done it before. We had a very good one before Brady, too (Andrew Harris) so we certainly made it work in a cap system before, so we’ll just have to formulate a strategy and figure out what we’re going to do. Obviously, we’d want him back.”
AN AGING ROSTER OR JUST EXPERIENCED?
The Blue Bombers roster – including those who finished the year on the practice squad or injured list – features 23 players 30 or older. Another seven players are currently 29 years old. But that experience has also been critical in all the success this team has had over the last few years.
“We’ve got a good mix of young guys, too. Whenever they run the numbers and say we’re the oldest team it’s by a year or something? I don’t know… does that matter? And you still look at some of the guys who are over 30 for us and they just produce at such a high level.
“It’s a case-by-case basis. In this business, everybody gets cut sometime at some point. But I don’t look at our roster right now and look down the list and say, ‘Here’s a couple guys that have aged out.’ They’re too good and they work too well together. You need that experience, too. And we do have some young guys that are best in the league calibre players, too.”
WHAT CONSTITUTES SUCCESS?
Four Grey Cup appearances in four years, two titles… that’s the big picture. But is that considered a successful year?
“It’s hard. It’s hard right now,” said O’Shea. “But take the standings and the outcome out of the final game out of it. I think the way our team worked on a daily basis; the team they became would say it’s successful from that standpoint. Wildly successful from that standpoint.
“We did win a lot of games. We didn’t win the last one. But the group we had became a good football team.”
