OverDrive - Naylor on O'Shea's future in the CFL, the Grey Cup matchup and the Blue Bombers' market in the league

Episode Date: November 13, 2025

TSN Football Insider Dave Naylor joined OverDrive to discuss the headlines around the CFL, the Roughriders and Alouettes' matchup, Mike O'Shea's next coaching outlook in the league, the Blue Bombers' market and more.

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We now have Dave Naylor joined us, joining us around the table, and we have to bring some good news because I just did a Go-Leafs go-chant for the people in the peg, and they hated it, Nailer. They hate your gut. Tell them their coach is staying. Bring some good news. Tell us some good news. Oh, boy, yeah, this is the drama that has been playing out.

Like, if you'd ever told me that the 2025 Grey Cup Week would see Mike O'Shea getting on a plane on Monday of Grey Cup Week and fly into the big smoke and spending two days hanging out with the MLSC brass. Yeah, it's no good. We hate it. And going quiet otherwise. How about parlay it with the overdrive boys going the other way to Winnipe? Yeah, go the other way to Winnipeg.

And we're in the peg and O'Shea's in Toronto. I love it. Unreal, yeah. No, it's been a weird week that way because, you know, if this is going on in the Great Cups in Vancouver, that's a pretty big story. Mike O'Shea's a huge character. But with this team, I mean, this is a market where they did, you know, 33,000 plus every game. I mean, this is a highly, highly engaged market.

And to have Mike O'Shea potentially walking out from the market in the middle of Great Cup Week's unreal. Let's just be real. When they have the second meeting, isn't that kind of game over where they might be doing something? The second meeting is pretty dangerous, isn't it? It is. And I think there's a whole question of, you know, Mike knows what Winnipeg is.

He's been here for four contracts. He's gone to five straight Grey Cups. Why does he take the call if, you know, if he's not going? That's one of the argument. But I think O'Shea is a guy who's very tough to read. Like as a journalist covering him, he is very bill-belly-checkian. in his coaching style. Doesn't give away anything.

You know, when a guy has a serious injury and he's not going to be back, Mike doesn't even want to say he's not coming back this year. Like, nothing is kind of conceded or given. And the one thing I would tell you about this O'Shea situation, I don't think the bombers know he's gone. And I don't think the Argos know he's coming. I think both sides are sitting there going, the only person who knows is Mike O'Shea, and we're kind of wait.

I think the bombers are preparing to pivot. So is there X waiting for him from the bombers? Or is there nothing waiting for the bombers? Because if I'm a coach and I'm looking to go somewhere and there's nothing for me to fall back on, I'm like, you're out of the picture, period, because you're not even showing interest. So I'm out.

I would say my understanding is there is an offer on the table for Mike O'Shea in Winnipeg. If he wants to be back with the bombers, he can sign it any moment. That's my understanding. In Toronto, it's a little more complicated, I think, because they have a situation where there's pinball, Clemens, stay in his GM as he moving on. Who's going to do personnel?

Like, I think O'Shea's concerns would be, who am I answering to, who am I working for, who's finding players, and how's the decision-making? And I think what Toronto's approach to this is kind of like, well, Mike, you tell us what you want, and we'll accommodate. You know, you have to tell us what you want before we can cut to suit. Did Dinwiddie leaving, did that surprise the Argos? Like, how does that connect? Yeah, like, was there any connection where he sniffed this out? Yes, or were the Argos already kicking tires on O'Shea? exactly.

I don't think so, but maybe, and here's what I mean. With Dinwiddie, it was, you know, they had a conversation, they talked about some things and some possibilities, and Ottawa made a call just to see if he was interested, because they had the strategy of we're going to give you both titles and get you out of your contract in Toronto. And he promised, at the time, the arrangement was that he was going to circle back to Toronto. I'm going to take this interview in Ottawa.

I'm coming back. I'm going to talk to you guys, and we can see. He takes the interview in Ottawa. He loves everything he hears, thinks it's a great. move for him, and he calls Toronto back and says, you know what, I'm going to waste your time. I know I said I'd make another call, but I'm going to take this deal with Ottawa. So he didn't ghost him at least. He didn't ghost him.

And I don't know that Toronto willingly let him go thinking of O'Shea, but they might have. You know what I mean? There might have been this idea of like, hey, if Ryan Dinwiddie goes down the road to Ottawa, and the result of it is we get Mike O'Shea, because we know his contracts up, and we know that, you know, he's a guy who played for the Argos, coach for the Argos, you know, southern Ontario guy. He's a North Bay guy, but he spent a lot of time in Southern Ontario in his playing career. I believe his wife and family are all from that area. They may have kind of had that, that if this does happen, that's immediately going to be our plan. So if he leaves, then

somebody else is waiting in the wings type of thing. Yeah, I think, I mean, I think there's three, there's three guys, three people, I think Toronto Argonauts have the top of their list to replace Ryan Dinwiddie. One is, obviously, Michael Shea, number one. I think number two is Kent Austin, who is on the staff at Auburn University. Hugh Free He's got fired there three weeks ago. Austin's still on the staff. He's got a year left. Hugh Freeze was a guy that was in the dentist chair up in the press box.

That's the guy who was in the gurney? No, remember, yeah. He's up in the dentist chair calling plays. I believe that was Hugh Freeze. It's a stretcher. Bring Hugh Freeze up to Toronto. And if it goes past that, Orlando Steiner, you know, who's president of football operations in Hamilton, coaching background.

I love it. It's like Game of Thrones. Another guy who keeps his thoughts about himself very. very, very private, so there's a lot of speculation here where we don't get a lot from the sources themselves. It's musical chairs, and if O'Shea leaves, then who would be the guy? The guy in Winnipeg? Yeah. Not probably. I would say, I think their

defensive coordinator, Jordan Younger, would get significant consideration for that job. And it's one of those things for two reasons. One is because they think he might make a good head coach. And two, if they lose O'Shea and they don't make Jordan Younger their next head coach, he might be the defensive coordinator in Toronto. So you lose both. Right. So

this is, I mean, this has been the most stable organization in the CFL, player-wise, management-wise, coaching-wise for the last half-dozen years. And now it feels like it's all about to change. Is this the epicenter of the CFL in your opinion? Like if you were to ask the commissioner, give me your crown jewel of the CFL. Is it Winnipeg? I don't think there's any doubt. I mean, I saw Wade Miller. I'm not saying that you're here. Plan to the crowd. I saw Wade Miller last night at our media party that we had that Wade basically put on for us. I saw Wade last night. I said, I went up to him to him. I said, wait, I should saying to your face what I say all the time behind your back.

I have never seen a CFL team, like, as a business, run as well as this one, like clicking on all cylinders, merchandise, media, tickets. I mean, in this day and age, selling 33,000 tickets to anything is hard, you know? And when you think that, again, it's not like you can't do the, I'll apologize to Saskatchewan. You can't do the, well, it's the only thing they have thing, right? They got a top five NHL team in their market. Right. And they're still able to drive revenue.

I mean, they made $7 million last year. $6, $7 million. That was before all the sellouts and the Grey Cup. I mean, what's the number going to be this year? We're talking about a CFL team making $12 to $15 million. Are you serious? Yeah. Like, that's impressive.

That's big time money. Well, as for the game, Davis-Alexander, quarterback for the al-o-outs has been, you know, front and center. Let me read the update. This is our boy, Matt Chennetti, who just sent this out. Davis-Alexander says his hamstring treatment is massage, ice, ultrasound laser, stem treatment, says his hamstring feels great. Jason Moss, his head coach said, watching him throw, watching him move.

I don't know if you could tell anything was wrong with him, end quote. Are you buying that? What about his record? Don't you buy his record? Well, he's young, no. I mean, I hear what you're saying, but he's been lights out down the stretch. Clearly, he's been great. He's 27 years old.

He's not buying it. The look on his face, he's not buying it either. I mean, I think you have to say this. You want to, especially at that position, you've got to ooze confidence throughout your locker room and make sure everyone believes that you can go, we're not going to know until he takes a snap on Sunday night. No, I think there's, the big thing I want to see is the first time he has to hit go, right?

And that's a big part of this guy's game. If you think for a young quarterback, Davis Alexander, his sense of timing of when to leave the pocket is really, really strong. And when he goes out of the pocket, he can throw it, he can run it. But I had a conversation with Anthony Calvillo earlier this season, and we're talking about this. And he said, you know, when Davis was a backup, whether it was filmed from practice or preseason or opportunities he played, he said, the thing he really drilled on him was when he

thought he left the pocket at the wrong time he would sit him down show him the tape and say why did you leave the pocket and make him explain it and that's why for a young quarterback he does that so well so it's such an important part of his game and i mean i remember the older quarterbacks will talk about this sometimes they'll do speed training for that first couple of steps because they realize at the end of their careers that's one of the things that can go on you right and you've got to be able to get out of the way like that can davis alexander get out of the way that's the biggest thing and then can he finish the game because they're well Totally different offense when he's not there.

It's got to happen. We got the awards going tonight. So what do we set the scene for us here now? What do we expect tonight? Well, I think it's going to be the Nathan Rourke coronation. Yeah? It's too bad they didn't win last week. Yeah, well, I mean, you look at, it would have been the two young quarterbacks of the league, right?

The guys who are going to be in the league for 10 more years. Now you've got a great story in Trevor Harris at 39, has never won it as a starter. And, you know, has really found a kind of twilight of his career. It's really maybe people appreciate him more than they ever did. But, you know, Nathan were, I thought he would have a great season. I mean, coming back from the NFL midseason is hard. He'd been in five playbooks in 12 months. He comes to the middle of a very kind of dramatic season in BC last year

where he's sharing time with Vernon Adams. And I think it's a lot to ask for a guy to kind of hit that stride. This year with the offseason, I thought Nathan that it wouldn't take much time to sort of see the guy we saw in 2022. He absolutely was the best player in the league, the last two-thirds of the season. And I think he wins the MOP. tonight. Okay.

I like it. Yeah, we're Nathan Rourke, guys. Right? Like we've had him on a show lots of times. Yeah. He's been in studio with us.

Yeah. And it's quite a turnaround. When he got back there last year, it wasn't that good. Wasn't that good? No. No, it wasn't. And it was, it felt like,

you know, they just moved everything out of the way for him, right? And everything was handed to him kind of, which it kind of was, you know, given the nature. But he's a, in this league, he's a unicorn. He's a superstar.

What's the, the MOP compared to MVP? What's the, what's the thought process I'll tell you, it's kind of cool because you always, whenever you have an MVP debate, you always get into, you know, who's the, hey, hey, hey, it's not best player, it's most valuable, and then you've got to factor into his team and, you know, where to be valuable to his team and all. This one is just, no, man, who's the best player? Yeah.

Who's the most outstanding player in the league? And I actually think it's a cleaner way to do awards. That's right. Yeah, who's the best player, you know, not most valuable. Because you get into these things sometimes where it's like who else is on your team and stuff that the player doesn't control. Yeah. Well, this one is just about the player's performance. Well, it's going to happen in baseball tonight.

They're announcing the MVP. And I think we're fairly certain. Shohay's going to win it in the National League. But it's, you know, is it going to be the big dumper? Your boy? Is it going to be judge? And the fact that he's a catcher, does that make him more valuable? You know, and it was a great run for both guys.

And, you know, we'll find out what happens tonight. But all right, Nailgun, great to see him. You're the first guy we've seen in a suit in Winnipeg. Nobody wears a suit in Winnipeg. We love it. It's amazing. I brought like five of them. We've been talking for 15 minutes.

I've been staring at that pizza. Is this your go-to pizza that you can only find west of Ontario? It should be in every Boston pizza, but everything, when you make it to Winnipeg and out west, the Great White North. Yes. God's country. The air is cleaner. You go to Thunder Bay. You go to Thunder Bay.

I don't think you can find that in Thunder Bay. You can't find that in Thunder Bay. You cross the border. You can find that pizza. And these new. Yeah, what do we have here? Apparently those are mozzarella sticks or something. I had them last Friday.

They're like a... Apparently? Apparently. You're uncertain, but... They're very, very good. I had them on Friday. Okay. Very, very good.

Well, they look so good. We don't really want to mess with them because it's like a prop. They look like a presentation, but we're going to eat them. We will. We will. We will. We will. Yes, absolutely.

All right, Nail gun, great seeing you, man. Thank you for coming by here. Awesome, man. Great to see you guys out here. Absolutely. Dave Nailer. CFL on TSN. It's beginning to sound a lot like Christmas with Iheart the holidays. Non-stop Christmas music 24-7

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