YEAR IN REVIEW SERIES

Ed Tait takes a look back at the 2016 Blue Bombers season with his Top 10 stories of the year…

#2 – Continuity at the Top

It’s a tough sell in any sports town, particularly here in River City, to preach patience without some sign of positive results. That’s especially so when a championship drought is measured in decades.

And so, while those in the know across the Canadian Football League had been quietly nodding in approval at the handiwork of the Winnipeg Blue Bombers football operations brain trust of Wade Miller, Kyle Walters and Mike O’Shea even before the 2016 season, without the traction that comes with wins this was a franchise seen by some as not just spinning its wheels, but sinking further into the mud.

Understandably, patience with the current regime was also worn thin through a 1-4 start that saw the Bombers lose their first three home games.

Funny what a seven game win streak and a march toward the playoffs can do to change the narrative…

After that horrible start the Bombers went on a 10-3 run to finish third in the West Division before dropping a 32-31 loss to the B.C. Lions in the West Semi-Final. The ending came too soon, to be sure, but as the Bombers began the task of cleaning out their lockers after the season, there was a sense of optimism and a trust in the blueprint that had been missing in these parts for years.

The Bombers headed into the offseason with the fewest amount of pending free agents of any CFL team, with the first and sixth picks in next spring’s draft and a sense that this team is now represented by a trending upwards arrow, not the scorched-earth crater it had been in previous years.

Earlier this month both Walters and O’Shea signed three-year contract extensions and the importance of that – the idea that there is stability through continuity – is understood, even appreciated, by many Bomber fans who had seen a revolving door of changes dating back eight or nine years.

This is what successful franchises do in this league, and the Bombers are finally at the point where they can take that approach too.

“It’s what we – myself, Mike and (Bombers President & CEO) Wade (Miller) – are most proud of,” said Walters in a chat with bluebombers.com the day he signed his extension “The Winnipeg Football Club has come from, truth be told, an afterthought a few years ago to a solid franchise in our league.

“Wade has stood by us the whole time and shown patience where the traditional way of doing things in Winnipeg in the past was short-sighted decisions in the sense of firing staff and bringing in new people. To his credit, he believed in Mike and I and stuck with us through a couple tough years. Now we all believe we’re heading in the right direction.

“You talk to our players and the players around the league and I think we’re well respected as to how we run our business, the way we treat our players, with the facilities… it’s right from the top down.

“We’re a professional organization. And we’ve worked hard to put some shine back on the ‘W’ again.”

It certainly wasn’t instant and that probably speaks more of the mess left behind by the previous regime than how long it took for the current crew to finish cleaning. The Bombers were 7-11 in Year 1 of the rebuild and 5-13 in Year 2. The 1-4 start to this past season had the Doubting Thomases in full throat and another mob gathering.

But after going through three different GMs and four head coaches over a six-year span before handing the keys to Walters and O’Shea, Miller opted to show some faith.

And it worked.

Consider now how the Canadian cupboard has been replenished – half of the 25 players on the roster, injured list or practice squad at season’s end were drafted by Walters – while the revamped scouting department found some gems like Kevin Fogg, Terrence Frederick and Travis Bond.

All five of the Bombers CFL All-Stars – Andrew Harris, Justin Medlock, T.J. Heath, Bond and Taylor Loffler – were newcomers this season, coming aboard through free agency, trade or via the scouting department.

Just as important, there is a head coach in place who is respected by his troops as a straight-shooter.

“The players respect him; the players play for him,” said Walters of O’Shea. “He’s a leader in this locker room and the players will follow him, they’ll fight for him and do whatever is asked from him. It’s evident to see the leadership qualities that he brings and the integrity he brings and to get a locker room of this size with the different dynamic and diversity of players to all buy in to what he sees as the winning formula… it’s easy to see and it’s easy to believe in him. I certainly do, as do the players.”

“I really like what we’ve started here,” added O’Shea on the day he scrawled his name on a new contract. “I really do believe we’re headed in the right direction. We managed to win some games and then build on the positivity that winning brings.

“We’re starting to see it pay off organizationally. There’s still work to do. We believe in what we’re doing, but we’re around it every day.

“What I think is happening now is around the league there’s a different chatter about who the Winnipeg Blue Bombers are.”

This is the ninth in a series recapping the Top 10 Bomber stories of 2016.

Next: A Trip to the Playoffs, posted on Dec. 31