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Published Nov 19, 2025 • 4 minute read
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CFL Winnipeg Blue Bombers GM Kyle Walters. The Bombers drafted eight players in the CFL draft on Tuesday night. Photo by Winnipeg Sun /winnipeg sunArticle content
It had been a long time since we heard from Blue Bombers general manager Kyle Walters. Too long, to be honest.
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A person in that position should be making himself available more than three times a year.
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So when Walters finally stepped onto the podium for a Q &A with the Winnipeg media on Wednesday, the questions were piled up like old newspapers on the front step of a deserted home.
On top of that stack: the failure to get his team into its home-field Grey Cup, an opportunity that only comes around once every decade or so.
“It was a little depressing, to be honest with you,” Walters said. “I don’t think it would have mattered where it was. I guess if it was in a different city it wouldn’t be right in your face, the disappointment.”
After five straight Grey Cup appearances, the last three of them losses, Walters’ squad took a step back this season. It still cobbled together a 10-8 record, but clearly wasn’t the well-rounded team it used to be.
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In fact its passing attack was the CFL’s worst.
Sift through that stack of old headlines and you’ll find, buried at the bottom, the one about star receiver Kenny Lawler bolting for Hamilton as a free agent last winter.
Lawler would later say he wanted to stay but the Bombers didn’t make him a priority, only making him an offer the day before he hit the market.
Walters on Wednesday told another story, that he was talking to Lawler’s agent even through the 2024 season, trying to head off the trouble that eventually led to the split.
“Kenny is a very emotional young man, which makes him really good on the football field,” Walters said. “I deal with the agent on that sort of stuff… it wasn’t the day before free agency. We had lots of talks. And it did not work out. Kenny went on and had a great year.
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“It’s very similar to the first time when Kenny left (for) Edmonton, where we thought there was a decent number and then another team came in quite a bit over the top. And it was like, ‘Okay, good for you and your family.’”
You’ll recall this story included the bizarre twist of the CFL salary cap shooting up by nearly half a million dollars just before free agency opened.
Yet Walters said at the time he was operating under the old cap, echoing what other teams were saying.
“There was a lot of uncertainty around that time,” the GM said on Wednesday. “You wake up and all of a sudden the cap’s gone up – or has it? You did not see a massive influx of spending when that came out. The timing of that was very, very peculiar.”
Walters says all the verbal agreements were made by then. There was no circling back, either by agents or by him, to renegotiate what had already been done.
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Lawler’s departure was just one factor, albeit it a big one.
Overall, it just feels like the so-called Canadian Mafia – Walters, CEO Wade Miller and head coach Mike O’Shea – failed to do everything it could to try to get to that Grey Cup game.
Other pieces of evidence include the hiring of a rookie, unproven offensive coordinator in Jason Hogan, leaving holes on the offensive line and not even coming close to replacing Lawler.
Walters insists he spent to the cap, but also acknowledged it’ll be because he used the one-game injury list far more often than he normally would. Players on the one-game list count towards the cap, while they don’t count if they’re placed on the six-game list.
In other words, whup-de-doo.
“It was disappointing,” Walters said. “The bar that has been set organizationally is four years of winning the West and five years of Grey Cups. To not sustain that feels like a let down and a step backwards, and it was a step backwards.”
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The challenge: how to prevent taking another one, given the age of key players and the soon-to-be free-agent status of others, like tailback Brady Oliveira.
Walters knows that won’t be an easy negotiation.
“But we want Brady back,” he said.
One thing in his favour: the return of O’Shea. Had the coach bolted, all bets would be off.
The head man and the GM had lunch together after they signed their new three-year deals and chewed on the task at hand.
“There’s less yelling and screaming,” Walters said of their working relationship. “Every discussion no longer has to be a yelling match of points getting across to each other. We’re able to discuss our issues and plans. It’s an exciting time for us, a new chapter… we’re ready for the challenge.”
Walters says when he looks back at his career and the 2025 campaign, he hopes to see much more than the failed opportunity.
“Hopefully we look back and say this was a good turning point for the organization. No arguing that we took a step back. Now let’s re-set and get back. I’m hoping this starts that process.”
paul.friesen@kleinmedia.ca
X: @friesensunmedia
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