It appears unlikely that general manager Kyle Walters or head coach Mike O’Shea will sign long-term contract extensions with the Winnipeg Blue Bombers this off-season as they head into the final year of their respective deals in 2025.
Walters indicated during his end-of-year media availability on Tuesday that Wade Miller, the team’s president and CEO, has not discussed new deals with him or O’Shea. As of now, Walters expects to work next year without a long-term contract in place, while O’Shea said last week that he hasn’t “put one ounce of thought” into his contract status.
The two men have been in their respective roles with the Blue Bombers for a decade, turning the club from a bottom-feeder into a perennial powerhouse. Walters worked under the final year of his deal in 2023 before agreeing to a two-year extension shortly after the team’s loss to the Montreal Alouettes in the 110th Grey Cup in Hamilton. O’Shea has always waited for his previous contract to expire before signing the next one, though this is highly unusual.
Job security is everything in the football world. In a business rife with transcience, in-fighting, and jealousy, coaches and personnel people tend to take advantage of any opportunity to gain certainty for the future. Their contracts are guaranteed, after all, which can help provide a soft landing in the relatively common event they’re fired.
Long-term contracts are increasingly rare in the CFL, however, due to the much-maligned operations cap, which was brought into effect in 2018. Those subject to the cap include coaches, general managers, scouts, equipment staff, and video personnel, including — aside from one “freebie” — those who have been terminated.
This means it’s essentially impossible for a CFL team to fire an entire staff following a disastrous year, which has led many franchises to hand out more short-term contracts. Despite all the success Walters and O’Shea have enjoyed, if Winnipeg’s reign atop the league comes to a disastrous end next year — remember, the city is hosting the Grey Cup for the first time since 2015 — it would be very easy as things currently stand for Miller to wipe the slate clean and start fresh come 2026.
Does that mean Walters and O’Shea will soon be shown the door? Unlikely, especially for the latter.
O’Shea surpassed Bud Grant this past season to become Winnipeg’s franchise leader in head coaching wins. A statue of Grant sits at the southwest gate of Princess Auto Stadium and it’s only a matter of time before the club builds O’Shea one to match — which he, in his ever-present self-effacing modesty, will hate.
The 54-year-old native of North Bay, Ont. sits tied for eighth all-time in CFL history in head coaching wins alongside Bob O’Billovich at 107. He’s only one back of Dave Ritchie for seventh place and 24 back of Eagle Keys for fifth place. It seems safe to suggest O’Shea will not only surpass Ritchie but also Keys before his tenure in Winnipeg comes to a close.
However, it does seem odd that the club isn’t more interested in securing its brain trust for the long term. The Blue Bombers have gone 95-45 during the regular season since 2016, 9-4 in the playoff since 2018, and made five straight Grey Cups, winning two. How do you argue against that?
It’s also worth noting that assistant general managers Ted Goveia and Danny McManus, both of whom fill critical roles in the personnel department, have been given permission to interview for the vacant general manager position with the Hamilton Tiger-Cats, which could lead to a preemptive shake-up in Bomberland.
Walters believes it’s “nonsensical” that Goveia and McManus, both of whom have been with the team since 2014, haven’t already been hired as GMs elsewhere in the league but doesn’t appear to have any plan for how to replace one or both them if they leave.
“It’s so tough with this operations cap, there is no internal (candidates) anymore. Teams are running the barebones operations across the board,” he said.
“You start looking at your contacts in the U.S. and start compiling a list of names for some U.S. scouts. You start looking at potential guys on other CFL teams and when I say other guys, most teams only have two or three people in a personnel department, so you start looking at those.”
Regardless of who is involved in Bomberland in 2025, one thing’s for certain: there’s currently nobody in place to run the show in 2026.
