Colin Unger

You want to have depth in training camp at all positions. Who knows what kind of shape some of these guys are in.

We hadn't won a Grey Cup in 30 years either. I have more confident in this current regime to know what they have in a quarterback than previous ones. And with 2 qb's now per team there will be a decent collection of QB's floating around if Zack gets injured.

Winnipeg is going to end up being the first CFL team to win back to back championships over the coarse of 3 years.

I'm pleasantly surprised by this signing. I would think he wouldn't come cheap and there might be a team offering him more than a rotation. Glad to have him back. Hansen also factors into the rotation.

I'm not convinced it was that dire. When I go to bombers games I see a lot of young people there. The vast majority are young I would say. Its got a party like atmosphere. It doesn't get the young kids like goldeyes but once those kids become drinking age the bombers games is where they go. CBC has been more and more moving away from sports broadcasts I believe due to budget cuts. Last time i checked i was typically tuning into Sportsnet or TSN to watch Jets games. Ratings aren't really the issue for the CFL. The CFL offers good ratings and a loyal viewerbase who turn off their netflix and actually dust off their cable box when a game is on. The only thing cable has going for it these days is sporting events. What remains to be seen is what the reaction will be once we are finally allowed to leave our homes again. Will people stick with their new habits of staying at home or will people be so sick of staying at home and watching TV that sports attendance ends up getting a boost.

I wonder how much money the big 3 are really losing at times when they are well run?

That's the biggest difference here. We couldn't afford to hit and miss in the draft back in the Joe Mack days. Thanks to Kyle Walter's we now have the best Canadian depth in the league so we can afford to take some risks trying to get a couple of high impact players down the road. On top of that we've got another draft class from last season coming in to compete with the guys we drafted this year. Also this was a futures heavy draft due to the pandemic. A lot of eligible players opted to hold off on the draft this season and go back to college so the league expended the availability of nationals who are playing in thr ncaa and added some guys to the draft who we know are going back to school for one more year. There is no comparing this to what Joe Mack did imo.

I see us selecting an offensive lineman with our first round pick. Walters typically like to draft an offensive lineman every year with a higher pick. We didn't take a single offensive lineman in the 2020 draft so I wouldn't be at all surprised if we drafted the best available lineman with our first round pick this year. I could also see us picking up the rights to Chuba Hubbard later down in the draft because this team is dedicated to a Canadian runningback and i think there's a high probability that he washes out of the nfl a few years from now without a big payday.

Yeah. So whatever we do we should not cause the whole thing to collapse by getting rid of the ratio.

Maybe the XFL thing is all just a ploy to get money from the government. Canadian Ametuer football is scared of the merger. Maybe now the government will step in and help the CFL for the sake of amateur sports in Canada.

According the Arash Madani the Government is currently in discussion with the CFL over some sort of financing. Im not sure exactly what is supposed to be communicated to the CFLPA. Typically once the owners have something to present the players association they do. But i haven't heard of a situation where owners have brought in the PA for every pitch the make to the bank or some rich guy in order to secure finances required to run a season in any sports league.

Given the potential xfl cfl merger should we be focusing on players who can help us this season over players with the highest long term ceiling?

I wonder if Ricky Collins would have a change of heart if some real money was thrown at him.

Im hoping we leave the door open for him to return if the league gets its act together.

hajrullahu wouldn't sign a contract where he was just pushing a kid. If Maher has no other options maybe he would.

i hope so. my concern is that society will be more paranoid than before and a segment of society doesn't ever go out as much as they used to.

I wouldn't have a problem with it so long as every penny was used to invest in alternative energy.

Its a little different then that situation. They were having 40 to 50k fans per game.

I think when we bring XFL 2.0 up we have to consider the pandemic in the equation. I believe that XFL 2.0 would have lasted multiple seasons had it not been for the pandemic. Vince McMahon was using his personal money and was prepared to spend for multiple seasons to try and turn it into something that was profitable. But with the Pandemic they ended up having to cut the season short with no guarantee of when they would be able to resume playing football again. At the same time Vince's core business was also in trouble due to the pandemic and Vince McMahon wisely decided to pull the plug. It was a very different situation then the AAF which didn't really have solid financial backing and different from XFL 1.0 where Vince McMahon had to answer to the WWE board of governors. I do think this is a different situation but having said that the key is for the CFL to walk before they run. It shouldn't start as a merger. It should start as two separate leagues with two seperate championships who play some games against each other during the regular season and the Grey Cup winner plays for the international Cup against the XFL winner after that. Share some tv revenues and share business ideas ect. The CFL needs to maintain the ability to walk away.

They don't call the shots if they don't own the league and its teams. I don't view this as the XFL group purchasing the CFL to do with what they want. I view it similar to the time the CFL was given/lent money from the NFL. There will also be a partnership where the CFL teams maintain control over their organization and the ability to exit the partnership if requests are made that are not to their liking.

The XFL 2.0 was founded on the idea of serious football with tweaks to make the game more exciting. They want a differentiated experience from the NFL. Oliver Luck even talked about moving to a wider field in the future. The XFL would want this. Neither league would be coming into this from a position of strength. How many stable franchises does the XFL have. Maybe 1? There is a reason why these non-NFL american football leagues don't work. Its because there isn't much interest in something that is just a minor league version of the NFL. You need to design the game to take advantage of the availability of smaller skilled players who aren't a fit for the NFL. Agree 100%... The CFL IMO could take a different path. Those other paths would likely require relinquishing more control than the want to. They are pursuing this path because they are being treated with respect and are maintaining an agreeable amount of control and the share the same vision as the XFL. Working together with the XFL to grow a unique game internationally works better then having two separate entities competing against eachother to do the same thing.

The only part of that that I disagree with is i think they would do something with the size of the field. They might settle on 57-60 yards wide and when you drop from 12 players per team to 11 there would be similar space out there as you see now in a cfl game. There is no way that it's basically NFL football with forward motion behind the line of scrimmage. Im calling that now. At the very least it has to be sold to fans of both styles of football as a fair compromise.

Im aware there's an NFL team there now. Its just that it wouldn't be the only XFL market where there is also an NFL team. There might still be some nostalgia there with some fans. I thought maybe so at first. But with the XFL postponing their season due to the CFL talks and guys like Bob Young talking about making rule changes I think we are looking at XFL teams playing CFL teams at the very least.

Its not about what the XFL was bought for. The group behind the XFL purchase is worth billions. They probably are giving the CFL more money to play a season this year then they bought the XFL for.