Colin Unger

My understanding was that in the game where he bet on his own teams game he bet the under and was personally responsible for the touchdown that produced a loss on his bet unless i was reading it wrong.

Its hard to fathom the ticats would stick with BLM when MBT is available.

The league is doing reasonably well considering the pandemic and the effect it had on this league and others. No teams went under during the pandemic. There seems to be reasonable hope in markets like Toronto and BC. Edmonton is struggling but that is not because of something the commissioner did or did not do. It is because they've been poorly run for years. The oilers lead the NHL in attendance mostly because they got lucky and were so poorly run for so long that eventually, their ineptitude resulted in them being gifted one of the most dynamic players in the history of hockey. This is something that Im sure also has an effect on the Elks. In Winnipeg we have a decent NHL team, a playoff caliber team and yes the Bombers are doing so well that i think it has had a negative impact on the Jets. Do we not give the commish any credit for this while blaming him for the situation in Edmonton? It's difficult to measure exactly the impact the pandemic had on sports. But i would say that a couple of factors are that the pandemic taught sports fans that the game isn't as important as they previously believed. And this applies to all sports leagues. The game is not too important to shut down, pause, and cancel. There's also some lingering fear about going to places with large groups of people which has negatively impacted sports attendance. And also when leagues paused or canceled people developed other hobbies which are no in competition with sports. Thankfully some new revenue streams have opened up to replace some of this loss. Ambroisie rubs me the wrong way. Something about his presentation and personality just doesn't inspire me. But I reject the notion that all things considered he's doing some kind of horrible job. Under Cohon there were a lot of old stadiums and tax payer dollars went into building new stadiums and improving some old stadiums. He benefitted from that. Yes he pushed for new stadiums but any commisher would do the same if and when it is feasible. At this point the shine of these new stadiums have come off to some degree.

If it's true we offered more money to Buck I don't know how we managed to do it. Somehow we fit Walters in the football operations cap. We have a head coach who is probably the highest paid in the league and he doesn't double as a defensive co-ordinator or offensive co-ordinator so we have to pay both of those positions as well? How do we keep doing this whereas the Riders had to make Mace the DC as well as a result of the cap. Ballsy Style Rumor: I think the timing of O'Shea's comment about wishing they could pay more money to their assistant coaches is interesting. Is it possible Buck played a game of chicken (similar to Walters) and lost? He wanted to use this as leverage to get paid what he's worth as an offensive co-ordinators. Bombers couldn't do it. O'Shea made public comments blaming the cap for not being able to pay him and the other coaches more. Ultimately, Buck came back for not much of a raise if any. Thoughts? Im really surprised that the Riders wouldn't go after June Jones or Paul Lapolice as the offensive co-ordinator with a head coach who has no offensive experience and will have his hands full on double duty.

I have a hard time believing Corey Mace was their preference. But I guess the availability of several proven OC’s may have played a role.

It looks very likely at this point that Buck Pierce will be going to Saskatchewan. The fact that he's still in the race when its down 2 to speaks volumes to his interest in the position and also Kyle Walters alluded to how it essentially comes down to the decision made by the Rider's GM. These days there's a big bias towards hiring a Offensive Co-ordinator to be your head coach over a defensive co-ordinator which makes me think they will select Buck. Which brings up a few questions. 1. Which players will Buck bring with him? Scheon and maybe Dru Brown seem the most likely. 2. Who will he take with him from our staff? Not too worried about the offensive side of the ball but could he potentially bring Jordan Younger with him to be the defensive co-ordinator? There are plenty of offensive co-ordinators out there that we could target. For continuity i imagine LaPolice would be at the top of the list also the Jones' (Khari or June) come to mind. The nice thing about our situation is that i think there won't be a shortage of coaches lining up to work with this group. Being the offensive co-ordinator in Winnipeg is like being a head coach in waiting.

Btc is closing in on 40k already. Up from 16k earlier this year because the sec keeps losing lawsuits against crypto and they’re being forced to start approving crypto etfs. Plus no more interest rate hikes.

Not anymore.

Yeah why doesn’t he just go to Ottawa just like everybody else.

I imagine there are things to announce in Winnipeg like players re-signing, Walters, and retirements but i think they want to give us a little more time to mourn before turning on the next year marketing machine. If Brown is moving on please let there be significant interest so we can trade his early rights. Personally if Kurtis Rourke is coming to the CFL and Brown is moving on Id love to see us trade up to get him. Not only is it a backup and future starter but there's a significant cost savings vs what an american backup qb makes because Canadians are severely capped for 3 years. Plus it gives us another DI.

https://www.cfl.ca/2023/08/24/kurtis-rourke-tops-fall-edition-of-cfl-scouting-bureau/

That last play before the 3 minute warning it was a first down play. Everyone in the building knew we were going to run the ball. I thought that would have been a great time to catch Montreal off guard with a passing play and seal the victory. There was very little downside because the three minute warning was going to stop the clock regardless.

I agree. We were way to focused on win now above all else. We should have kept Pigrome around although its hard to fault the performance that Prukop had in the Grey Cup. He was amazing in his role. I think we need to put just as much energy into winning in 2025 this offseason as we put into winning in 2024. Now is the time to go a bit younger. Even if we moved on from Bighill, Jeffcoat and the two tackles we could easily be very competitive next season.

The reason why i put more of the blame on the defence is simply based on the numbers. The Als gave up less than more than 23 points in 25% of the games they played this year. I believe all but one of those games were against Toronto, Winnipeg, and BC. 24 points is probably acceptable but not great for playing the Als. But Cody Fjarado previous best game all year was 292 yards 2 touchdowns and 0 interceptions or 281 3 touchdowns and 2 interceptions. Against us 290 3 touchdowns and 1 interception. Given is was the Grey Cup and he executed a touchdown drive to win the game on the final drive I think you could say the bombers allowed him to have his best performance of the season.

The X factor that effects a potential influx of youth is the availability of young talent now with the XFL/USFL. The leagues are struggling and losing money but i think they will still be around by the time the next CFL season starts. If last season is an indication its difficult to imagine we are going to find a lot of cheaper better options. We need to look at what we currently have on our roster to potentially replace some aging players and free agents. Drew Richmond/Gray can compete to replace one retired tackle and we should spend on a top notch free agent for the other tackle. I think also Tui should be starting somehwere and maybe Dobsen too if Gray plays tackle. Adam Bighill i don't think he needs to go, not if he comes back on a cheaper deal. He needs to come in at a price where he's more of a role player. He shouldn't have been playing but that's on the coach not him and potentially that decision cost us the game both in him giving up a TD and Rose not being available. Jefferson still gets it done he should come back. Alexander id love to see what he could do at Will linebacker if he added about 10 pounds of muscle and make safety a Canadian position again. It would be nice to have a will with a little more cover ability. Probably going to get dumped on for suggesting something so unorthodox. His size isn't much different than Cole/Clements. Jeffcoat can come back if he takes a paycut but we shouldn't be in a situation where a guy like Lemon is available and we can't afford to sign him. We need a guy like that in additional to Jeffcoat and Jefferson. Its time for Jake Thomas to retire again. Can we give Holm more money just because? I love that guy. At the position he plays he's probably the best player on the team in terms of wins above replacement if there were such a thing in football.I think Zach should come back as the starter but i think we need to go to him and have a hard conversation. Does he want to make the maximum salary he can make with us or does he want to make a little bit less and start winning championships again. Its become harder to win with such a high paid quarterback. Or maybe he wants to finish his career playing for Ottawa. I think there's players on the team taking a larger paycut to stay in Winnipeg than he is. And these are guys making a fraction of what Zach gets. We need to go back to being a team that has great depth. Id prefer to bring back Zach and Streveler or Brown. But if he doesn't take a paycut i think we could really get a good package for Zach and go with Streveler and Brown and surround them with more talent. I'm one who think Streveler can be a every down QB in the CFL. I think he improved his passing considerably in the time he play in the NFL. Scheon, Oliveira, and Lawler are all due major pay rises. Especially Scheon. Remember Lawler took less money this year for a lot more next season.

Cant believe it but i pretty much agree with all of this.

https://www.bluebombers.com/2023/11/19/coach-oshea-post-game-grey-cup-110/

If Zack isn't the best qb in the league who's better? Is someone going to argue that Kelly or Adams performed better in the playoffs?

Exactly. I started cheering because i was sure the ball was going to go to Demski.

I don't think we make any coaching or quarterback changes. As much as i like the sound of Streveler and Dru Brown its too much of a risk for me. I would sooner try and retain Brown on the promise of starting in a year or two. Id be looking at some aging players in other areas as a means to get younger and repurpose some salary. If we lose Dru Brown id be trading up in the draft to get Rourke's brother whos unlikely to be headed to the NFL after an injury-plagued season.

If Zack only has a year or two left i can't really see Dru Brown going anywhere. MBT and Steveler to Ottawa and Hamilton. Who is would make Dru Brown a starter next season?

Please. The defence was horrible. They were playing against an inept offence and we should have held them under 20 points for sure. The offence wasn’t great but did do some good things on the ground against a good defence. The passing game was largely non existent. I mean we played against someone significantly worse than Matt Nichols right guys?

Let’s keep in mind the amount of Zach’s contract that is guaranteed in year 3.

I felt the offence as a whole did enough to win this game vs Montreal but the defence let the team down. No way should we give up 3 touchdowns to that team.

Good thing he's considerably younger than Mike O'Shea. Because i want Osh to coach for at least another 10 years before giving way to Buck.