Fire Corey Chamblin

I was a season ticket holder through 11 years of no playoffs in a nine team league, which takes some dedicated stupidity and incompetence.

Sunday afternoon in Ottawa those memories came back like the remnants of a bad drunk as the Riders tanked with a score of 35-13.

If you saw the game, you wondered about the stupidity of Corey Chamblin benching his best quarterback and best chance to win because he didn’t meekly accept a benching after throwing an interception in the second quarter. Now having seemed the Riders give up a 14 point lead to Ottawa with a defense that seemed to be made up of the lame and infirm, you have to wonder why Corey doesn’t apply his own tough love with the defense that he has honed into the mildest of road bumps for opposing teams?

As I write on Monday morning, plans are underway for a protest for the Labour Day game against Winnipeg Blue Bombers. Chanting Fire Chamblin or booing him will make for real interesting national television as Rider Nation has had it with this guy who has no idea of how to coach.

Chamblin’s ego has been writing cheques that he cannot cash, but for him it may result in a firing and a buyout of his contract, rumored to be in the $750 K range. His actions also may have ended the slim to none chances of making a playoff run with the win by Montreal over Hamilton now putting them into position for a cross over playoff spot with four wins.

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Chamblin went from someone who went from hiring strong assistant coaches to now having except for one, maybe two, with the rest being inexperienced yes men. The coaches he has on defense had no idea of how to teach fundamentals or even how to make them stick.

This gets more interesting as the Rider board of directors gave him a vote of confidence and said no changes would be made until after the season, if then. At that time it was probably a reasonable hope that Chamblin would be able to coach the team out of a growing tailspin.

But Chamblin has not rewarded the confidence of the board, never mind the fans and probably the players that he knows what he is doing. Chamblin is in over his head as a head coach and for those who point out he coached the 2013 Grey Cup champs, well with hindsight with an experienced staff and players, any of us could have done that job.

So will the board of director’s act? The mood right now is when the Riders are introduced on Sunday, the game day announcer will omit the phrase “under the director of head coach Corey Chamblin” because of the chorus of boos that will erupt. The board is pleased the Rider brand is third most popular in Canada, but consider this: the more the Riders under Chamblin embarrass the brand, the less inclined people will buy Rider products because who needs to suffer the insults that go with it?

To give the board some credit, it may have been patient, but now it has to weight the cost of paying Chamblin out, which would probably be covered in merchandise sales, or letting him further alienate the fans. If the board was looking for progress being shown, it has certainly not happened and the Riders seem to be taking steps backwards with penalties increasing and a lack of discipline which stems directly from the bully leading the sidelines.

I have to admit, part of me hopes Chamblin serves out the year, does not win a game, and gets to wear a 0-18 season on his resume. If he is such a defensive genius, then why is he with two exhibition games and nine regular season games 0-11 for the season? It will be fun for him trying getting hired with that kind of record and try converting his $740 K payout to American dollars. It’s a good thing his wife works as a nurse.

If you, as a fan, want to express your opinion, go in the Riderville website and hit the contact box and let them know how you feel. This season is now officially a joke, might as well share the laughs.

So this week BC goes to Montreal and Montreal demonstrated that firing a coach can sometimes help a team as they upset Hamilton in Hamilton. BC is undergoing what they consider to be a rebuilding year and it’s not clear yet where they are as a team. So keeping in mind teams in Montreal go to be distracted, let’s say Montreal 25 BC 20.

The Bombers come to Regina on Sunday and the question right now is who will coach and who will quarterback? As of Monday morning, no one is clear on those questions and both teams are pretty lousy, the difference is Winnipeg has three wins to the Riders 0. This is more a hope the Riders get their limited crap together and respond with a big performance, preferably with a new coach Riders 27 Bombers 26.

Toronto goes to Hamilton for their Labour Day matchup and both teams are coming off loses. Hamilton’s was interesting because their offensive line proved to have more than one leak to make life difficult for Zach Collaros. Toronto has a good offense, but it is their defense that needs to perform and I haven’t seen evidence of that yet – Hamilton 31 Toronto 23.

Finally we have Edmonton going to Calgary. Edmonton changed quarterbacks and it seemed to work in a win over Toronto while Calgary just had to step off the bus to beat Winnipeg. Two interesting matched teams with a strong Calgary offense against a strong Edmonton defense and an interesting Edmonton offense versus a strongish Calgary defense. I am going to pick Edmonton in an upset here 24-23.