Wade Miller barely smiled Tuesday as he discussed the "acting" tag being removed from his title of Winnipeg Blue Bombers president and chief executive officer.

WINNIPEG -- Wade Miller barely smiled Tuesday as he discussed the "acting" tag being removed from his title of Winnipeg Blue Bombers president and chief executive officer. Trey Burton Bears Jersey . Maybe it was because hes not comfortable facing a room of reporters, but more likely its because hes all business when it comes to turning around the floundering CFL club. And that wont be an easy task. The Bombers finished this season with a league-worst record of 3-15 that tied a franchise-low mark for an 18-game schedule. Theyve missed the playoffs four of the past five years and havent won a Grey Cup for a league-high 23 seasons. "Life takes you in different paths and this is the direction Im going down now and I look forward to the challenge," Miller said after he was appointed to officially oversee a team he played for from 1995-2005. The 40-year-old former fullback/linebacker was named the teams acting president and CEO on Aug. 9 following the firing of Garth Buchko. Millers first move was to fire general manager Joe Mack and elevate assistant GM Kyle Walters into an acting GM role. Millers long to-do list begins with either stripping Walters of his acting title or finding someone to replace him. "Were two to four weeks away from being able to make that determination on that position," he said. Hell also have a hand in football operations with the person who ends up with the GMs job. "The general managers got a role to do in the organization and I expect them to do that to the best of their ability, and Ill be involved in football as anybody would be when its such a critical part of our business," Miller said. The Bombers also have question marks surrounding their coaching staff. Mack had fired head coach Paul LaPolice in August 2012 and defensive co-ordinator Tim Burke took over on an interim basis until he was given the job last November. Burkes first full season was an uphill battle as Mack kept often-injured Buck Pierce as the teams starting quarterback. Pierce ended up getting injured, his young backups didnt flourish and then Pierce was traded in September. If the clubs GM decides a new head coach is needed -- the team has had five in nine years -- Miller said hell be involved in that hiring process. "Ill work with the general manager and be that second interview that you should do within any organization," he said. "Its such a key position for us." Miller co-founded Pinnacle Staffing Solutions in 2002 and helped build it into Manitobas largest recruitment firm. Hes also a partner in Elite Performance (a high-performance training centre), three Elite Sports Injury clinics and two Booster Juice franchises. Bombers board chairman Brock Bulbuck attended Tuesdays announcement and said the board didnt conduct a formal process to look outside the club for another candidate while Miller had the acting title. "We obviously kept our ears to the ground, effectively to be able to move on a Plan B if we needed to," Bulbuck said. "But we also needed to respect and give Wade the confidence that was necessary in order for him to be able to undertake the role that he had agreed to." Miller has "free rein" to hire a GM and doesnt need board approval, he added. When Miller was hired in August, it was believed he was the "right man for the job" and hes "proven" himself as a leader with good business acumen, Bulbuck said. "He brought an extreme passion and fan and sponsor focus to the organization," he said. "(He) effectively instilled a culture and an expectation of winning and us needing to do whatever it takes in order to be competitive on the field and in the business office." He wouldnt divulge Millers contract term, but said it was a typical CEO term that was "not a very short term and not an extremely long term." "We want to return this organization to the successful history that it has enjoyed in the past," Bulbuck said. "And I believe that we started to make those changes, but they will not happen overnight, just as the change we made in August was not able to translate into on-field performance overnight." Miller, a former University of Manitoba player drafted by the Bombers in 1995, defied the odds by making the CFL squad. His tenacity and football smarts carried him through an 11-year career, including twice being named an East Division all-star. He left the club as its leader in career special-teams tackles. Now hes ready to tackle many more challenges. "The football club means a lot to me," Miller said. "We need to bring this organization up to where it should be in terms of the connection we have with our community, being competitive on the football field and those are the challenges I take on." Bears Jerseys .J. Hardy finally got in on the fun Saturday, against a likely opponent. Allen Robinson Jersey .C. Lions 35-14, was named the CFLs offensive player of the week Tuesday. Sheets recorded his ninth 100-yard rushing performance of the season to tie the Riders club record. http://www.bearsfootballpro.com/Customized/ . How foolishly wrong I was. Forget the now inherent corruption and back handed favours that plague the beautiful game. Goal Line Technology? Youre having a laugh. As for them penalty cheating bandits, footballs lawmakers upend them by awarding the penalty to the opponent each time a player attempts to con the referee into awarding ghost penalties.From John Ferguson Jr. to Cliff Fletcher (part II) to Brian Burke to Dave Nonis, the annual free agent frenzy has been nothing short of a recurring nightmare for Maple Leaf general managers (recent) past and present. Each and every July 1st signing has brought with it excitement and all too large expectations only to fizzle into one pricey disappointment after another. Now helming another rebuild in Calgary, Burke often described the day in disastrous terms for the NHLs management community, decrying the slew of exorbitant contracts with "unrealistic values and unrealistic term…that bite you right in the butt at some point". Value, all too important under the confines of a cap system and best found in homegrown products, is never harder to find than on July 1st – a day that sees the contracts get larger and sillier with each passing year. It began in earnest for the Leafs shortly after the outset of the cap era in the summer of 2006. John Ferguson Jr., fighting for a job that would soon run its course, plugged two holes on the Toronto defence that July with a pair of expensive free agent additions. Formerly a member of Tampas Cup winning squad in 2004, Pavel Kubina was inked for four years and $20 million and Hal Gill, once a towering defender in Boston but far less effective under the free-flowing rules of the league post-lockout, raked in more than $6 million for three years. Both were overpaid from the outset – especially in the case of Kubina, one of many to struggle under the weight of an onerous contract – and both were eventually traded. 2007 Jason Blake came next. Scoring more frequently as an Islander in 2006 than at any other point in a 13-year career, Blake – age 33 – signed with the Leafs for five years and $20 million in the last significant move of the Ferguson Jr. era. Blake, predictably, could not live up to the expectations of such a large contract, never coming close to 40 goals again; he was dealt to Anaheim alongside Vesa Toskala for J.S. Giguere in 2010. 2008 Mostly forgotten now, but of considerable damage to the organization during a brief 10-month tenure, Fletcher continued the free agent plight in 2008. Maybe even more stunning now than it was then, Fletcher handed former Avalanche defender Jeff Finger, he of 94 games of NHL experience, four years and $14 million. Finger played 62 forgettable games in a Leaf uniform, was eventually buried in the minors, never to be heard from again. Joining Finger in the free agent trot that day was Niklas Hagman, a Finnish winger who scored 27 goals the year prior in Dallas. Hagman also cashed in under Fletcher, lured for four years at a bloated $12 million. Though he scored 42 goals in two seasons with the Leafs, Hagman was consistently inconsistent, soon to be dealt to Calgary in the famed Dion Phaneuf trade. 2009 Still months from pulling the trigger on the noisiest (and most controversial) move of his busy Toronto tenure – the hotly debated Phil Kessel trade – Burke sought a big and ultimately failed splash in his first summer as the Leafs front man. It was all about truculence then and truculence he got. There were the four years and $4 million pitched to former Rangers heavyweight, Colton Orr; five long years and $22.5 million to Mike Komisarek; three years at just over $11 million for Francois Beauchemin. Orr lingereed as a mostly unused tough guy for Ron Wilson before being briefly banished to the minors (he eventually returned to the NHL). Chase Daniel Jersey. . Komisarek, a step or two slow for the speedier new game, tumbled quickly under the burden of a deal he could never live up to and was bought out by the organization last summer. Beauchemin eventually found his game, but not in Toronto. He returned to the Ducks in the Jake Gardiner-Joffrey Lupul swap, finishing fourth in the 2013 Norris Trophy voting. 2010 Still trying to fill various holes through free agency, Burke added the veteran grinder Colby Armstrong from Pittsburgh the following summer (three years, $9 million). Armstrong never found much health as a Leaf though and preceded fellow free agent signee, Komisarek, on the buyout line. 2011 Tim Connolly recorded just 42 points in his final go-around in Buffalo, but still landed $9 million for two years in the summer of 2011. Connolly never hit the desired mark of No. 1 centre for the Leafs (he had 36 points in 70 games), was demoted to the Marlies after a year and is now out of the NHL. 2013 And then last summer there was David Clarkson, the first signee of Nonis as Leafs GM. In perhaps the worst deal of the aforementioned bunch, Clarkson landed in his hometown for seven years and more than $36 million on July 1st, 2013. Year 1 was an all-out nightmare and while theres every chance of a bounce-back of some kind in Year 2, his talents are unlikely to ever match the value of an incredibly burdensome contract. Clarkson was just the latest in a line of July 1st blunders. The fundamental flaw in continually swinging big in free agency is the lacking value the process ensures – players are almost always overvalued on Day 1 of the contract. As demonstrated yet again by the L.A. Kings earlier this summer, team building (and sustained success) is best accomplished through successful draft and development, not pricey spending on a mistake-laden day. And so while impending UFAs like Paul Statsny may appear to solve long-standing needs, Nonis (and Brendan Shanahan) would be wise to approach with caution. The answer, especially in Toronto, is almost never found on July 1st. Player Contract End Result Pavel Kubina 4 years, $20M Traded Hal Gill 3 years, $6.25M Traded Jason Blake 5 years, $20M Traded Jeff Finger 4 years, $14M Demoted Niklas Hagman 4 years, $12M Traded Colton Orr 4 years, $4M Demoted * Mike Komisarek 5 years, $22.5M Bought Out Francois Beauchemin 3 years, $11.4M Traded Colby Armstrong 3 years, $9M Bought Out Tim Connolly 2 years, $9M Demoted David Clarkson 7 years, $36.75M N/A Cheap Canadiens Jerseys Cheap Predators Jerseys Cheap Devils Jerseys Cheap Islanders Jerseys Cheap Rangers Jerseys Cheap Senators Jerseys Cheap Flyers Jerseys Cheap Penguins Jerseys Cheap Sharks Jerseys Cheap Blues Jerseys Cheap Lightning Jerseys Cheap Maple Leafs Jerseys Cheap Canucks Jerseys Cheap Golden Knights Jerseys Cheap Capitals Jerseys Cheap Winnipeg Jets Jerseys ' ' '