Fire Benny!!!!!!!

[Qman]

how many coaches make it back next season.
certainly benny can't survive after this game!

[Rammer]

how many coaches make it back next season.
certainly benny can't survive after this game!

If Wally gives him support then he is gone as well.

Benevides, McMann, Dorazio, Jones, and Paopao to start with. The sooner the better, begin the search before anyone else in the CFL.

[Qman]

Is this the worst game in lions history!
Khari is toast guartanteed as well.

Lapo is the obvious choice.

[leo4life]

Benny
Jones
Dorazio
Mcmann
Should be fired on the field...disgusting already

[Sir Purrcival]

Wow, this didn't take long. Any thoughts on how many pages this goes before next year?

[B.C.FAN]

Should have made it a poll.

[swervynmerv]

How can the Lions possibly sell the possibility of a fourth season of this coach to its fans?

A worse record every year. No playoff wins and rumours of clubhouse issues and grumbling a about the HC.

[longtimefan]

I agree that the entire group should be fired.....Is Wally beyond his best before date as well? It will be interesting to hear what Skulsky has to say after all the season ticket holders get through with their calls to the Lions office not to bother sending them their renewal package.

[Ravi]

An overhaul is badly needed in B.C. This is a franchise whose season ticket base has shrunk to 15k in a Grey Cup-hosting year from 24k just a few years ago. Major moves must be made or this team will start drawing crowds rivaling the Argos soon. They need a head coach with a solid offensive background such as Dave Dickenson or Jeff Garcia (with Marc Trestman a possibility if he doesn't last in Chicago although that is more of a longshot).

[DanoT]

At this point it is anyone but Benny. Even Tim Burke looks good by comparison.

[TheLionKing]

how many coaches make it back next season.
certainly benny can't survive after this game!

Benny was in a better position going in than coming out of it.

[Rammer]

At this point it is anyone but Benny. Even Tim Burke looks good by comparison.

Ahh the ABB workout for Wally this off season, I wonder if it is put on the New Year resolutions list.

[WestCoastJoe]

Wally has always gone to Hawaii for Christmas before making any changes. Same this year?

On the scale between rash (mercurial) and deliberate (glacial), Wally is at the far end of deliberate.

No candidates out there? I disagree strongly. But the search should be intensive and far reaching. It might be a no name. It might be a guy from college. It might be a guy who drifted away from football for a while, as happened with Kent Austin.

But there are excellent guys out there ...

IMO ... And it is not my job to do the search, nor to do the recommendations.

As noted a few times, Don Matthews worked his way up from the high school ranks, with huge success all along the way.

One of the first places one might look is former Quarterbacks. Probably at an OC level somewhere in college. Might even find some with CFL experience. And not necessarily re-cycled as would be the case with some that come to mind.

[PigSkin_53]

Wally and his whole organization need to leave now!

[WestCoastJoe]

About Jeff Garcia ...

Not much coaching experience. But he could be excellent. Who knows? Seems to have done a very nice job in Montreal. Gets credit for doing a nice job building back up the confidence of Mark Sanchez in the NFL. Long shot for the Lions, methinks.

http://www.philly.com/philly/sports/eag ... arcia.html

A mentor for Sanchez in tough times: Jeff Garcia

Mark Sanchez smiles after throwing a touchdown pass. (Photo by Thomas B. Shea/Getty Images)

Jeff Garcia answered his phone one day late in the winter of 2013, and on the line was a man he didn't know at all, seeking advice and insight about a man Garcia knew as well as anyone.

Mark Sanchez had just completed a season with the New York Jets that had left his confidence, and maybe his career as a starting NFL quarterback, in broken pieces. The Jets had gone 6-10. Sanchez had thrown 18 interceptions and lost eight fumbles. He'd been benched twice. He'd butt-fumbled. Now the Jets had hired a new offensive coordinator, their third in three years - Marty Mornhinweg - and Sanchez wanted to probe the mind of one of Mornhinweg's best pupils to learn the West Coast offense.

So he called Garcia, whom Mornhinweg had coached for three years with the San Francisco 49ers and the Eagles, and made the simplest request: Teach me. Teach me Mornhinweg's system, his coaching style, his mannerisms and idiosyncrasies. Garcia did. Four to five hours a day, three to four days a week, for a full month, the two quarterbacks talked route trees and timing and footwork in a film room and gymnasium near Garcia's San Diego home. And only now with the Eagles, after Sanchez missed the entire 2013 season with a shoulder injury, has he been able to show his tutor what he has learned.

"If there's one thing I would never doubt about Mark, it's the mental side," Garcia said in a telephone interview Thursday. "That's one of the things he's done in Philadelphia. He's prepared mentally. He now is able to translate what he's being coached up to do and allow himself to operate at a high level on the field, and hopefully he can maintain that consistency and grow."

Yes, Sanchez has been excellent since Nick Foles suffered that fractured clavicle two weeks ago, throwing for 534 yards and four touchdowns in seven quarters of action. Chip Kelly's offense might run at 45 rpm in the NFL's 33-rpm world, but the concepts and strategies aren't unlike those of the West Coast system. Look at the accents on the tight ends and running backs in the passing game, the way Sanchez and Jordan Matthews used those crossing routes to carve up the Carolina Panthers on Monday night, the quick throws to the middle of the field that play to Sanchez's strengths.

But even if Sanchez and the Eagles beat the Packers on Sunday in Green Bay, he will have a long way yet to go to match what Garcia did in 2006 - the standard by which all the team's backup quarterbacks are measured. After Donovan McNabb's season ended in Week 11 with a torn anterior cruciate ligament, Garcia lost his first start before reeling off six straight victories and leading the Eagles to the brink of what would have been an unlikely appearance in the NFC championship game.

His and Sanchez's stories and circumstances are so similar, it's downright spooky - the heights they had reached and the pressures they had faced, the paths they had taken to become starters again. In 1999, Garcia followed Joe Montana and Steve Young as the 49ers' No. 1 quarterback, fighting what he called "the ghosts and the greatness" of the franchise's past as the team began a rebuilding period. The 49ers won just 10 games over Garcia's first two seasons as a starter, and although they became a playoff team in 2001 and 2002, he had to live with people reminding him that he wasn't a champion, wasn't a Super Bowl MVP, as his two predecessors had been.

He endured nightmarish seasons in Cleveland and Detroit before deciding to sign with the Eagles just to be part of a winning organization again, even as a backup. Sanchez had the identical reason for joining Kelly and the Eagles in March, and long before he did, he could sit in Garcia's living room and open up about his rise and fall with the Jets: the four road playoff victories, the two AFC championship games, the searing spotlight when things go bad and stay bad.

"As much as we may seem superhuman in the sense of being able to play a professional sport, we are human," said Garcia, the quarterbacks coach for the Canadian Football League's Montreal Alouettes. "We are affected by what people say and think, and as much as you have to be thick-skinned and avoid a lot of that negativity, it's difficult to do. You can't help but feel at times, especially when things aren't going well, that you want to avoid everybody. You want to shelter yourself. You want to hide indoors.

"That's rough. It shouldn't be like that. But we put that pressure on ourselves, too, as players, because we expect to be the best. And when things aren't going in the right direction, especially at the quarterback position, it starts to come back to us and fall upon us. We can't help but share that burden, and that's our responsibility."

Aside from a congratulatory text message that Garcia sent Sanchez after the Eagles' win in Houston, the two haven't spoken since Sanchez replaced Foles. That's OK with both of them.

"He's just an awesome guy," Sanchez said Thursday, "and how thoughtful of him to keep an eye on me and wish me the best and text me."

Their friendship doesn't demand constant communication, and Garcia said he doesn't want to be "another guy hanging on just to be part of the journey." He was on that journey himself once, and Jeff Garcia understands: The longer he goes without hearing from Mark Sanchez, the better off the Eagles will be.

The fans in Calgary do not like to hear talk about Dave Dickenson returning to the Lions. Understandable. But maybe John Hufnagel does not want to give up the Head Coaching gig, for a while yet. Bit of a long shot perhaps.
............

Is it possible Wally stays with the status quo? I think it is. Although he may listen to the many calling for change.

Am I, as a fan, calling for change? I am kind of resigned to humble times for a while for our franchise. Braley will make his call. Wally will make his. It might be a year too late to prevent big time damage. The rot was probably there last year, and made worse with the dismissal of Jacques Chapdelaine and Rich Stubler. Those guys were Xs and Os experts. But it seems to me a team's performance is a reflection of its Head Coach.

Penalties. Confusion. Lack of discipline. Poor morale. Tricked and fooled on the field. Adjustments minimal, with minimal effect. Passive attitude, not attacking. Vanilla game prep, hoping that it will be enough. As one poor baseball manager said: "We coached them good, but they sure did play bad."

Just IMO ...

Others may see it differently, and I won't challenge their opinions.