Winnipeg Blue Bombers head coach Mike O\u2019Shea concluded his meeting with Toronto Argonauts brass on Tuesday, and TSN\u2019s Dave Naylor reports that the \u201cball is in his court\u201d if he wants to join the Double Blue.<\/p>\n
The Argonauts requested permission<\/a> to speak with O\u2019Shea after their head coach, Ryan Dinwiddie, agreed to take the head coach and general manager roles<\/a> with the Ottawa Redblacks earlier in November. O\u2019Shea played four seasons for the Argonauts as a linebacker from 1996-99, where he was named Most Outstanding Canadian after the 1999 campaign.<\/p>\n Naylor reports that O\u2019Shea flew out to Toronto to meet with Maple Leafs Sports and Entertainment CEO Keith Pelley on Monday, and that he spent the day with current Argonauts GM Michael Clemons.<\/p>\n \u201cMy sense is [that] in those conversations they talked about a lot of things, a lot of possibilities,\u201c Naylor said. \u201dO\u2019Shea coming in, primarily focused on just being head coach [or] whether he could have the GM title. If Clemons would stay on as GM, could they build other personnel around the Argos front office? I think all of this has kind of been left unresolved.” <\/p>\n The meetings did not resolve in an agreement between the two sides for O\u2019Shea to leave the Blue Bombers and join Toronto.<\/p>\n \u201cO\u2019Shea got back on the plane Wednesday morning to Winnipeg and the sense is that now the ball is in his court,\u201d Naylor reported. \u201cIf O\u2019Shea wants to work for the Argonauts in whatever capacity it is going to be, they are willing to cut to suit to accommodate him, but ultimately, this is now up to O\u2019Shea.\u201d<\/p>\n Dinwiddie had spent the past five seasons as head coach of the Toronto Argonauts, leading the team to two Grey Cup Championships and a combined 51-35 record. Under Dinwiddie, the Double Blue reached four consecutive Eastern Finals and set an Argos\u2019 franchise record with 16 wins in 2023, as Dinwiddie was named the CFL\u2019s Coach of the Year.<\/p>\n Now the Argonauts are hoping to bring on O\u2019Shea, who coached the Blue Bombers to two Grey Cup titles (in 2019 and 2021) and five consecutive appearances in the big game from 2019-24, as the coach of the future.<\/p>\n But there is another team that is reportedly interested in acquiring O\u2019Shea. As TSN\u2019s Farhan Lalji reports, the Hamilton Tiger-Cats have asked the Blue Bombers for permission to speak to O\u2019Shea.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019ve also been told that the Tiger-Cats have asked for permission from Winnipeg to speak to O\u2019Shea. What that\u2019s going to look like is quite interesting because they\u2019ve got a head coach in Scott Milanovich – yes they\u2019re in the market for a GM – but we know O\u2019Shea is a coach first and I can\u2019t imagine a scenario that sees him leave the coaching fraternity.\u201d<\/p>\n Lalji also reports that the Tiger-Cats have requested permission to speak to Blue Bombers assistant GM Danny McManus for their empty GM role. McManus quarterbacked the Tiger-Cats for eight seasons from 1998-2005 – where he won the Grey Cup in 1999 – and worked as an assistant coach and later scout from 2008-13.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Winnipeg Blue Bombers head coach Mike O\u2019Shea concluded his meeting with Toronto Argonauts brass on Tuesday, and TSN\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":275628,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[437],"tags":[712,49,48,521,522,520,74988,82,79102,75056],"class_list":{"0":"post-279343","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cfl","8":"tag-apple-news","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-canada","11":"tag-canadian-football-league","12":"tag-canadianfootballleague","13":"tag-cfl","14":"tag-hamilton-tiger-cats-sports-football-team-team-genius-sports-83579","15":"tag-sports","16":"tag-toronto-argonauts-sports-football-team-team-genius-sports-122345","17":"tag-winnipeg-blue-bombers-sports-football-team-team-genius-sports-110380"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/279343","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=279343"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/279343\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/275628"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=279343"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=279343"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=279343"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}