Jim Barker will not be back next year

[eiben35]

Jim has been here for three years and the offence still stinks. Chris Rudge has promised an exciting offence and they have not delivered except for two homes games against Calgary and Hamilton. His offensive line is absolutely the worst in the league. Tony Washington is average at best (Barker pick up), Wayne Smith and Jeff Keeping have been ok, Marc Parenteau (Barker free agent), Joe Eppelle (Barker draft pick - 1st overall 2010) and Andrew Jones (Barker free agent) horrible while Chris Van Zeyl has had a poor season by his standards. Where is Barker draft pick Joel Reinders? He has been here about 8 weeks and hasn't played. If he was any good he would be starting at right guard ahead of the stiffs they have now. As for the receivers. Maurice Mann has been brutal (Barker trade for Dee Webb), same goes for Ken-Yon Rambo. Canadians Mike Bradwell and Spencer Watt (Barker draft pick) might be the worst Canadians except for Montreal. Jim has missed out on Cory Watson, Akeem Foster, Shawn Gore, Marco Ianuzzi, Nate Coehorn, Shawmad Chambers and a host of others in the three years that he has been in charge. Trading a first and third for Jyles and the 2nd overall for Ray hasn't helped. He is the worst GM in regards to how he uses the practice roster. He has a Canadian kicker there and when Pre and the Waters went down he goes out and calls Eric Wilbur for a game. What a joke. David Braley is no dummy. Jim is living on borrowed time.

[mchesher03]

Agreed and let's hope so. I'm always one of those saying that a GM or coach needs more time to get things in place but Barker's had his shot - 3 training camps now to bring in extra bodies, evaluate talent, make deals, etc. and while we have improved since last year, we are still no where near the level we need to be at.

Again, I'm always somewhat sad that given how dominant our defence was in the early part of this millenium, that we only won 1 grey cup in 2004. it's almost criminal.

[AngeloV]

I'm not prepared to write him off. Let's just see how the rest of the season plays out before we come to any conclusions about the future of team management.

[ping]

Fire his ass out of Toronto!!!!!

[paulwoods13]

A bit of an oddly titled thread, considering it is a prediction, not a statement of fact. Funny to see ping come out of the woodwork all of a sudden, too.

[ArgoRavi]

I'm not prepared to write him off. Let's just see how the rest of the season plays out before we come to any conclusions about the future of team management.

I couldn't have said it any better, Angelo. Barker is in the final year of his contract so how things go the rest of this season may dictate what happens to him at season's end. He has been rumoured to be in line for the Ottawa GM job although that may have to do with his contractual status as much as anything.

[gilthethrill]

I am considering the source of this thread....forgot to mention Barker was wise not to resign Eiben.

[AngeloV]

I am considering the source of this thread....forgot to mention Barker was wise not to resign Eiben.

LOL!! I think he had his first defensive tackle of the season last game. It can only get better from here.

[Mulder]

On the defensive side, there is tons of new bodies.
Offensive not so much. Inman, that's all? All other guys have played on other teams or are vets on ours. (QB's aside)

[argonaut11xx]

Barkers BEST move as GM was getting rid of Eiben...

[ArgoGabe22]

Barkers BEST move as GM was getting rid of Eiben...

He was an excellent ball holder for FGs. When he tore his bicep, the FG team really struggled.

[1argoholic]

Getting rid of Eiban and Boyd both turned out well. Both will be out of the league next year. I liked both but you have to make some hards calls and he has. I don't hate Barker but I've been on him for not finding better receiving and Canadian talent as well in my eyes he's not taken the draft seriously enough. He has more of a crap shoot mentality.I do agree with much of what Eiban says and can relate to that passion. There are many guys Barker past on that are playing well in this league. If he was to leave then what? Rebuild all over again? Who replaces him? I'm sure Milanovich and Jones have also had a big share of the decisions on who to draft, pickup, sign and ultimately put on the field. Friday will go along way in how I feel about this year. If we lose this year could seriously hit the skids. If we win the Grey Cup could still be in our sights just like in 04. Hard to imagine but I'm trying to look at the bright side which I rarely do.

[ArgoGabe22]

2012: Looking at this years draft we traded the 2 pick for Ray and our other picks unknown right now. So would you rather have Jyles and Chambers instead of Ray or have Westerman at DE perhaps?

2011: We then traded our 4 pick for Jyles. Maybe we were better off with picking Coehoorn/Iannuzzi/Junior Turner but we may not have Ray without Jyles. We may have drafted Volny or Milo later on but that's pretty much it.

2010: We drafted both Eppele and Greenwood 2 and 3. We could've drafted Maver, Sisco, Cory Watson, Gore, Chima Ihekwoaba instead but I doubt any of them would have gone that high. Instead of Watt and Reinders we could have drafted Akeem Foster or Marc-Olivier Brouillette. Instead of drafting Warner in the 5th round we may have got C.Muamba.

Its easy going back and saying we could have him or him but every team lost out in high picks and could say the same.

I wouldn't say Barker's drafting has been poor, maybe you can argue trading away our picks was a mistake and by trading them away shows he doesn't take it seriously. You can argue Eppele went too high or Greenwood was a wasted pick but that's a whole different story.

[argonaut11xx]

eiben was DONE..good move by Barker....

[argotom]

I couldn't have said it any better, Angelo. Barker is in the final year of his contract so how things go the rest of this season may dictate what happens to him at season's end. He has been rumoured to be in line for the Ottawa GM job although that may have to do with his contractual status as much as anything.

Yes I read the same article on Sunday about this.
I wouldn't be surprised if Jim left to take on this job.

[Argonauter]

Yes I read the same article on Sunday about this.
I wouldn't be surprised if Jim left to take on this job.

What article was that exactly?

[ArgoRavi]

What article was that exactly?

IIRC, Steve Simmons mentioned it in his column but this was after David Naylor made mention of Ottawa and Barker's contractual status on TSN.

[gilthethrill]

IIRC, Steve Simmons mentioned it in his column but this was after David Naylor made mention of Ottawa and Barker's contractual status on TSN.

It was mentioned ever so briefly....I am not reading into that whatsoever.

[doubleblue]

I think Barker will back with the Argos next year, unless, he wants to take the challenge of building a team from scratch in Ottawa.
He has always been a good recruiter of import talent. Not as easy as some would think when all you can offer most of the first year players is $50,000
and get them to come to a foreign country to boot. There is no shortage of players, but getting the right fit for your team at bargain prices compared to the NFL money isn't easy in my books.
The imports in the CFL are not exactly chopped liver, so there is a talent level these guys have to be at. Very comparable to most of the players in the NFL. So you have to be a bit of a saleman and that seems to be one of Barker's strong points.

But if he does happen to go it would leave the Argos in a bit of a spot. You just hired a Head Coach on a three year contract who might not be comfortable with a different GM. So I don't see Barker going anywhere unless he wants to.

[NelsonP204]

Jim has been here for three years and the offence still stinks. Chris Rudge has promised an exciting offence and they have not delivered except for two homes games against Calgary and Hamilton. His offensive line is absolutely the worst in the league. Tony Washington is average at best (Barker pick up), Wayne Smith and Jeff Keeping have been ok, Marc Parenteau (Barker free agent), Joe Eppelle (Barker draft pick - 1st overall 2010) and Andrew Jones (Barker free agent) horrible while Chris Van Zeyl has had a poor season by his standards. Where is Barker draft pick Joel Reinders? He has been here about 8 weeks and hasn't played. If he was any good he would be starting at right guard ahead of the stiffs they have now. As for the receivers. Maurice Mann has been brutal (Barker trade for Dee Webb), same goes for Ken-Yon Rambo. Canadians Mike Bradwell and Spencer Watt (Barker draft pick) might be the worst Canadians except for Montreal. Jim has missed out on Cory Watson, Akeem Foster, Shawn Gore, Marco Ianuzzi, Nate Coehorn, Shawmad Chambers and a host of others in the three years that he has been in charge. Trading a first and third for Jyles and the 2nd overall for Ray hasn't helped. He is the worst GM in regards to how he uses the practice roster. He has a Canadian kicker there and when Pre and the Waters went down he goes out and calls Eric Wilbur for a game. What a joke. David Braley is no dummy. Jim is living on borrowed time.

Have to completely disagree with this posters comments on several counts and agree with him on a couple. The first thing that you have to recognize is that the guys are going to look a lot worse than they are after being saddled with Jarious Jackson for the past couple weeks. Jarious by all accounts is a great guy but he was a complete trainwreck behind center only saved by the ineptitude of the BlueBombers in that first game. Jarious has ZERO touch when it comes to throwing the ball and just does not have the ability to move the offense at all. Trevor Harris clearly outplayed Jarious in training camp and it would have made more sense to give Trevor a shot after it was evident that all you were going to get from Jarious was 150-175 yards a game passing.

The O-line in general was fine when we had Ricky Ray and Chad Kackert back there. It is not a strength on the team but if you have a QB that gets rid of the ball when it is supposed to be out then there is not much of a problem. You failed to mention Dontrelle Inman who has been a tremendous addition to the team this year providing one of the better deep threats in the CFL. Also, the majority of the defense are newcomers or players that came over because of a past relationship with Chris Jones. Marcus Ball, Patrick Watkins, Armon Armstead and Ejiro Kuale have been tremendous additions by Barker who have all played a strong role on the team.

Mike Bradwell and Spencer Watt have been developing nicely this year. Bradwell has done well on special teams and has been a reliable SB/TE type of player that every team needs. Spencer has been a nice deep threat with RR and made plays when given the chance. Also, they brought in Trevor Harris and Zach Collaros who have a future in this league at the QB position.

A major issue I have had with Barker has been the way that he addressed the QB position during his tenure. Barker stuck with Cleo Lemon way way too long and didn't have a reasonable alternative when that plan failed which left us desperate enough to trade a high pick for an injured Jiles who was of no use to us. Then, after that plan failed we had to trade another pick to get Ricky Ray. Finally, we have gotten the QB position where it needs to be but it has cost us in terms of our Canadian content with losing all the draft picks.