Desperate Bombers needed to trade for QB Nichols

Head coach Mike O’Shea’s expectations of new quarterback Matt Nichols were on the modest side as the Blue Bombers got back to work Wednesday.

“I want to see him show up,” O’Shea said. “That’d be good.”

Nichols won’t show up on the practice field until Thursday, which takes him out of the running to start Sunday’s Labour Day Classic in Saskatchewan, according to the coach.

So it’s the Banjo Bowl rematch a week later, then, in which Bomber fans will get a look at the team’s latest stopgap quarterback.

On first blush, trading for Nichols was a shrewd move by GM Kyle Walters.

No. 1 pivot Drew Willy remains out indefinitely with a knee injury, while former No. 3 but recently boosted to No. 2, Robert Marve, regressed badly in his second start and showed up for work this week with a wonky leg.

So the Bombers are desperate going into a make-or-break, homeand-home set with the heavily-due Riders. How desperate? Unless Marve pulls off an unlikely recovery, it’s between the demoted-to-third-string Brian Brohm and newcomer Dominique Davis for Sunday’s start in Regina, where Winnipeg, 3-6, and fading fast, hasn’t won the Classic in a decade.

So for Walters to acquire Nichols from the Edmonton Eskimos for little more than a box of tape — does the CFL draft even have seven rounds? — is a steal of a deal.

Nichols is immediately Winnipeg’s top healthy quarterback, and will be until Willy returns several weeks down the road, if he returns at all.

But that very fact is also the damning one for Walters.

These things — the Bombers getting caught without depth at the most important position in football — weren’t supposed to happen anymore.

The organization has piled money into its scouting department, hiring former quarterback Danny McManus and a host of others to find and evaluate talent.

Yet everyone from McManus to Walters to offensive coordinator Marcel Bellefeuille and yes, O’Shea, were completely happy bringing back the status quo — Brohm and Marve — behind Willy for another season.

Given the results of that decision, what kind of talent evaluators are they?

An injury and a handful of dismal performances later, they’re forced to run to another organization for a quick fix.

You know how Nichols became available? The Eskimos found James Franklin, a rookie who beat Nichols out for the starting job until starter Mike Reilly gets back to full health.

The same thing happened at running back, where the Bombers have brought in Ottawa castoff Chevon Walker to bolster a ground game that has yet to get off the ground.

And at linebacker, where Calgary malcontent Jasper Simmons is deemed a good fit because there’s nobody in-house that’s good enough.

The Bombers have become the CFL’s garbage pickers, rummaging through the back-lane trash of others to improve their own sorry lot.

You can admire Nichols for his grit and character all you like — he has come back from a bad leg injury — but that 5-2 record as a starter this season, a stat trumpeted in the Winnipeg press release, Wednesday, is only part of the story.

He’s also the league’s lowestrated starting quarterback (among qualifiers) and is tied for the “lead” in interceptions, with 10. Those stats didn’t make it into the release.

Of course, a quarterback rating in the mid-’70s is still better than the numbers posted by Brohm and Marve.

“The No. 1 job for any quarterback is winning,” O’Shea said. “Whatever statistics other people may choose to focus on, he’s won a bunch of games this year. That’s the starting point, really. We’ll see how quickly he learns the offence and how quickly we feel comfortable trotting him out there.”

Translation: we’ll quickly find out how uncomfortable the Bombers are with the quarterbacks they stuck with going into the season.

The No. 1 job for any quarterback is winning ... he’s won a bunch of games this year. That’s the starting point, really.